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Summary
Summary
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. 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.
Author Notes
Julianna Baggott received her M.F.A. from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro in 1994, where she held a Greensboro Scholar Fellowship. In 1998 and 1999, she placed nearly forty poems and short stories in such magazines as Poetry, The Southern Review, Crab Orchard Review, and Indiana Review. She is the recipient of fellowships from the Delaware Division of Arts and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts and Ragdale Foundation. Winner of the Eyster Prize for Fiction in 1998, her manuscript of poems was a 1999 finalist in Breadloaf's first-book prize.
She lives in Newark, Delaware with her husband, poet David G. W. Scott, and their three children. Girl Talk is her first novel.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (2)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Baggott's highly anticipated postapocalyptic horror novel, a dramatic shift from her lighthearted poetry, women's fiction (as Bridget Asher), and children's books, is a fascinating mix of stark, oppressive authoritarianism and grotesque anarchy. Like most survivors of the Detonations, teen Pressia is disfigured, a doll's head fused into the place where her hand should be. She's better off than people who were merged into each other, with animals, or even with the Earth itself, but she's also at risk of being drafted into the paramilitary Operation Sacred Revolution. The few who survived unscathed-known as "Pures"-live in the Domes, impenetrable arcologies where the few children are forced into rigid training and genetic enhancement. When Partridge, believing his mother to be alive in the wilderness, escapes from a Dome, he's rescued by Pressia. Along with a conspiracy theorist named Bradwell, they gradually discover dark secrets about events on both sides of the Dome walls. Baggott mixes brutality, occasional wry humor, and strong dialogue into an exemplar of the subgenre. Agent: Sobel Weber Associates. (Feb.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Library Journal Review
In a creepy dystopian future, the detonation of nanotechnology bombs causes people to fuse with whatever was near them during the explosion-animals, other people, or, sometimes, objects. Since the blast, the unaffected "Pures" live inside the Dome in isolation and under rigid control. In swirling ash and constant fear, the misshapen "Wretches" live outside, eking out meager existences, hiding from the local militia, and plotting to attack the Dome. Partridge the Pure wants to find his mother and the truth about his past. Pressia the Wretch seeks safety and salvation. When the two meet, they find something else entirely. Baggott's imagery is matchless in this freakish and compelling tale of love and revolution. A full-cast narration (Khristine Hvam, Joshua Swanson, Kevin T. Collins, and Casey Holloway) transports the listener thoroughly into Baggott's imaginative and substantial details. VERDICT A sure hit for fans of Suzanne Collins's The Hunger Games and Stephenie Meyer's The Host. [The Grand Central pb will publish in December.-Ed.]-Terry Ann Lawler, Phoenix P.L. (c) Copyright 2012. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.