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ClareR (5854 KP) rated Q: The Novel in Books

Jul 11, 2021

Q: The Novel

Christina Dalcher | 2020 | Mystery, Science Fiction/Fantasy

10.0

(2 Ratings)

Book Rating

Q is set in the near future - or even an alternative ‘Now’. To say that this made me feel supremely uncomfortable would be an understatement. I kept picking it up, reading a bit, and then putting it down - until I got to the last half of the book where I basically inhaled it.

As a parent and a teacher, I found this novel really disturbing. The author has taken where we are now in our education system, and ramped it up to its most exaggerated end point. And it still didn’t seem completely over the top.

In Q’s reality, children are divided up in to their academic ability and put into one of three tiered schools - Silver, Green or Yellow. It’s a relatively new system, and for teacher Elena Fairchild, it’s a dream to teach in a top tier school, where the children are all motivated and high achieving. But when Elena’s youngest daughter is demoted from a Green to a Yellow school, Elena’s loyalty to the education system starts to disintegrate. And when her husband, who works in a senior position in the education department, refuses to save his daughter from being sent hundreds of miles away to a Yellow State boarding school, Elena decides to act.

Ooh, how I loved this. Yes, it’s uncomfortable reading. Yes, it has Eugenics written large all over it (And Elena’s grandmother even warns her and tells her about her youth under the Nazi regime). And yes, it’s uncomfortably close to reality.
But it was a gripping read with a satisfying end. I would recommend it!