Fuse (The Pure Trilogy)
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Disclaimer: I won Fuse as a Goodreads Firstread. I received the book for free, but I am under no obligation to give a good review, just an honest one.
It has been a long time since I’ve read a post-apocalyptic book that wasn’t doom, dust, and more doom. I half expected this one to also be like that, but it wasn’t. I also half expected this to be another poorly written YA book, but I was very (and happily) wrong on that account.
Summary
Fuse is part of a story arch that takes place after Willux, a power hungry mad man detonates bombs and destroys much of the outside world. This creates two places: A dome where everyone is “pure”, untainted by the detonations, and the rest of the world, mutated, twisted, suffering. It’s a story about us versus them, a struggle for survival, and a struggle to find beauty and things to love in the world.
Characters
The characters in Fuse are interesting and strangely named. For example, there is El Captain, who is fused to his brother Helmund. They were brothers before the detonations, and when the detonations went off, Helmund who had protected his brother from the detonations fused to El Captain’s back. They survived like that, fused together, formed a band of resistance and survival. El Captain is himself, while his brother also has a personality, but within the span of the book neither really changes. All the characters are like that: Pressia, Bradwell, fused Mothers to their children, the Pure… There are also lots of them, so forgive me if I don’t run through them all. It’s really hard to feel attached to them when there are so many.
Despite not being attached to the characters, they really do run the storyline. Pressia and Bradwell have an obsession with the past, and they are trying to assemble the pieces so they can fight the Dome and win. They want to be free of the tyranny and fight back against those that torment them by keeping them living like animals as well as strike back for the heinous crime against humanity.
Story
The story itself is not unique in terms of the broader scheme of things. There have always been books similar to this, really. However, Baggott puts a different twist on things. I recall reading about the rare fusings of people from Japan after the bombs were dropped. There are also haunting images of what was there — and now vapourised — imprinted on the walls. There are also numerous birth defects seen today as a result of two nuclear bombs dropped in Japan. Baggott does a wonderful job of bringing that horror to her world to give it a haunting, treacherous personality all it’s own.
The story is character driven, and the characters are driven by this world. You can tell in their desperation to understand, to put together puzzle pieces, and to make sense of “The Before” and “After the Detonations”. There are people that worship the Dome as if the people within are god’s angels, and they sacrifice themselves in hopes they will be chosen to come in. There are others that just fight to survive. And, there are others that want revenge. It is those that fight for revenge as well as their lives that drive the story. Those people come from both within the dome and from outside of it’s walls.
The story ends with an excellent cliffhanger that makes me want to see if the library has the third book to the trilogy before I even go back and read the first book to see what I’ve missed. Without spoiling it, I can tell you that Baggott has set stage for book three quite nicely, and I’m looking forward to a war.
Thoughts
Fuse is part two of the Pure Trilogy, but it’s the first one I’ve read. It is a great stand alone that keeps you turning pages even when you should be doing something else. Granted, it wasn’t so awesome that I stayed up all night or dreamed about their world. Like most parts of a story arch, it gets more addicting when you read the first book first to get the whole story and a chance to get into the characters.
