The Q / Amy Tintera / Book Review

For Maisie Rojas, one of the first kids born in the quarantine zone, life in the Q is all she's ever known. High-security perimeter walls to keep them in, artificial organs to keep them alive, and enemy territories vying for control of the supplies sent in by the outside sympathizers have been Maisie's entire life.

For Lennon Pierce, however, all of this is new. Son of a U.S. Senator in the running president, he was bound to be kidnapped eventually. He just didn't expect to find himself in a plane heading into the restricted airspace over the Q. And he really didn't expect to be pushed out of that plane with only a parachute. Given an experimental vaccine against the virus, Lennon is safe from infection... for now. But he has only days to get out of the Q safely, or he risks being barred from his home country forever.

With unrest growing in the factions of the Q, getting to the gate is more difficult than ever, even with an expert like Maisie to guide Lennon there. And if they fail, the results could be disastrous, both for Lennon and for the entirety of the Q.

Thoughts

The market might be dead when it comes to dystopian books, but this book might be proof we need dystopian come-back! Amy Tintera's writing is very engaging, and it definitely stands out in a market oversaturated with the fae. I was pleasantly surprised by this fast-paced plague-ridden world.

Pros

• Human Selfishness: Both inside and outside the walls of Tintera's "Q," human selfishness abounds, and this selfishness is shockingly familiar after our own pandemic. The divided nature of humanity, the inclination towards violence, the quick ability to "other" human beings who fall victim--all of this we saw as the early months of the pandemic unfolded, and all of this plays out in Amy Tintera's book. This bit of realism adds depth to a world that might otherwise have felt too extreme before we saw the evidence with our own eyes. 

• Competent Youth: Often, YA books put teens at the forefront doing things that teens just wouldn't do. These teens feel too adult, too mature, too not-teenager in their actions. Or vice versa--the teenagers will be too childish, playing into their immaturity to a melodramatic extreme. Here, neither of those scenarios proves true. These characters feel young and inexperienced. They're definitely testing the boundaries of their world, but they also grew up in this world. They know the rules. They know how it works, and they're very competent in what they do. They know their skillsets, that is. And this makes sense. These characters aren't too extremely independent, living and acting as fulling grown adults, but there's also a nice bit of generational conflict that allows them to grow and mature--and make mistakes. 

• Gang Violence: In a world where the government abandons a subset of people, of course some sort of organized power will come in to serve those left behind. And it makes sense that a "family" like in this book would take charge. In the absence of formal government, gang power rises, and this gang certainly isn't sugarcoated. This is a rough, rough world full of gun violence and high mortality rates, but the gang isn't all bad. It can't be, right? Government for the people, by the people, of course. 

Cons

• Plotless: The heading here might be a little misleading, because this book has a plot... It has multiple plots. The big problem is that it takes a lot of time for the characters to commit to a plot, to decide on the overarching problem that would be motivating them. The goals here were not clear or direct--and they should have been, given the situation--so that made it a little hard to connect to the plight of these characters.

• Drawn Out: For such a compact timeline--the entire book, after all, plays out over only a few days, per CDC guidelines--the story feels particularly drawn out. It takes forever to commit to doing something. It takes forever to get anywhere. And we're constantly getting distracted. I was missing a sense of urgency, and if any plot should be urgent, it's this one!

• No Big Consequences: Unlike my first critique, this critique is exactly what it sounds like. Though guns fire, bombs explode, and people die... the main cast remains unscathed. There isn't a single major character who gets seriously injured, and in a world as rough as this one, that doesn't seem likely. The stakes get a little lost, and the book feels a little surreal when nothing can touch the heroes. 

Rating

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

7/10

Fans of Julianna Baggott's Pure will enjoy this new plague-zone survival story. Fans of James Dashner's The Maze Runner will appreciate this dive back into YA dystopia again. 

Details

Publisher: Crown Books for Young Readers
Date: November 8, 2022
Series: N/A

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Note: I was provided with an ARC by the publisher through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions here are my own.