I loved [b: I am not a serial killer|7617119|I Am Not A Serial Killer (John Cleaver, #1)|Dan Wells|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1442065592s/7617119.jpg|6154629] and so I was really hoping I'd fall in love with this series as well. But it didn't happen. I think what I loved about John Cleaver was his fight against his inner demons. But Kira, the 16 year old medic in this dystopian world didn't get to me like that. She's quite the opposite of John in almost every aspect. Very late in the story this fact makes an important point. Because it turns out she's a Partial herself. And painting her as caring, humane and trying to save lives, is sure making the case for Partials not all being evil..

So this story is set in a near future dystopia in which humanity managed to get almost wiped out. The backstory goes about like this: Humanity is at war. Humans build killer "robots" - that look like humans, and are called Partials - to win war. Robots win war. Robots rise up against human oppressors. Killer virus released by robots wipes out humans. Last enclave of humans resistant to virus huddles up on Long Island. But instead of setting out to recover from there, the virus remains killing off all newborns. Oops. (By the way there's a movie with nearly exactly the same "no more babies" premise. Forgot the title though.).

Much of the book is about the political consequences of this setup. It uses the unique situation in the book to deliver quite a bit of criticism towards current issues, and not in a subtle way. As the situation escalates, it puts the ruling senate under pressure, and they pass a variety of laws and directives that erode much of the democratic process, and many individual rights. Especially gruesome: the Hope Act which forces women to become pregnant as often as possible. The whole delivery of this connection to current politics is done rather heavy-handed. You can't miss it.

Maybe that is due to this being a YA book. I have read quite a few YA books, but this one struck me more aimed at younger people than many of the others. This concerns not only the content but also the style of the writing and often the explanations, and the amount of repetitions to make a certain point or remind the reader of one. But while on the one hand the book strikes me as so very thoroughly YA on the other hand it's much heavier reading than the average YA. And sometimes the book seems barely out of middle grade although the issues presented certainly aren't.

It took me half the book to get into the story, because I just couldn't connect to the characters. Also the actual plot takes a while to get started. We don't get to see much in the way of world-building although humanity was technologically more advanced before the "Break". Most of the world is "Long Island in ruins". Since I am not an American maybe some fun references in that escape me.

I'll probably read the rest of the series because as the plot picks up pace towards the 50% mark there are a few interesting reveals, and new conflicts arise that put Kira into much more interesting predicaments. Also I like Samm. And I want to find out why the Partials are called Partials. Or did I miss that somewhere? (My guess is the name is derived from them being partial human or so ...)