Published by HQ on April 21, 2020
Format: Audiobook, eARC
Source: Scribd, Net Galley
Pages: 336
Goodreads
Elena Fairchild is a teacher at one of the state’s new elite schools. Her daughters are exactly like her: beautiful, ambitious, and perfect. A good thing, since the recent mandate that’s swept the country is all about perfection. Now everyone must undergo routine tests for their quotient, Q, and any children who don’t measure up are placed into new government schools. Instead, teachers can focus on the gifted. Elena tells herself it’s not about eugenics, not really, but when one of her daughters scores lower than expected and is taken away, she intentionally fails her own test to go with her. But what Elena discovers is far more terrifying than she ever imagined…
Character List *spoiler free*
Elena Fairchild, mum to Anna and Freddie, married to Malcolm, School teacher in a silver school,
Malcolm, husband to Elena, and father to Anne and Freddie. Writes the laws. He believes Anne is his only child and ignores Freddie
Anne, clever in the Silver school.
Freddie, on the green bus, mental health evident, has beautiful blonde hair but pulls it out in stress
Madeline Sinclair, blonde so blonde, nearly white hair with blue eyes. electric blue suits, custom-made. yellow emblem, hawkish feature. Malcolm’s boss
Oma aka Maria, German lady, old, grandma, Elena’s dad’s mum
I am still not quite sure what I think or feel about this book. I felt like we got a long way, for it to be over so quickly! There was so much build up and then Elena does what she does and it’s kinda over, basically, I felt the ending was very rushed.
I do have to say I loved Oma, Elena’s grandma, as she was the strength for Elena and the family as they had to “deal” with Freddie being shipped off to a yellow school in this terrifying and awful school system. It was enlightening, only after I read my notes, that she was German, and the way Madeline was described is almost the epitome of what Hilter strived for with blonde and blue eyes perfection. This book almost felt like it was trying to create a perfect world with these ‘evil’ people in power and the perfect regime that they fight for.
The schooling and Q system was just horrifying, how these children were objected to this system, how it was a love child of Elena and Malcolm, and how it showed what one parent would do to fight a system (despite creating it)
I did find it an intense read as you really couldn’t imagine how to live in the situation of the class system, the exclusion of certain demographics, orientation, and capabilities, all farmed off somewhere else so you don’t have to see them, only the perfect left behind.
It does make you wonder what you would do in the same situation and how far you would go to protect your children. But it is also terrifying because it is something you could actually see happening if the extremists have their way. The ending too, well it’s just plain sad. I was gutted.
Until the next time xxx
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