Pure- Julianna Baggott

Title: Pure

Author: Julianna Baggott

Series: Yes

Format: Hardcover

Source: Borrowed

Rating: 4/5









We know you are here, our brothers and sisters . . .

Pressia barely remembers the Detonations or much about life during the Before. In her sleeping cabinet behind the rubble of an old barbershop where she lives with her grandfather, she thinks about what is lost-how the world went from amusement parks, movie theaters, birthday parties, fathers and mothers . . . to ash and dust, scars, permanent burns, and fused, damaged bodies. And now, at an age when everyone is required to turn themselves over to the militia to either be trained as a soldier or, if they are too damaged and weak, to be used as live targets, Pressia can no longer pretend to be small. Pressia is on the run.

Burn a Pure and Breathe the Ash . . .
There are those who escaped the apocalypse unmarked. Pures. They are tucked safely inside the Dome that protects their healthy, superior bodies. Yet Partridge, whose father is one of the most influential men in the Dome, feels isolated and lonely. Different. He thinks about loss-maybe just because his family is broken; his father is emotionally distant; his brother killed himself; and his mother never made it inside their shelter. Or maybe it's his claustrophobia: his feeling that this Dome has become a swaddling of intensely rigid order. So when a slipped phrase suggests his mother might still be alive, Partridge risks his life to leave the Dome to find her.

When Pressia meets Partridge, their worlds shatter all over again.



Pure is one of the most realistic dystopians I have ever read. It is scary how realistic it is. The writing and setting drew me in and kept my attention. I will admit there were some parts that I felt myself losing some interest in the story but it always recovered.



The story is told mainly through the eyes of Pressia who is outside of the dome and Partridge who was inside the dome at the time of the explosion. Partridge wants to escape the dome and find his mother who he believes is alive after his father lets it slip. He is unhappy with his life in the dome, his brother has committed suicide and he feels different from the other people in the dome. Pressia wants to be in the dome, she was on the outside when the explosion happened and is part of the mutated left on the outside. She lives with her grandfather in a burned out barber shop until the age of sixteen when she must go on the run in order to avoid becoming a soldier.When Pressia is on the run she meets Partridge and their connection to each other is reveled.



I loved the setting of the book, it was so well done. I felt like I was in the story and if I looked out my front window I would see the massive destruction. We did not learn much about the inside of the dome, Partridge starts there but not much is said. Lyda also started out in the dome, but the most description we get is about the asylum she is taken to. I hope book two will give a better picture of life inside the dome and how it got the way it is.



The ending was a letdown. There was no cliffhanger to make me beg for the next book to come out just so I can know what happens. It was quite dull compared to the rest of the book. This is a series I will continue to reads, but I am not dying to read it. I wish the ending has given more.