Today, we’re not only sharing our review of Quarantine: The Loners by Lex Thomas (our September book of the month), but we’re also pleased to be hosting the latest stop on the official blog tour! After our review, scroll down for links to all the participating blogs (many of which are hosting some great contests), and more details about the book and the authors!
I’ve heard Quarantine: The Loners compared to The Hunger Games in some articles and reviews — and while I see the connection (teens + violence + survival), the debut novel from the writing duo known as Lex Thomas feels more like The Lord of the Flies on crack.
The novel follows brothers David and Will through the chaos that ensues when a contamination kills anyone past puberty and forces the government to quarantine the boys and their thousand or so classmates inside a high school. Suddenly, social cliques become gangs fighting for food and survival. Throw in a love triangle (two brothers, one girl!), a deadly rivalry, and a government conspiracy, and you’ve got yourself an action-packed debut novel sure to appeal to a large audience of readers.
It’s easy to see why the movie rights to Quarantine: The Lonerswere snapped up so quickly (more on the movie rights in a blog post this Friday). The book is chock-full of action-packed sequences, thrilling mystery, and a blossoming romance in the midst of the worst conditions.
What’s really intriguing about Quarantine: The Loners— and what made it such a great reading experience for me — is the multi-layered storytelling the authors have employed. Because while the majority of the action involves the brutal fight between the students quarantined inside the high school — a slowly unfolding mystery about the disease that forced the quarantine, and what the government is really up to on the outside lays the foundation for the rest of this planned trilogy.
The ending, in particular, will leave you eager for more and anxiously awaiting book two’s release. Quarantine: The Lonersis in stores now.
About Quarantine: The Loners
Goodreads, Amazon, B&N, Indiebound
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.
Follow the official Quarantine Twitter and like Quarantine on Facebook for updates about the book series and upcoming movie adaptation.
About Lex Thomas
website, Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads
Lex Thomas is the pen name for the writing team of Lex Hrabe and Thomas Voorhies. Their first novel, QUARANTINE: THE LONERS, earned a starred review from Booklist, and Huffington Post Books called it “one of the best books that I have ever read.”
Lex received a BA in Drama and English from the University of Virginia and has worked as an actor, director and writer. Thomas graduated with a Bachelors of Fine Arts from the Rhode Island School of Design, and now writes, and exhibits his realist oil paintings in Los Angeles.
Lex and Thomas met in a writers’ group in Los Angeles. Their friendship developed as they tried to blow each other’s minds with clips from bizarre movies. In 2005, they became a screenwriting team, and found that writing with a friend is much more fun than doing it alone. Visit them at www.lex-thomas.com.
Visit every stop on the Quarantine: The Loners blog tour:
Monday, September 10th – Wastepaper Prose
Tuesday, September 11th – Bewitched Bookworms
Wednesday, September 12th – Novel Novice
Thursday, September 13th – The Bookish Brunette
Friday, September 14th – The PageTurners
Monday, September 17th – MundieMoms
Tuesday, September 18th – Forever 17 Books
Wednesday, September 19th – Evie Bookish
Thursday, September 20th – Once upon a Prologue
Friday, September 21st – The Bookswarm
Monday, September 24th – Reading Angel
Tuesday, September 25th – Fire and Ice
Wednesday, September 26th – Emily’s Reading Room
Thursday, September 27th – Fiktshun
Friday, September 28th – Hypable
Novel Novice 