LEVEL 1 WIDE READING LOG #4

Text Title:  Partials

Author: Dan Wells

Text  Type: Novel

Data Read: Term 3

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Brief plot overview 

Humanity is destroyed after a war with partials, engineered beings identical to humans, has decimated the majority of the population. Then reduced to only tens of thousands by a weaponized virus, RM, to which only a fraction of humanity is immune, the survivors in North America have huddled together on Long Island. But sixteen-year-old Kira is determined to find a solution. As she tries desperately to save what is left of her race, as babies keep on dying, she discovers that the survival of both humans and Partials rests in her attempting to find a cure to RM and save the human population. 

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Characters you found interesting and why

The character I found interesting in Partials was Kira Walker. This is because she had a strong determination and courage to help find a cure for RM all through the book. She works in a hospital, in the maternity ward, which makes me more interested in who she is because you would have to be a very caring and determined person to work with the babies who are all dying because of RM affecting them. I can connect to her  as a character as I love looking after babies and do regular babysitting jobs, also wanting to in my future to do work around babies or childcare. With Kira having a lot of pressure on her to find the cure to save all of humanity also creates deeper appreciation of  her as a character. This made me respect her for choosing such a hard, dedicated job, especially with what is going on in the world today with Covid-19 and all the medical workers dedicating all their time to help the sick. “No matter why you’re here, no matter why any of us are here, you’re never tied down to fate. You’re never locked in. You make your own choices, Kira, and you can’t let anyone ever take that away from you.” This is showing Kira becoming even more interesting as it is meaning she becomes more independent and more determined to help and cure the dying babies that she clearly deeply cares for. Kira said “There are some things more important than ourselves – more important than the limits of the present, and the whims of the now. There is a future to build and protect. And if we’re going to make that future as reality, we have to stop fighting among ourselves. We have to end dissent whenever we find it. We have to trust one another again.” This is showing how selfless Kira is, making her even more interesting to me and also increasing my respect for her as a character. Dan Wells intentions of making Kira  work in the maternity ward was probably to create awareness of how hard it is to be a nurse and by also adding in the killer virus made you really think about how much stress is on those workers. This made me think about all the nurses in the real world and how they would have that same stress on them too, and especially because I can relate to this as my Mum was a nurse when she was younger and has the experience of what the pressure is like.  She is now a hospice worker, looking after patients nearing death, this relates to Kira in a sense that Kira looks after babies who are confronted by death at birth because of the virus. 

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Messages you took from the text(s) and why 

A message that I took from the text was the importance of ambition and striving for what you believe in. If Kira didn’t have ambition, humanity wouldn’t have survived. So with her standing up and doing what she thought was right resulted in finding the cure, also her proving her society wrong.  “Each life has a different purpose, and some people can find their purpose more easily than others. The key, the most important thing you can ever know, is that whatever your purpose is, that’s not your only choice” This is referring to what Kira’s ambition is, which is caring and helping people so she thought she didn’t have a choice to go and find the cure even when she was told  she didn’t have permission. Wells’ intention to showcase Kira’s ambition all throughout the text was to show to the readers that having that ambition gives meaning to life, also having that confidence to strive to achieve gets you somewhere even if you don’t succeed or you do. “‘Hope is not a strategy,’ said Kira, ‘It’s not plan A,’ said Jayden, ‘and it shouldn’t be plan B, but it is every plan C that has ever been made.” This indicates that you do have to have hope to strive for success but its the ambition behind that backs it up, for example when Kira went into partial territory to find a partial, they had no idea what was going to happen but it was their hope and ambition to find success that helped them achieve their goal. I learnt from thisif you don’t have the ambition to get to where you want to be, you will never get anywhere in life and be in the same situation as before. I see this in society in government elections and how the people in those parties srive for what they believe New Zealand’s society needs, also trying to convice the nation they are right. So these parties have the ambition to get the votes otherwise they wouldn’t get where they want to be, which is apart of the goverment. 

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Challenges that characters had to deal with and your response to these 

During the text, Kira had to face an accumulation of challenges which majoly connected with finding the cure for RM. From mankind being practically nearly wiped from existence,  “There are forty thousand people on Long Island,” he said. “There used to be millions.”, and RM killing all the  newborns, Kira as the heroic character of the novel has to find solutions for these challenges. In doing this, she evolves as a character with how she becomes more determined and stronger. Meaning she followed what she believed is right, “You make your own choices, Kira, and you can’t let anyone ever take that away from you.” So she demonstrates this when she goes behind her own society to find a partial to find the cure from. In society, people do speak out and strive for what they want but sometimes it goes in your favor but mostly not. After Kira did make those actions for what she believed what was right it took a long time to convince her government to believe she was right.  I can relate to Kira having no clue what was going to happen but to just followed her gut as I dont have a clue what is going to happenin my future, let alone in the next week. Wells’s intention to create all these challenges that Kira had to face and fight her way through made the novel compelling and hooked the reader in. If there weren’t these barriers that the characters had to overcome, the reader would lose interest and not enjoy the book but because there were challenges going on in every turn of the book I was fascinated to find  out what happens next; this refers to all books too as it has to be compelling for the reader to carry on.

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Discussion about the title of the text(s) and why it was appropriate 

My response to the title of the text ‘Partials’ captivated me because the front cover looked very interesting, making me fascinated to read it. Also it looked like a book and genre I would enjoy, which it was as it was full of action and also romance. I believe that the title was appropriate for this text because it referred to a big challenge throughout the book, which is the Partials who we find out contains the cure for RM towards the end of the text. So ‘Partails’ was a good, important keyword that is short and attention grabbing that intrigues the reader. 

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Who would you recommend this/these stories to and why

I would recommend this text to teenagers. I believe that this story line and genre of book would really hook teenagers in, as it did to me. From a world wide virus to saving all of humanity is a captivating action filled novel perfect to interest a teenager. I don’t think it is sophisticated enough to be recommended to adults but it depends on what stage of reading you are, although the book isn’t a very hard read, you still need a good comprehension to follow the storyline. Usually in society, teenagers are classified under young adult fiction when looking for books to read, Partials would fit under this category perfectly. So I reckon that this book would be perfect for teens who love an action pack book with lots of thrilling moments.