Quarantine

When their high school becomes permanently quarantined (teenagers are suddenly 'lethal' to adults), David and Will must fight to survive to adulthood when they can exit. As loners, they battle against the Freaks, Greeks, Pretties, Sluts, and Varsity... self-formed cliques... that fight for food, clothing and shelter. This is rock 'em, sock 'em adventure with a large dollop of violence and a smaller one of romance. If you like your action quick and graphic, this will keep you up reading through the night!

No one will give Lex Thomas (Lex Hrabe and Thomas Voorhies) points for subtlety in this book but their training as screenwriters shines through in page-turning action. Don't look for real character development, either, although the sibling rivalry between brothers David and Will is deftly handled as are the glimmers of romance. If you accept the book as the equivalent of a summer movie, settle in and pass the pop corn! ( )

Wow! ( )

Originally reviewed on A Reader of Fictions.

I've been through a couple of these kids-trapped-in-a-building-without-adult-supervision books already this year, like This Is Not a Test and Monument 14. In theory, I really like that basic structure, because it leaves a lot of space to do interesting things with social dynamics. Here, it was mostly just a way to isolate kids so they can do really awful things to one another.

When I read Monument 14, one of my issues was that none of the kids are particularly likable. Well, compared to the kids in The Loners, I pretty much want to be best friends with everyone from M14. Seriously, there's no one in this book that isn't a RAGING asshole. Even before the apocalyptic scenario, these kids were horrific.

David, the main character, is supposed to garner my sympathy because his mother died and his girlfriend, the hottest piece of ass ever apparently, cheated on him with the guy who took his spot on the football team when he quit. Boohoo, poor Mr. ex-QB. I would have felt badly for him, because both of those things suck, except that, by the time I learn this, he's already commented on how much he wants to sex a couple of different girls. When he finds out about his girlfriend's infidelity, the first thing he does is grab her arm really hard. Not cool. Then he gets drunk and starts a fight. I would hate this guy in real life and I hate him in this book.

His younger brother, Will, seemed like he might be better at first. He should have added some depth to the book, since he has epilepsy, further complicating survival. Unfortunately, his epilepsy was used only for dramatic effect and not to enhance the plot or make a point. Further, Will proves to be driven entirely by sexual urges. Seriously, he has the opportunity to buy useful stuff or to purchase a gold necklace for a girl he's crushing on (that doesn't like him back), and he chooses the necklace. He's so goddamn stupid. Plus, his brother totally had his back and he didn't do anything to help and was generally an ass as thanks. I mean, I don't like David, but Will was even worse.

The women in the book were awful too, every single one of them, which I guess fits nicely with their male counterparts. The kids in the school break down into gangs, two of which are all-female: The Pretty Ones and The Sluts. Yup. Unsurprisingly, girls have limited options in this scenario, so far as I can tell. They can barter sexual favors to a man for safety. They can defend themselves by joining The Sluts, which means they will be called lesbians and fight with the boys, thus get the worst injuries. Besides them, you've got the ugly girls, the ones that don't matter, who exist only to juxtapose their patheticness with that of the others, like Belinda the fat girl. Of course, there's the one girl outside of this, ex-Pretty One Lucy, who, by nature of being a beautiful virgin gets to be protected and survive.

The world building is exceedingly minimal. It exists only to trap the kids in this school. Blah blah virus, blah blah kills adults, blah blah food deliveries every two weeks. Of course, nowhere in the whole paragraph we get explaining why these kids are locked in their school is a reason given for why all of the kids lost their hair when the outbreak happened. Nor do we find out why their hair grows out white.

Anyway, once the first deliveries arrive and they realize the schedule, the kids form gangs, aka cliques based on high school social status. Even in a post-apocalyptic scenario, apparently, hot people do not hang out with uggos. Good to know. Throughout all of this nastiness, the focus upon appearance remains exceedingly important to everyone. Then, of course, they fight about everything.

Seriously, Lord of the Flies has nothing on these kids. They are doing all of this shit for NO REASON. If they don't cause trouble, the government's going to keep giving them supplies. As far as post-apocalyptic worlds go, this really should not be that bad. Unfortunately, this was apparently a school for demon children, so rape, beatings and deaths are going to be fairly common. Basically, everyone fights for stuff like it's the opening off the Hunger Games, where everyone grabs stuff from the cornucopia, only it's like that ALL THE TIME. Really though, the society they've set up here seems more like prison than anything else; they're all serving their terms, but, while they do, they're fighting for position, for sex and for vengeance.

Also, one thing that really bothered me about this? They had SO MANY WEAPONS. For the most part, that's cool. Just like with prison, you can make weapons out of pretty much anything. I get that and accept it. However, at one point, David mentions having a machete. Where the heck did that come from? It's not like you can easily construct a machete like you could a sort of knife or spear. Did that come in the supplies? If yes, that raises other serious questions. If no, was it in someone's locker? This just seemed inaccurate to me.

What I really don't get is why everything would turn into such a ridiculously violent mess. In Monument 14, the kids realized they had enough for everyone and worked together, making everything bearable. Here, the kids have enough food but make the situation impossible because the gangs hoard food. The Loners ends up reading like some sort of Battle Royale scenario where the kids HAVE to kill their classmates in order to survive. The issue here is that no one is forcing them to do this. They just ARE, because they WANT TO.

If you go to dystopias looking for gratuitous violence, The Loners just might be the book for you. The Loners reads like a horror movie, running through the standard tropes and focusing on gore, blood and violence. ( )

Review:

Take every clique from your average High School, throw them together in a desperate life or death situation where they've been quarantined from any adult interaction and you have one hair raising thrill ride. Mix together Mean Girls with The Hunger Games and a little bit of The Stand thrown in and you have the plot of this book.

I've had Quarantine: The Loners since last summer to review. For one reason or another I'd start it and put it down promising myself I'd pick it back up up at another date. 7 months later I finally finished it and I must say damn this book was good. Why was it so good? Well, read on and you will find out.

The Plague- We don't really learn to much about the origins of the mysterious disease that infects the teens. We do however learn that the teens are toxic to any adults or young children, killing any who come in contact with them within seconds. The disease also turns the teens hair white making those infected easily identifiable least to me it seems this is why this happens. The effects it turns out aren't permanent and teens will eventually shed the disease. On the downside, as soon as it leaves the teens system they have a very brief window of time before succumbing to the affects themselves. Not good when you are quarantined inside with those carrying it.

The Cliques- The Freaks, Jocks (Varsity), Sluts, Pretty Ones, The Loners, Geeks, and Nerds are the main groups in Quarantine. They are the type of cliques you'd see in any average High School at any given time under normal circumstances. Now throw in the life or death situation, no adults to monitor these teens, and plenty of hormones and emotions running on high, it's no wonder they'd all band together how they did to survive.

The Characters- I loved David he was the sole voice of reason consistently throughout the book. Being a Senior already at the start of the book you'd think he'd be at the top of the pecking order but due to events the night before the Quarantine he is kicked down to the lowest rung of the social ladder and to cap it off he's also hated by his former friends. Sadly, if it wasn't for his brother starting HS the next day he might have avoided all those months of isolation that day. Speaking of David's brother. He went from someone David could rely on, to one who I wanted to smack more times than I could count. He does redeem himself towards the end though, so I can forgive him. I also really enjoyed seeing the personalities from various cliques. Zachary and Violent in particular were my favorites. Even though they weren't featured prominently the brief glimpses really glued the story together nicely.

The Evil Teens: Every good story needs a villain, you would think it would be the virus but nope it's the teens at the top of the pecking order. Varsity and The Pretty Ones made life miserable for everyone. Which of course is bad for the characters, good for us as readers. I really can't wait for the next book, I hope some of the characters involved in making David's life miserable get their comeuppance, especially with that ending!!

Now even though I loved this book, it did have a few small flaws. The first being I just didn't find it believable that a whole school could be quarantined and not one parent tried to make contact with the teens inside. The students had drops frequently so why no letters or hell even personalized care packages. Just seemed odd to me. The only other flaw I had was I felt the book was to long. While the pacing was OK some parts felt as if they dragged on and added very little to the overall story. Condense the story down to around 350 pages and I'd probably have given this 5 stars.

Overall Quarantine: The Loners was a highly enjoyable book. I'd definitely recommend picking Quarantine: The Loners up and giving it a go. I believe any age group will find this story enjoyable but it definitely will resonate better if you've been through the hell that is High School. In the end I will be rating Quarantine: The Loners by Lex Thomas ★★★★.

*I received this book to review from Netgalley. All opinions are my own and I was not compensated in any way for providing them. ( )

Action packed dystopian novel with plenty of high school drama mixed in to the plot. McKinley High is on lockdown following the outbreak of a virus within its walls. The virus turns teens hair white but is deadly to adults. As the teachers begin dying and the students are left to fend for themselves chaos ensues. Lex Thomas, the pen name of Lex Hrabe and Thomas Voorhies do a great job of writing from the teens point of view. I recommend this book for fans of Enclave or Hunger Games. It will also appeal to reluctant readers.(less) ( )