Ruins by Dan Wells

Published: March 11th, 2014

Publisher: Balzer and Bray

Pages: 451

Copy: Library

Summary: Goodreads

Kira, Samm, and Marcus fight to prevent a final war between Partials and humans in the gripping final installment in the Partials Sequence, a series that combines the thrilling action of The Hunger Games with the provocative themes of Blade Runner and The Stand.

There is no avoiding it—the war to decide the fate of both humans and Partials is at hand. Both sides hold in their possession a weapon that could destroy the other, and Kira Walker has precious little time to prevent that from happening. She has one chance to save both species and the world with them, but it will only come at great personal cost

I have really enjoyed this complex and exciting trilogy.  There is always the chance that the story will lose its momentum and become bogged down.  I'm very happy to inform you that this was definitely not the case with "Ruins"

Wandering the wastelands with Kira and Samm had my heart pounding - there is an incident with acid rain that really had me shivering and looking for an umbrella -and the tension rarely let up. Although we are following several different sets of characters in different situations, I found it easy to keep them separate, and to keep the various situations straight in my mind.  Over the course of the three books the character progression is wonderful and there are surprises for everyone. Just when I would think that I had something sorted out in my mind there would be another surprise for the characters and me. Not all the surprises are bad ones, but some of them are real doosies!

I love the apocalyptic stories where the reasons for the apocalypse become clearer and clearer the more you read. In this instance the event was not even that long ago, but for plague babies, the technology that the older characters are missing means nothing to them.  Gene manipulation is something that we are already dealing with in our daily lives, and this scenario will have you seriously rethinking your  policy towards it.  How much is enough?  How much is too much?  How far should we go to correct what has happened?  I think you'll find the answers here.  Personally I found it creepily scary, especially when characters start trying to justify their actions.

Dan Wells has written a taut and suspenseful trilogy with believable characters, roller coaster action and a first rate story that had me wanting more.  If you haven't connected with this one yet, why not?