I was intrigued by the premise of Partials right off the bat. The last bastion of humanity finds itself living on Long Island with a dwindling population and thus facing extinction. All humans still alive are infected with a virus known as RM that is passed on to newborn children, killing them all within 3 days of their birth. The last successful birth was 14 years ago and things are getting desperate. The school is being shut down due to a lack of students and the Hope Act is now in effect requiring every female 18 and above to be pregnant at all times; hoping beyond hope that a child will be born with a natural immunity to this deadly disease. And that is only half of the problem....

It is believed that the disease itself was unleashed by a race of synthetic beings called the Partials that were created in our image to act as cyber soldiers in the last major war. The Partials won that war and then eventually turned on their creators and now there are more Partials on Earth than there are humans. This double whammy creates a very compelling environment for Dan Wells' story that had me optimistic about it but unfortunately the YA slant to the story telling often left me disappointed.

The main character, Kira, is a young female who is a trainee in the maternity ward where she experiences the pain of the newborn deaths up close and personal. Combine that with the fact that she is a young female who opposes the Hope Act and it easy to see why such a character would be compelling. Like many other women she resents that the Hope Act treats women like breeding stock so she is determined to find a better answer to the problem. She and her friends come up with a crazy plan to find a cure for RM and the main plot of the book takes off.

I won't spoil what happens but many of the situations felt contrived and just didn't ring true, which really left me feeling ambivalent about the overall story as the book went on. Some key plot revelations towards the end almost won me back but when it was finally over I decided not to continue with the series. For me this great premise was ultimately wasted by overly simplistic and illogical story developments that left me wanting more realistic character decision making. I am ok with the whole "adults are stupid and evil" slant to many YA stories but in this case it went a bit too far to keep me engaged.

For audiobook fans Julia Whelan does a decent job on the narration and she is a good fit for the material.