post-apocalyptic world

While shopping at my local supermarket I saw Pure by Julianna Baggott and decided to pick it up. I have to say, I’m glad I did. It’s a brilliant read with some really original ideas. The storyline is epic with every event adding to the story’s development. It is an exceptional storyline, it just makes it complex to summarise the plot in this blog post. So instead of discussing the plot in detail, I’ll give you an introduction to the world and the three main characters: Pure is set in a post-apocalyptic world; after the Detonations have caused destruction, ash filled air and fusing of people to animals, other people and inanimate objects. We are introduced to two distinct groups of people; the Pures who were safely inside the Dome when the detonations hit and the wretches who were outside of the Dome.

In the Prologue set a week or so after the detonations, a plane from the Dome drops little slips of paper saying:

“We know you are here, our brothers and sisters.
We will, one day, emerge from the Dome
to join you in peace.
For now, we watch from afar, benevolently.”
(From: Pure by Julianna Baggott, 17th September 2012.)

Then the story starts set years after the Prologue. We meet Pressia, a nearly 16 year old who lives in the remains of a barber’s shop with her granddad and has a fist fused with a doll head. Pressia and her granddad know that soon the OSR will come for her, as they do when everyone reaches the age of sixteen. OSR are Operation Sacred Revolution – a roughly banded military type group whose mission is to take down the Dome. But we later find out that OSR was originally stood for Operation Search and Rescue set up to save people following the Detonations.

Next inside the Dome we meet Partridge, he’s the son of the powerful Ellery Willux. Partridge doesn’t really like spending time with his father and his father is usually in the lab doing important work. But then one day Ellery asks to see him. Partridges mother was outside of the Dome when the Detonations struck and has been assumed dead. But when Partridge speaks to his father he gets the distinct impression she’s alive. Partridge is taken on a school trip to were the Dome keeps metal boxes of memorabilia from the dead. Partridge see’s a box with his mothers name and dates on, he opens it and finds things she left for him. Partridge makes plans to escape from the Dome and then escapes. Partridge is later called ‘Pure’ because he has no scares, burns or fusings like everyone else.

Bradwell is introduced to the reader through Pressia. He’s a man with two live birds fused to his back, the birds flutter their wings whenever Bradwell has adrenaline going through his body or is emotional, which throughout the course of the book is often. Bradwell is obsessed with conspiracy theories about the detonations, claiming that those in the Dome deliberately caused the Detonations.

Pure is excellently structured with each chapter having a character’s name and a title to indicate who and what the chapters about. Baggott’s use of description enables the reader to imagine the characters, world and events as clearly as watching a film. The book did have a few sentences that to me didn’t read right, but these didn’t interfere with my enjoyment of the book.

Pure is a fantastic read and is a trilogy with Fuse (2013) the second book and Burn (2014) being the final in the series. Pure is available to buy on Amazon.

Blog soon,

Antony

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