Quarantine The Saints - Lex Thomas

Gut Instinct Rating - 4

Characters - 4

Believability for type and topics - 3

Similarity to other books - 4

Writing Style - 3

Excitement Factor - 5

Story Line - 3

Title Relevance - 5

Cover art - 5

Goodreads users gave this book a 4.09. I think it was more deserving of a 4.00.

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Published in 2013

Pages: 384

Publishing Company: Carolrhada Lab

Number of books by author: 4 (4 books in the series)

Genre: YA, Contemporary, Dystopian, SciFi, Horror

As a sequel to Quarantine to Loners, Lex Thomas writes a thrilling tale of The Loners' journey when a new school, The Saints, invade McKinley. But it's not all it's cracked up to be when The Saints become the new Varsity, The Loners fall apart at the hands of their new leader's demise, and to make matters worse, someone in the Saints has a mental problem on top of being infected with the virus and it spirals out of control when the partying stops.

Ideally, this book was intended to be a sequel as part of a trilogy (which then turned into a series when Lex Thomas wrote The Giants, so I'm wondering if this is turning into a wanna be Harry Potter episode, or if we're spiraling downhill quickly). So, we expected it to be leading, but not concluding. That's the problem when authors write sequels with a predetermined ending in another book. It's composed, but it's never going to give you answers. The character growth wasn't there, but in a dystopian novel, that's not really why you're reading it. So I wasn't really let down. I was a bit disappointed that we didn't get more insight into the new characters' backgrounds, but they were later divulged, even if it wasn't in full force.

My biggest issue with this book was the lack of believability in it all. After not reading anything for several months, this was a good book to jump back into things. It was loosey-goosey, so to speak. While the entertainment factor was maxed out and I was never bored, it was hard to believe that a new school could come in and overthrow Varsity, and still hold it's position as top dogs until the end of the book. It just doesn't make sense - that's not how school pride works, in general. It's a mob-mentality sort of thing. High schools rally based on their school pride, not their clicks. Regardless of where you go. But then, you top in that the entire aroma of the school changes because of how these people, the Saints, behave... it's just too far fetched. Could it happen? Sure. We're in a dystopian environment at McKinley, so it's possible. Just not on the far end of my spectrum.

I'm not sure if the writing style contributed on this either. It was really jumpy. And once I got into the story, I felt like it was also jumpy in the first series, too. But it's been a while, so I can't remember (and my notes oppose that train of thought) - but I felt like we were all over the place as far as story lines goes. Maybe there was too much going on in this book? Maybe the authors couldn't keep up (let's remember, Lex Thomas is a set of authors, not just a single author) with one another and one just got away from the other? Originally, the story line received 4 stars from me, and then I downgraded to a 3 star, and again - this may contribute back to the writing style, or it may be that it's a sequel in a series, but I felt like only a portion of a story was being told. It felt really detached from this bigger picture; as in The Saints was only a chapter, where as The Loners felt conclusive in a lot of ways.

Will I read The Burnouts? Yes. It's going on my TBR. I'm interested in reading more based on the first few paragraphs I read leading into it... it gave a total change in pace, and I'm curious to see what happens with the relationship between Will and Lucy.