Lex Thomas

The siblings David and Will Thorpe have lived alone ever since their mom died in a car accident more than nine months ago and their dad had to leave for a big job. Their mother’s death still feels unreal to David but he has to put his feelings aside because he has to play surrogate father to his epileptic younger brother.

Both are very nervous about their first day of school at brand new McKinley High. Will is a freshman and afraid that the other pupils might tease him because of his epileptic seizures. David on the other side of course wants to help his little brother to have a good start at his new school, but really messed up things for himself the day before. At a party he started a fight with his former teammates because his girlfriend Hilary cheated on him with Sam, his worst opponent in the team. Now, David worries that he might be an outcast himself with all his friends against him. But his worst fears don’t come close to the horror that he has to face when he and Will enter McKinley High.

A few moments after their arrival a huge explosion rocks the whole school and a deadly virus is unleashed. The virus was illegally engineered by a weapon manufacturer, situated in the immediate neighborhood of the school. It only infects pubescent teenagers and makes them fatally poisonous to any adult or young children who come within a few feet of the teenagers. The consequence: within a few minutes every faculty member dies and the military quarantines the building.

Now every two months a military helicopter drops supplies onto the school but otherwise leaves the pupils alone. The students start forming their own gangs according to their social status to fight together for food and protection – The Nerds, The Geeks, The Freaks, The Skaters, The Pretty Ones and Varsity. David and Will try to fly under the new society’s radar and fight for themselves, always avoiding the attention of the most popular and deadly cliques, Varsity and the Pretty Ones, who are headed by Sam and Hilary. Everything works moderately successful for the siblings until they help Lucy, who is in trouble with those most dangerous cliques. An accidental murder makes David the most wanted enemy within school’s society. Almost the whole school wants him dead, but he doesn’t have to fight alone. Other outsiders are impressed by David’s courage and follow his leadership. Together they form a new gang, the Loners, and try to survive the gang wars, but this new team is the source of new problems and the new upcoming sibling rivalry seems to stand in the way of success.

Quarantine is a really dark, fast-paced, action-packed and thrilling novel, written by Lex Thomas. This is the pen name for the writing team of Lex Hrabe and Thomas Voorhies.

Fitting in at a highschool is always important but here it is a matter of life-or-death. If you don’t belong to a special group you are not only an outcast but seriously screwed. The anarchy that follows after the quarantine doesn’t seem impossible to me. It is quite realistic that gangs and rivalries are formed and a battle to survive starts. This makes the novel absolutely chilling.

I also liked the really believable love-hate relationship between David and Will that made the story even more interesting. You can find a lot of interesting characters, the main protagonists and the sometimes really creepy side characters. The violence in this book is very extreme and sometimes seems to be a bit over the top but I think it is important to the storyline. In places the story got hard to follow with many jumps in time and between the characters, but still, it was a really exciting and interesting read. I will be back for the sequel.