Quarantine: The Loners by Lex Thomas

Ali Mark
Mar 8, 2016
4 min read

Story Line - 4.5

Writing Style - 5

Characters - 4.5

Excitement Factor - 4.5

Believability for type and topics - 4

Similarity to other books - 4

Cover art - Cover was neutral.

Dust Jacket Art - 5

Title Relevance - 5

Goodreads users gave this book a 3.88. I think it was more deserving of a 4.61.

Published in 2012.

Pages: 404.

Number of books by author: Lex Thomas is a dual partnership who together have written 6 novels; there is no data on Goodreads for the individual authors.

Genre: YA Science Fiction.

When a high school realizes they're housing a highly infectious disease that will immediately kill all but their students, they lock down the high school. With no adults watching over these teenagers, they're left to their own devices (of survival, that is). But will the students survive over a year in lock down with the bodies piling up around them; or will they graduate out alive?

You may like this book if you like the following sub-genres:

Dystopian/Sci-Fi
Manufactured Disease
School Stories

This book surprised the crap outta me! I am not fond of the unreal, and this book was certainly advertised in that light. But I found it pretty believable when it came down to it (I was thinking about the vaccination battle here in the US). I truly loved this book (and I'm glad it's part of a trilogy, because that means I'm potentially looking at two more great reads).

The story line was mostly realistic; and believability isn't a key component of this story because I think it's a mindless read. But it was nice that as I was reading, I was able to think about my high school and the cliques and how that interplays with a quarantine of people fighting together, and against each other. I was a little irritated that from the beginning we started in what felt like a very different story - and then school started, and then we skipped ahead a year. I think the authors probably had a reason for doing that, but I would've liked to be involved in the beginning aspects of the story. Those first few weeks/months had to be frightening, and I think it would've been a really telling part of what happened. I think it would've pushed the book closer to 450-500 pages, but I think I would've been capable of that. Because there were a few things that just happened at the year mark and it would've been nice to see how that came to be; how the cliques came about, and why certain decisions were made. (This was really my biggest issue with the whole book.)

The writing was really well done considering we're looking at two authors. I didn't feel like I was reading two voices (I'm glad I didn't know they were a pair until after I read, because I might not have read it otherwise). I was pretty shocked when I put the dust jacket back on and saw two faces instead of one on the About The Author flap. The writing was rushed when it needed to be, and steady when it needed to be. I felt the rush and tension when I needed to, and felt the calm or complacency when I think I was supposed to. The descriptions were really well done. I always love in the beginning of a book when we have all this really thick description. But it didn't really end there. I felt like it was less frequent, but I think we still really felt their journey.

The characters were well done. I think we got a good grip on individual personalities, and personalities of a clique, and how they exist within their own individual personalities, and then how we see them co-exist within their group, and more importantly, how the cliques interact (or don't). Everyone in high school, faculty included, knows there's cliques. And they're pretty easily established by sight, and that was really driven home in this (don't worry, you'll see!) story. I think this was bigger than just a quarantine; I think it was really about social status and high school politics. I was able to see growth and change and all these things that are supposed to happen while you're in high school. (Which makes me curious about these characters in this sequel, and if we'll see some of the same characters, what setting we'll be in, etc.) I was a little disappointed because some of the characters were really consistent and others had really big moments that didn't seem to fit. And again, I wonder if this is a set up for the rest of the series, but I realized at the end that I hadn't heard one of the names since early on, and I wasn't sure why she was holding such a climactic role.

The dust jacket art -- it wasn't until I uploaded a photo of the cover to my website that I noticed something in the darkness. In the darkness, you see Will and David. I've had this book for about a week, and looked at it numerous times since it's on my Wish List - and never noticed. I'm glad that I saw this before I read the book, because it kind of set up this curiosity about the location they're in and why they're in the dark. But after I finished reading, it all made sense. It's also serving some curiosity (which was probably unintentional) about where this next book is going to go. The title was fitting - I'm not sure if it's meant to be Quarantine The Loners, or if it's Quarantine: The Loners. I'd like to think it's the first, because that makes the story that much more fitting towards its title.

Needless to say, the sequel is going on my TBR as we speak.