Quarrelsome Quarantine

The Loners by Lex Thomas

* Read via the publisher for review.

3 gnomes out of 5 gnomes

Have you ever read a book that just annoyed the heck out of you?  It took me so long to read this book, I just couldn’t seem to finish it.  The story is interesting but I think that there are way too many points of view in this story.

I think the story would have been easier to digest with one to two points of view not the plethora of perspectives that the book gives.  The time jumps were kind of disconcerting too, I wanted to know more of the early stuff about how they got by, how the virus affected them, and how the gangs were formed.

This book is a great example where you might not like the good guys a hundred percent at first but as you read along you’ll find yourself rooting for them.  There are plenty of attitudes and so many problems to overcome.  Some of the events are cringeworthy but with that many hormones I guess it’s surprising that there wasn’t more violence to be had.

All of the relationships both familial and romantic in this book are very messy and I’m not sure if any of them can or will work out in the long run.  As the situation escalates though is when the story really gets good.  

The gang aspect was the most intriguing thing about the book that and the virus too of course.  I’m extremely curious to how everything will be explained and if there can be any happy outcomes for this group of students.  You have to wonder how society has allowed this and what the future could possibly look like for them all.

The ending was the best part because the intensity pretty much goes up to eleven and there was quite the twist at the end and the last sentence of the story was rather ominous.