Review: Pure

Pure
Julianna Baggott
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Release Date: February 8, 2012
Pages: 448

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 teh 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 and weak, to be sued 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 lipped phrase suggests his mother might still be alive, Partridge risks hi life to leave the Dome to find her.
When Pressia meets Partridge, their world shatter all over again.

If I had to describe this book in one word it would be creepy. Not just certain things or events, but just the atmosphere of the book gives off creepy. And I don't mean that in a bad way. I really enjoyed, even appreciated, that aspect of the book. You can't argue that Pure isn't different or unique. 

The story and world was very captivating. Like I said, this is different than any other book that I've read. This is a world not long after ours, complete with allusions to our world. This is the kind of dystopian I find most interesting (for the most part) because it seems more real. 

There is an interesting cast of characters in Pure. Not just the two main characters Pressia and Partridge, but others including El Caption and Pressia's grandfather. But on another note, I didn't really feel connected to the main characters. Interested in, yes. Connected to, no. 

I enjoyed this book as a whole, but I did feel that at times it seemed to be trying too hard. I felt that there were a couple of parts that seemed to be more of feeling than anything else. 

Although it's not my favorite dystopian story, I did enjoy it. A very unique and fascinating, if not a little terrifying, world that I'm sure will find it's way onto many a bookshelf.