I did worry that this would be a copy of / poor relation to Vox (which I really enjoyed) but was relieved to read another original, thought provoking thriller. Be careful of what you wish for when you demand streaming, gifted and talented schemes etc.

In the USA, in a future time undated, everybody has to be perfect. This perfection is measured by a Q score - quotient. If children and teachers don't reach the required standards of Q, they are taken away to a state run 'education facility' where they are left.

What would you do to save your chikd? How far would you go? The story follows Elena, a teacher in a Silver school (top tier) and her Silver family - a husband who works for the Government and 2 daughters, Anne and Freddie. Anne is naturally gifted, however, Freddie suffers from anxiety due to the constant testing and the fear of failing those tests. And then Freddie fails and is collected by the Yellow bus to start at a State run educational facility in Kansas.

The writing in this book is chilling, both from viewing history and today. The links to the Third Reich and Nazism cannot be missed, however, the author explains how Q came about "People voting for stricter anti-immigration policies and voting down policies to support children and disabilities education because they don't want them in class with their children" only makes me think of the rise of right wing thinking and policies across the world today. But it wasn't just the Nazis. The author makes mention of the fact that eugenics was prevalent in many countries before the Nazis used it, but this part of history is hidden from view. The International Eugenics Congress was a global venue for scientists, politicians, and social leaders from across the world to plan and discuss the application of programs to improve human heredity in the early twentieth century, with the first conference held in London and the next two in America.

The similarities to education today cannot be ignored, the fear and anxiety felt by Freddie due to the relentless testing makes me think of recent studies into the impact of repeated examinations on today's children and youth. The novel talks of the struggles to get people into teaching due to the pressures of testing makes me think of OFSTED and how teachers are leaving in droves "Even with scholarships and stipends and promises of high salaries, pensions that would make a career baby admiral turn green with envy, it still wasn't enough to fill college classrooms with prospective teachers".

Fitter Families is referred to as FF by one character, and it immediately made me think of the SS of the Third Reich, with the state facilitied having children wear different coloured armbands to indicate why they were there. These policies are not only used to discriminate on intelligence or class, but also on race and sexuality.

This book is horrifying in its simplicity and the ease with which it could come true and for that reason alone, I strongly recommend it to anyone. However, the skill of the author cannot be understated.

As Christine Dalcher says at the end of the book, "Patriotism does not require turning a blind eye to the darker chapters of our country's history; if anything, the opposite".

During this current time a lot of us are wondering what the future holds after this new normal we are learning to live in and this book describes a really disturbing dystopian future where everyone is judged by their Q number.

I liked reading about Elena during her high school years and how the thoughts and ideas she and her boyfriend Malcolm introduced (who later became her husband) turned into something far more sinister when they were older and he was in a position of more power.

There is some really heartbreaking moments in this book especially when Elena is forced to make a decision between staying with her controlling husband and the daughter she loves or going to Kansas to try and find her more vulnerable daughter who has been sent away and the dreadful discoveries her choices lead to.

The ending did feel slightly rushed only because I was really enjoying the descriptive slow burn, learning all about the new education system and the way people were forced to live their lives in this version of the future and how it had such connections to real life history.

I recommend this book for anyone who enjoys reading books similar to The Handmaid’s Tale and descriptive dystopian novels.

The dystopian premise of this book made me choose it as being slightly different to that which has been done before, but I found it quite hard going. The dad was a thoroughly dislikable character
and I found the main character of the mum to be quite weak. That said, although I struggled to get through it and didn't find it as gripping as I'd hoped, it was a good read

I found the idea behind this futuristic dystopian novel intriguing and a bit scary as I could see how something similar might happen! Told from one mother's perspective, it's the tale of the education system and how it's now geared towards perfection, you don't score high enough, you get demoted to a worse school. With 3 tiers, the rules keep changing and there's a whole lot of propaganda and secrets going on.

It makes for uncomfortable reading as you can pick out similarities in today's politics, an interesting read and a stark warning perhaps!

The future portrayed here is all too credible and the story is chilling to be sure. However, I felt similarly as I did when reading Vox, that I couldn’t buy into a woman loving, marrying and spending decades with a man who morphs more or less overnight into a sociopathic, murderous monster and seemingly takes his wife quite by surprise in this character development. The author appears to make a habit of starting with a happy family who are suddenly startled to find themselves living in the middle of a bleak dystopian hellscape!
I did finish and found much of it intriguing, it was just a question of pacing and a somewhat on-the-nose parallel with Nazi Germany which took away from the overall impact. Kudos for an unexpected ending.

Original, intriguing and utterly absorbing. This is the first book i have read by Christina Datcher and as such the exploration of the eugenics theme as a backdrop to a novel was original. Living in a world were entitlement is achieved by having and maintaining, a high IQ felt very futuristic at first impression but the author cleverly explored some of its origins via the memories of her grandmother. The characters were well developed and one could not help but warm to Elena as the central character. I was thoroughly engaged with the story as well as the backdrop.

The protagonist in this book is Elena, and the book is told from her perspective. Elena is a teacher at a high-level school, she is married to a man, who has a very high position when it comes to education. She has two daughters, eldest is a little miss perfect, she is smart and her daddy loves her, the younger one was struggling all her life. Elena hates her husband, and she is ready to do anything when her little girl is sent away to the lowest grade school. I really liked all the characters chosen for this book, they all are intriguing, different and have a story to tell. I really loved to see different generations displayed in this book, their stories entwined beautifully.
I loved the narrative of this book. The whole concept of this novel intrigued me. I liked the topics discussed in this novel, such as partner and family relationship issues, WWII, perfectionism, political propaganda and brainwashing, children abuse, people segregation and many more. I really enjoyed the research done for this novel, I like history, and I loved real historical facts incorporated in this novel. I think this novel is quite fast-paced, and the pages just flew by for me, I was really engrossed in this story.
I really enjoy C. Dalcher’s writing style, she creatively uses political situations, to create these amazing dystopian countries and rules, that leaves me gobsmacked every time. The chapters are really short, and it is an absolute pleasure to read this novel. The ending of this book left me a little confused, I liked the way the author decided to conclude this novel, but it didn’t leave me fully satisfied with the outcome.
So, to conclude, I really enjoyed this book, filled with amazingly developed characters as well as a plot filled with sorrow, injustice, love and difficult choices. If you enjoyed The Testaments by Margaret Atwood, I think you will enjoy this book as well. I strongly recommend both of the book written by Christina Dalcher.

Thank you to Netgalley for the advanced copy in exchange for an honest review. Q explores the theme of eugenics (albeit a little superficially) in a way that kept me interested throughout and really succeeded in touching on some of the problems humanity has faced and continues to face in our world. I definitely tuned in with the characters this one more than I did in Vox which is great but I felt the overarching tropes of each character were too similar to those in Vox’s and in some ways I felt they were pretty much carbon copies.

I typically like the dystopian themes Dalcher brings up and there’s definitely some fine tuning to her writing being made but still not hundred percent hitting the nail on the head for me.

The United States in ‘Q’ gives everybody a grade. Much like a credit score for your social standing, it decides what privileges you get, from the line you can enter in a supermarket to the school you can attend.

Everybody has to undergo routine tests to decide their quotient, Q, with Children that do not make the grade are sent away from their parents to government schools. When one of Elena’s children scores low on a test and is subsequently sent away to one of the ‘yellow’ schools, Elena leaves her job and social standing in order to follow her.

This is an idea that has been visited before - think Black Mirror, or China. The idea of assigning a score to your social standing is a little scary, but the novel demonstrates that on a subconscious level we are doing this already. There is an obvious exploration into the subject of Eugenics; the characters are reminded that although one might think it ridiculous that this could ever be considered in the United States, this is a very real idea that has been visited before.

Christina Dalcher set out to highlight an issue that has been lost from the history books, and she did a fantastic job with Q.

If you liked Vox, chances are you'll like Q. The general pattern of the story is very similar to Dalcher's Vox, but applied to segregation based on intelligence. Although the story was somewhat predictable, I powered through Q in 1-2 days and definitely enjoyed reading it.

I was very much looking forward to reading Christina Dalcher’s new novel and I liked the synopsis and thought the idea of it interesting. Sadly though I found it lacking in that special something that Vox, her previous novel, offered, it just didn’t work for me.

Thank you for sending this review copy. I really enjoyed this book. A great dystopian thriller and a really fun, fast-paced page turner! I thought the ending was brilliant too - really unusual and unexpected. Would definitely recommend this book.

The book had a lot of potential but ended up being super boring. I was constantly thinking it would go somewhere but it just didn't.

Great premise and a fabulously woven tale of one woman's struggle against a system that she's been part of, albeit in a blinkered way. Another scarily believable tale from Dalcher, set in an alternate reality that feels too close for comfort with some of the (two can I out this delicately) less than stable public figures these days with their unconventional views of the world. Some real human elements here too - relationships between mother and daughters is beautifully done, and the marriage is one full of regrets, realisations and reactions.

Dr Elena Fairchild teaches at the new Silver Elite School which has the best-of-the-best pupils in attendance. Her daughters are like her beautiful, ambitious and perfect. It's all about perfection now. There are three tiers of schools - Silver, Green and for the educationally inept, Yellow.

Every month everyone, including teachers have to pass their Q tests - if they fail they drop down a tier. To drop to Yellow means you are banished to schools in the plains of Kansas and a strict regime far from everything and everyone you love...

Freddie, Malcolm and Elena's youngest daughter fails her test. El begs her husband to use his powers - he works at the Education dept to keep their daughter from this fate. He refuses and once again she wonders why she married this monster. She's wishing she hadn't been so for the new regime - she and Malcolm were instrumental in designing it.

Elena decides to fail her test and engineers a way to get to the same school as her daughter. After a grueling journey she finds all is not well.... She also finds Malcolm's creepy pal Alex there who is carrying out tests relating to selective breeding. Issues also woven into the story is abortion, perfection, divorce, bullying and real life history. I found the story gripping and couldn't put the book down. One of my fav reads of 2020.

would like to thank netgalley and the publisher for letting me read this gripping book

omg where to start...this book well was it wrong to read during a pandemic...when we are all going through stuff and then you read it in this book and how we all get use to how everything changes and you then wonder this could really happen but then you realise this has happened...

but this story has a different slant to it but its the same old story, sorry dont want to give to much away but this book is shockingly good...so good i read it in a day...

going to be keeping an eye out for this author from now on..

I was delighted to receive an ARC of this title as loved Vox and I wanted to love this one too as the premise sounded awesome.
Unfortunately I didn't like any of the characters and I felt it was very slow for anything to happen and then the ending was very rushed and I didn't really care, was also very similar to Vox.
Thanks to Netgalley and the Publisher for the advance digital copy in return for my honest review.

This is a really gripping book. The premise is that children should receive the education most suitable for their intelligence, with the outcome that children are tested each month and if their Q factor drops, they are moved to another school. There are three tiers - silver for the best, green for the average.... and yellow for those not achieving well. Even the teachers are tested so only the best teach the best.

Elena and her husband were instrumental in establishing this new regime, but she is beginning to question its validity as she has one high-achieving daughter and one with other gifts. And also re-evaluating what she feels for this cold, impersonal man she married.

The book asks the reader to re-evaluate what they think makes a 'good' and 'worthwhile' person, and how we should treat those who have different gifts and abilities. It is scary, fascinating and above all thrilling as a roller coaster ride.

Thank you to NetGalley and HQ for allowing me access to the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

4.5

I have had VOX on my TBR since it came out and just never got round to reading it but now it is a priority! Christina Dalcher has an incredible imagination in order to create a premise to a book that I've never seen done before. I finished Q in lest than a day it was so gripping and had me hooked from the very beginning. The only thing that prevented this from being a full 5 stars in my opinion was that for me the ending was wrapped up a bit too fast but that in no was stops me from highly recommending this book!

Thank you so much to NetGalley and the publishers for approving me for an arc! All opinions are entirely my own.