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Published Feb 2012
448 pages
Genre: Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History
Publication Information
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 with 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 bodies. And now, at an age when everyone is required to turn themselves over to the militia to either be trained as a soldier or, if they are too damaged and weak, to be used 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 slipped phrase suggests his mother might still be alive, Partridge risks his life to leave the Dome to find her. When Pressia meets Partridge, their worlds shatter all over again.
"Starred Review. Baggott's highly anticipated postapocalyptic horror novel... mixes brutality, occasional wry humor, and strong dialogue into an exemplar of the subgenre." - Publisher's Weekly
"It's a bonus that the hero of the piece is a young girl, which ought to serve as inspiration for more than a few readers. Whether Baggott's imagined world is one that you'd want to live in is another matter entirely, of course. Damned Detonations!" - Kirkus Reviews
"This book is really building (film rights went to the Twilight producers); don't miss." - Library Journal
"A great gorgeous whirlwind of a novel, boundless in its imagination. You will be swept away." - Justin Cronin, New York Times bestselling author of The Passage
"Pure is a dark adventure that is both startling and addictive at once... Breathtaking and frightening. I couldn't stop reading Pure." - Danielle Trussoni, bestselling author of Angelology
"From the first page on, there are no brakes on this book. It's nearly impossible to stop reading as Baggott delves fearlessly into a grotesque and fascinating future populated by strangely endearing victims (and perpetrators) of a wholly unique apocalypse. And trust me, Pure packs one hell of an apocalypse." - Daniel H. Wilson, New York Times bestselling author of Robopocalypse
This information about Pure was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Critically acclaimed, bestselling author, Julianna Baggott - who also writes under the pen names Bridget Asher (The Provence Cure for the Brokenhearted) and N.E. Bode (The Anybodies) - has published 17 books, including novels for adults, younger readers, and collections of poetry.
Her latest novel, Pure, is the first of a trilogy; film rights have sold to Fox 2000.
Her work has appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe, Best American Poetry, Best Creative Nonfiction, Real Simple, on NPR.org, as well as read on NPR's "Talk of the Nation" and "Here and Now."
Her novels have been book-pick selections by People Magazine's summer reading, Washington Post book-of-the-week, a Booksense selection, a Boston Herald Book Club selection, and a Kirkus Reviews Best Books ...
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