Pure (Pure Trilogy, #1)

by Julianna Baggott

[Amber (The Literary Phoenix)]

I had such a great conversation about this book with my husband last night.  I have deeply conflicting feelings about Pure.  I really enjoyed it.  It really bothered me.  Matt and I came to the conclusion of:  "It's interesting, but it doesn't work, but it's interesting, but it doesn't work."  And we kept going on like that for a while.

Pure is a post-apocalyptic fantasy told in four different voices.  Most of the action takes place in the destroyed world, where survivors are deformed and fused to objects and animals as an effect of detonations (often compared to Hiroshima, so presumably nuclear).  In contrast, there is the Dome.  The Dome, where people were saved and protected before the detonations.  Where the "pures" live.

I was all ready to write a review to tell y'all how much I loved the characters and the story, but how the science didn't work. I sat on that knife's edge of so-good-but-does-not-work until the last couple hours of the book. Then, in a quick and careful sentence that would have been easily dismissed if I hadn't been obsessively waiting for it, everything was cleared up and the world building holes filled.

Pure is a great dystopia.  After The Hunger Games surged to popularity, dystopias were a dime a dozen.  Most of them followed the same outline... we are inside something, we need to escape it.  Most had love triangles.  Pure has sibling relationships, friendships, blossoming relationships, relationships between parents and children.  The world building in it is great.  I loved it up until the very ending.

The ending suddenly changed voices to new ones we hadn't heard for the entire book.  It felt rushed.  Up to that point, the entire book felt very genuine, choosing not to use too many tropes or cliches, but at the very end I thought things got a little cheesy.  Overall, though, the heroes and villains took different shapes than normal.  Pressia was really interesting.  She was cautious and genuine and a little detached, but in a good way.

This book moves slowly and steadily, but I really recommend giving it a try.  If for no other reason than the world building, which was gritty and fascinating, this is worth reading.  But I liked the characters as well - El Capitan was the standout for me, but they were all really great. Good characters, good plot, INCREDIBLE world.

A pretty awesome book to end the year on and I look forward to reading the second book!