There’s something about Quarantine: The Loners by Lex Thomas that has readers eagerly turning the pages and awaiting the book’s sequel AND it’s big screen adaptation. Fellow author Kami Garcia counts herself among the book’s fans — so much so, that her praise is featured on the cover of the book.
Today, Kami stops by Novel Novice to tell us exactly what it is she loves so much about Quarantine: The Loners.Thanks for stopping by, Kami!
You obviously loved QUARANTINE: THE LONERS enough to blurb it — calling the book “as original as The Hunger Games.” What about QUARANTINE did you love so much?
QUARANTINE is one of the most original novels I’ve read in a long time, and it crosses so many genres — post-apocalyptic, romance, contemporary, thriller — it has elements of them all. When I recommend the book to people, I often say that it’s LORD OF THE FLIES meets the movie, “The Warriors,” and other times, I just go with “The Breakfast Club” on crack. But at it’s core, it’s a story about a boy fighting to hold on to his humanity in a situation where it would be much easier to abandon it. When I was growing up, great-grandmother used to say, “The right thing and the easy thing are never the same.” QUARANTINE proves it.
Why should fans of The Hunger Games read it?
QUARANTINE is very different than THE HUNGER GAMES, but it has the same sense of danger and urgency. And like THE HUNGER GAMES, it deals with kids trapped in an unthinkable situation, who have to decide if it’s more important to survive or to live.
Why did you think this book would make a great movie?
QUARANTINE has all the makings of a great film adaptation — action, drama, suspense, romance, compelling characters, and a flawed but heroic (and hot) protagonist. Add one destroyed high school, seven cliques that morph into full-blown gangs, and hundreds of kids dying their hair with Kool-Aid, and I’ll be the first one on line to buy a ticket.
Novel Novice 