Saturday, July 19, 2014

Quarantine: The Burnouts by Lex Thomas


Published: July 22nd, 2014
Publisher: Egmont USA
Pages: 272
Copy: Publisher via Edelweiss
Summary: Goodreads

Lord of the Flies in a 21st-century high school setting.Welcome to Quarantine 3: The Burnouts , where readers of The Maze Runner, Gone, and Divergent go when they're hungry for more dark, compelling survival stories.

When an explosion rocks David and Will's suburban high school one morning, a deadly virus is unleashed on the school. After a year of quarantine, with no adults around, the students have created their own society. All of the social cliques have developed into gangs-The Nerds, The Geeks, The Freaks, The Sluts, The Skaters, The Burnouts, The Pretty Ones, and The Varsity-and each gang provides a service with which they can barter for provisions. Without a gang, it's almost impossible to secure food, water, territory, or supplies. In the final installment in the Quarantine trilogy, the brothers are reunited on the Outside and it appears as if, for once everything is going right. But inside the school, Lucy is alone with no gang and no hope, until the Burnouts welcome her into their filthy arms

I have loved this trilogy from the beginning ( you can find my reviews #1 here and #2 here) and I was just a little worried that Mr. Thomas would not be able to maintain the tension.  Well, I'm very happy to say I was wrong.  Tension abounds yet again in this third and final volume.

As I mentioned before there are many parallels to Lord of the Flies in this Quarantine trilogy, but it's more like Lord of the Flies on steroids, 10 times over.  One of the most horrific things about it for me is the absolute plausability of it all, and that scares me to death.  Part way through this book there is a comment that the parents on the outside are sure they have solved the food problems, but readers see that this is definitely not the case - the troubles have just gone underground and have become so much worse.

We are made aware that almost 2 years have gone by.  2 years in which hundreds of kids have reverted to savagery to get by.  It's amazing that any of them have survived. Some of the descriptions of the Burnouts and their means of escaping reality had me almost gagging, but I could see it happening!  And just wait until you find out about the cure.  All I'll say is O.M.G.

You will be rooting for Will, David and Lucy and you will cry along with them and keep hoping that they will survive. What poor Lucy has to go through this time will have you gasping. This is a really gritty and horrifying story from beginning to end, but it is so worth reading if you like this type of thing.  Definitely not for the squeamish though and you have to start at the beginning.

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