The Loners (Quarantine Series #1)

by Lex Thomas

Overview

It was just another ordinary day at McKinley High—until a massive explosion devastated the school. When loner David Thorpe tried to help his English teacher to safety, the teacher convulsed and died right in front of him. And that was just the beginning.

A year later, McKinley has descended into chaos. All the students are infected with a virus that makes them deadly to adults. The school is under military quarantine. The teachers are gone. Violent gangs have formed based on high school social cliques. Without a gang, you're as good as dead. And David has no gang. It's just him and his little brother, Will, against the whole school. In this frighteningly dark and captivating novel, Lex Thomas locks readers inside a school where kids don't fight to be popular, they fight to stay alive.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781606844380
Publisher:	Lerner Publishing Group
Publication date:	06/11/2013
Series:	Quarantine Series , #1
Pages:	416
Sales rank:	342,569
Product dimensions:	5.36(w) x 7.86(h) x 0.92(d)
Lexile:	HL620L (what's this?)
Age Range:	14 - 17 Years

About the Author

Lex Thomas is the pen name for the writing team of Lex Hrabe and Thomas Voorhies, who met in a writers' group and bonded over their mutual fascination with B-movies. Visit them at www.lex-thomas.com.

Editorial Reviews

"Though not totally implausible, this is for fans of gritty sf dystopia, and Thomas' whirlwind pace, painful details ('old socks in a zip-lock freezer bag' serve as one character's pillow), simmering sexual content, and moments of truly shocking ultra-violence thrust this movie-ready high-school thriller to the head of the class." —starred, Booklist

From the Publisher

First in the Quarantine trilogy, this debut novel from Thomas, a pseudonym for first-time writers Lex Hrabe and Thomas Voorhies, is a violent and somewhat campy high-concept mashup, tossing Walter Hill’s The Warriors into a high school setting and seeding it with elements of Lord of the Flies. After a biotech disaster unleashes a weaponized disease that creates teenage carriers and kills adults exposed to them, McKinley High is quarantined. A year later, themed gangs—including Varsity, Freaks, Pretty Ones, and Sluts—have formed to fight over a once-a-week food drop from the government. David, an unaffiliated “Scrap,” works with his epileptic younger brother, Will, to get by, and eventually ends up leading his own gang of outsiders after saving the life of an outcast Pretty One named Lucy. The battle between Varsity and the newly christened Loners occasionally gets muddled, and the authors are more interested in high-impact brutality than realism, but the fast and gory action (one trap-filled hallway sequence is particularly memorable) should satisfy the core audience. Ages 14–up. Agent: Mollie Glick, Foundry Literary + Media. (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly

Lawlessness and violence erupt in a quarantined high school. David Thorpe can't ditch school and his ex-friends on the football team because it's his epileptic younger brother's first day. That's the day a weapons manufacturer's biologically improbable virus reaches the school--a suspension-of-disbelief–necessary germ that infects teenagers but kills everyone else. However, the virus leaves teens as they leave puberty, taking their resistance but allowing them a chance to escape. Government technology tells the exact date a student will leave puberty and quarantine, just from a thumb on a scanner. Knowledge of this "escape date" undermines the novel's potential for claustrophobic tension. The breakdown into chaos and establishment of new orders (fierce fighting for resources dropped every two weeks) are mostly skipped over. The virus causes white hair, enabling cliques (Varsity, Geeks, Nerds, Freaks, Skaters, the Pretty Ones and Sluts) to dye their hair uniform colors for identification. David and the other outsiders must fight the strict caste system by forming their own clique. The female-dominated groups--Pretty Ones and Sluts--reflect a tiresome woman-as-commodity approach. The female lead and love-triangle anchor (fought over by David and his brother) only occasionally shows signs of personality and is offended but also "excited" by unwanted groping. Additionally, the major characters' voices are indistinguishable and the villain cartoonishly evil--characterization is generally ignored in favor of more gore. At least this battle for survival has gore going for it. (Science fiction. 14-18)

Kirkus Reviews