I absolutely love a good dystopian read, especially one that is unique in some way. Which, lets be honest, is pretty much impossible now given how many dystopian novels there are around nowadays! However, with Q I was pleasantly surprised by the choice of narrator - not a teenage girl seeking to overthrow society whilst making heart-eyes at the nearest available love interest, but a grown woman, a mother, desperate to save her daughter through any means possible.

Personally I thought that the choice of narrator was quite a bold move, as it's something I honestly can't remember reading about before, so that instantly got me interested. As did the comparisons between the present regime and the days of Nazi Germany - this is definitely something hinted at in other dystopian novels, but rarely is the link so explicitly and undeniably made. I also felt that it was very interesting to see how the author took this one step further, and linked everything to the history of eugenics in America. When people think of eugenics, most people think of Hitler, and what seems like the distant past. They don't think of America, and the atrocities that were done there in the comparatively very recent past in the name of eugenics. I was also very impressed by the ending. Not wanting to reveal too much, the most I can say is that it was unexpected and brave and 100% the right thing to do, even if it did break my heart a bit.

All in all, this was a really really great read. It was completely different to anything I've read before, while still keeping all of the elements of dystopia that make it so enjoyable. I can't wait to see what the author brings out next!

Disclaimer - I was provided with an advance reading copy by NetGalley. This has not affected my review in any way, and all opinions are my own.

After reading Vox and loving it! I was on the look-out for more titles by this amazing author. As soon as I heard Christina Dalcher had another book coming soon I was trying to find out more about it. To be honest the first thing I learnt about Q was that it was being released by Berkley Publishing (not in the UK!) under the title Master Class. I read the blurb and knew immediately I had to read it. Then I discovered information about the UK version which is called Q, and to be totally honest I think the UK title Q fits the book better without giving any clues away to what it may contain. After having read the book I would say the title Master Class is a more revealing clue as to what is in the book. Having said that I love both covers that I have seen for this book and think they both fit perfectly. Though if I had to choose a favourite it would have to be the UK one even though I guess some would say it is less revealing. The by-line on the UK version “Only The Perfect Will Survive” is a fantastic clue as to what is to come in the latter part of the book. Another difference I have noticed is that Master Class has Sci-Fi & Fantasy genres listed and Q (the UK) which also has Sci-Fi & Fantasy genres listed but also Mystery and Thrillers which I totally agree with and would also add “Futuristic” to list.


Now to the book…. Wow I want to say sooooo much about this book, but at the same time I am very determined not to give away too much and spoil it for other readers. How can I express to you how much I loved this book without giving away spoilers? I honestly think that sometimes its harder to review a book you loved than one you weren’t as keen on.

The society in this book is made up of “those that have” and “those that have not” though your place in society is decided by your very own Q score. Every single person has their own Q score. A Q score can be tested for and given to an unborn baby. This Q score is constantly checked and updated whether it may go up or down. The Q score is the deciding factor on what school you go to, which has a knock-on effect of what social circles you move in, where you live, as well as what job you do.

The main family this book focuses on is the Fairchild family which consists of Malcolm Fairchild, a high ranking, government official, his wife is Elena Fairchild who is a teacher at a high-class school. They have two children, the naturally bright, studious, and confident 16 year old, Anne, and their younger, more anxious, 9 year old Frederica, though everyone but her father calls her Freddie. Elena’s parents and grandmother do not agree with the current system and Malcolm knows this which is why they don’t get along and it is a rarity for him to visit when Elena takes their daughters Anne and Freddie.

The school system is on three colour, silver, green and yellow coded levels. The highest ranking being Silver schools, the middle ranging Green schools and the Yellow state schools. Elena is a teacher who has a great Q score so works at a Silver school. Anne Fairchild is the “perfect” student who seems to thrive on the continual tests to reassess her Q score. Anne is in what you would call the popular crowd (not like her parents when they were her age) and all the popular crowd go on about are of course the newest Q scores, and who has lost so many points they have lost their place at the Davenport Silver School and will be going to the nearby by Sanger Green School. Q scores can go up as well as down and Elena lives in hope that Freddie’s anxiety of tests etc will improve and she will move up from Sanger Green School and join sister Anne at Davenport Silver School. It is normal to be moved one school down but it soon becomes apparent things are changing for the worse, it seems the tests are also becoming harder too.

Elena actually ponders within the book how people can get used to all sorts of systems when they are forced upon them. One example of this is Elena’s neighbour being 100% in favour of the Q scores and the colour coded schools the whole time her daughter is getting on the silver bus to the high Q score silver school. However, the shock of her daughter being sent off to a state boarding school, her silver status rapidly downgraded to yellow infuriates her mother and the once staunch supporter of the Q system now has increasing doubts and becomes instantly more verbal about the bad points of the system.

When her husband Malcolm refuses to do anything about the fact their very own youngest daughter who suffers from anxiety is to be sent to one of these state schools it is up to Elena to try and hatch a plan to reunite with her daughter. Elena thinks if she can get demoted to a state school, and by forging Malcolm’s signature makes sure it is to the same school their daughter has been sent to it will be of comfort to Freddie and somehow force Malcolm into actually doing something about the situation. It really is a difficult decision for Elena to make as she loves both her daughters. To help Freddie, it means abandoning Anne. Malcolm has always favoured Anne and even prior to Freddie being downgraded to yellow card/state school status he blatantly ignored her. He bestows attention on Anne whilst brushing off Freddie like she is just some irritant to be put up with.

When Elena arrives at her new job at a state school that doesn’t even have a name just a number, #46 she is in for an even bigger shock than the one she had on the journey there, though at least she has made a friend in Ruby Jo, and the quieter older woman also on the bus with them destined for school #46. It’s not long until Elena realises there is more to her new teacher friends than she at first thought, luckily for her as she is drawn deeper and deeper into to the darkness and evilness her husband and his colleagues are creating and think of as being totally acceptable.
In an attempt to save her own daughter, and get the word out about what is really happening in the state schools Elena has to agree to be a test subject for another measure those in charge are wanting to introduce. She soon learns that those in charge including her husband are willing to go to extreme lengths to protect the future they envision no matter who gets hurt in the process.

This is a 'dystopian' tale that could quite well happen in the near future. I had drawn comparisons with the Nazis system and Hitler’s plans before they were referenced by Elena’s parents and grandmother, though I do read quite a lot of both fiction and non-fiction about that era of history. I thought the way Oma Maria reveals the old uniform of her days in the Hitler’s Youth Girls group. Oma Maria encourages Elena to question the very Q system that Elena had helped Malcolm to create. Elena can see that the system is going to far, becoming too harsh and when her grandmother Oma Maria compares the state schools to Nazis concentration camps, she really doesn’t want to believe things have really gotten so bad.

I adored the story about the frog and how it was recited in front of Malcolm when he insists on accompanying his wife and children on a visit to Elena’s parents and grandmother (last visit for Freddie). Oma Maria asks if they know the story of the frog…
If you put the frog in a pot of boiling water, he’ll jump out.” She silences Malcolm with a hand and smiles. “If, on the other hand, you put the frog in a pot of cold water and turn up the heat one degree at a time, well, before long you’ll have a boiled frog. And he’ll never know what’s coming.” Then, taking my father’s hand in her own, she says, “Our parents saw the frog boil in Germany. One degree at a time.” The way Oma Maria recites it as the wise woman who has seen and borne witness to the system that Malcolm is deeply involved with creating. I found it sad to read her family almost not believing Oma Maria when she tells her stories. They think she is making them up, or changing them as she goes along because of her age but this elderly woman is wise and has a lot that needs to be heard and acted upon as we discover as the book progresses. In fact, it turns out that some of Oma Maria’s family were actually involved in some of the nasty experiments that the Nazis inflicted in the concentration camps.

My favourite character, if I had to choose only one was Oma Maria, her love for her family and shame about the past are really well conveyed throughout the book. She is determined the horrid experiments she had heard about in the past would not happen to her great granddaughter Freddie, or anyone else if she had anything to do with it.
The character I enjoyed hating was of course Malcolm, though there were others I could add to this category too, such as Madeleine Sinclair and Petra Peller. Malcolm is a despicable, ignorant, hateful, selfish idiot who cannot see his wife Elena and youngest daughter Freddie. I wonder does he really see his eldest daughter Anne, or does he just see her Q score?

I have to mention the byline from the book cover again as it really is a case of “Only The Perfect Will Survive” in this book. It’s not “survival of the fittest” as it is in some sci-fi books more of only those with great Q scores in their ancestry, their current family and siblings and those who can maintain that Q score will survive and have a “life” as opposed to those with lower scores in their ancestry, siblings and themselves being unable to keep up with the ever higher expectations who will just “exist”. This author really has done her research and this book is so much more than a fictional story, especially when you look around at the way the leaders of the world are leading, sometimes dragging us along. The society and its system has been really well thought out and explained in detail as the story unfolds.

My immediate thoughts upon finishing this book were Amazing! I can't express how much this book has made me feel and think! Like Vox, it is a book that will stay with me for a long time after finishing reading it! Probably due to the kind of books I read I had picked up on the subtleties of what the Q numbers were based on and where this book was going long before it was at first clearly hinted at and then revealed. I readily admit to being in tears throughout the last chapters but it was the ending that had to be, though I think a sad one. I will most certainly be on the lookout for any other books by Christina Dalcher she has the ability to tie history, current probabilities and future possibilities all into one fantastic story. I have already purchased and added another couple of books to my "must read" list as Christina recommends them.

To sum up I thought this book was an amazing read and I highly recommend reading it. Honestly the way the world is progressing at the moment it may not be as far fetched as you may at first think. Definitely thought provoking and made me eager to know what is coming next from this brilliant author.

Imagine a world where everyone is perfect, where everyone is equal, a world where there are no diseases, and no one competes with each other. But to achieve this, first, the "bad apples" need to be eliminated.
Elena, with her quotient above 9, is a teacher at one of the elite schools.
When Freddie, Elena's youngest, only 9-year-old, daughter fails her Q test and is taken away, Elena is determined to do everything in her power to get her back. What she doesn't realise is that the "yellow" school Freddie was shipped off to, is not what the government makes people believe.

Ok, so where do I even start?
I'm a great fan of dystopian stories, so it goes without saying that I was beyond excited to get my hands on this book.
The story starts off very promising, but soon after, it slows down, and I felt it was unnecessarily drawn out. Up until it reached the halfway mark, I was sure it was going to be a 3-star read. But then, to my surprise, the story picked up so much that I was madly turning the pages to find out what's going to happen. At this point, I was considering 4 stars, especially since it seemed like the story would be followed by a sequel. I was equally excited and unhappy about this prospect; excited because I love dystopian series, and unhappy because if this were the case, I'd have to wait a long time for the second installment.
But no, sadly, there will be no sequel, and I'm really disappointed because it could have easily been spread over at least two books. Instead, the second half of the story felt rushed.
And the ending... I didn't like the ending. I really didn't like it. But... it was BRAVE.
On the plus side, it was good to see a dystopian heroine that wasn't a teenager or young adult and was instead a mature woman.
In conclusion, the slow start and the rushed second half contributed to me settling on 4 stars. If you like dystopian stories, this book is definitely for you.

A dystopian tale that is entirely believable given the history of Eugenics.

The story centres around Elena and her family. Elena's husband Malcolm is one of the main proponents of the Q system which sorts people based on test scores into various social and academic streams.

Although at the top level of this system, when Elena's youngest daughter fails her test and is taken away, Elena purposely flunks her own test and conspires to get sent to the same institution her daughter now inhabits. What Elena discovers at this place is something well hidden from the outside world where regular propaganda hides the real purpose of the Q system with the constant reassurance that all is well.

The story sees Elena coming to terms with a problem she has in large part created and perpetuated and finding the best way to deal with this and the lengths a mother will go to in order to protect her child.

The ending could not really have gone any other way given the sometimes harrowing tale that precedes it, but is an extremely brave one for the author to make.

In society we are already being judged by our race, religion, class and colour, but imagine a world where you are also judged on you’re IQ. The high achievers have the best jobs and even get a special checkout at the supermarket!!

Elena is a teacher at an elite school, pupils are tested monthly and depending on their results can be moved to different schools. Elena believes in the system until her daughter Freddie fails her tests. For Freddie and for all the others who fail, there are boarding schools out of state where they are sent and parents can only visit for 30 minutes once a month.

Elena decides to fail her test so she can find her daughter and bring her home.

The story explores motherhood and what you would do to protect you’re family. An unusual twist is that her husband helped set up the system that she is now going against!!

This book had me hooked from start to finish. I read it believing this could actually happen and made me wonder how different my life would be.

I loved the use of the iconic yellow bus which to me symbolises happy school children, but in this book the yellow bus comes once a month to pick up the children, but they never return.

A thought provoking book with an ending that I wasn’t expecting.

A must read, shocking but very addictive.

Thank you to Netgalley for my copy in exchange for a review.

DNF @ 40% - I really tried to keep going with this book but I was just not enjoying it. The characters are all terrible; Elena is such a hypocrite and was gung-ho for this world until it actually affects her. Malcolm is just a dick 🤷🏻‍♀️ it just wasn’t interesting to me at all!

There is a real problem with the formatting of this ebook as well; I was gifted a copy via NetGalley but the formatting makes it virtually unreadable - words are cut off half way through, and there’s numbers at the end of every line. I almost stopped reading it straight away solely due to this.

After reading Vox I was delighted to get a Net Galley Copt of Q.
Continuing the dystopian fiction of Vox, Q tells the story of school teacher Elena, her husband Malcolm and their two children Anne and Freddie, who love in contemporary America. An America changes by everyone being judged on their Qs, scores that are achieved through regular and rigorous testing in schools. If you pass your tests, nothing changes. If you fail, then....
A well paced and almost unbelievable read. Would recommend.

To everyone that loved Vox and wants to read another like it this is just for you!! A dystopian future in America trying to control part of the population through scientific means. This time it is social engineering to the extreme, involving severe IQ testing, segregation of schools and ultimately moving into eugenics. At its heart a mother who discovers the secrets of what the government is doing and puts her own life at risk to expose the truth.

I wonder if I’d have loved it more if I’d read this first rather than Vox. Because this is probably as shocking and ground breaking but for me too similar to Vox which meant the impact wasn’t there for me.

This is story is set in a dystopian future where a persons IQ determines every aspect of their life. Students are regularly tested and depending on their results moved into different schools. If someone continues to fail the tests they are sent to a state school away from their family.
A chilling look at a world where a persons contribution to society is the ultimate goal.
Thank you to NetGalley and HQ for my e-copy in exchange for an honest review.

Praise for Christina Dalcher

After reading Vox I was more than excited to join the queue to read Q.

THIS NOVEL DOES NOT DISAPPOINT

I think the thing that makes Christina's writing so powerful is the idea that what happens in her novels could actually occur in real life.

A terrifying thought but it makes her stories all the more explosive.

It looks at the idea of a points scale which separates humans, from the most elite to the lowest class of people.

The higher your points the more privilege you are awarded.

But what happens when the points system no longer reflects the abilities of those who use it?

If it were a family member that suddenly failed the test would you stand back and let the rules dictate or would you stand up and take action?

Fast paced and incredibly well thought out, this is a tale that will have you thinking not just about what could be but how you act in the here and now.

The ending was not what I was expecting, it had just as much of an impact as the beginning sentences.

From start to finish Q is so much more than a book and I implore you to read it!

I loved Vox so was really excited to get an EArc of Q, Christine Dalcher's newest dystopian thriller. And it didn't disappoint. Like Vox Q takes place in an alternate US, one not too many years from now. Only here. rather than developing into an autocratcic patriarchy, the US, fuelled by immigration fears and falling standards of living is a meritocracy. Or so it likes to think. Each person is judged by a variety of factors, including job, family and crucially IQ. These numbers, recalculated monthly, determine status and the higher your Q number, the better your life.

Elena has a dazzingly high number thanks to her PhD, job in a silver school, teaching the brightest of the children and husband Malcolm, clever, successful and high up in the Education department. Her eldest daughter Anne is an effortless high number too, confident at her silver school, her future bright. But Freddie her youngest struggles, the prospect of falling into a Green school a constant fear, or even worse, a yellow school, out of state, boarding and compulsory. Elena spends her life trying to ensure Freddie succeeds in the face of Malcom's indifference and even dislike, but when her worst nightmare is realised and Freddie is taken away, Elena has to face up to the truth about her marriage and the system she helped to create,. And when she follows Freddie to the yellow school, things take a much more sinister turn, and Elena has to ask herself, what will she do to save her daughter?

I read this book in a week when the Prime Minister employed a man who openly espouses eugenics as policy making the book both timely and chilling. Q is a thrilling read, a well plotted dystopia and a thoughtful book, but it was also a warning about how easily 'othering' can be and how the results are never benign.

Q is a tense dystopian novel about eugenics, intelligence, and motherhood, in which one of the privileged must expose the heart of the new education system. Elena is a teacher at an elite school, one for those with the highest Q quotient. Her daughters go to these schools, and her husband runs the politics behind them, the politics that makes the country focused on perfection and unforgiving on those who don't do well enough. Those who aren't good enough at these schools end up at the yellow schools, boarding schools out of state with restricted visiting access. Elena thinks the system is fair, until one of her daughters fails a test and is sent to a yellow school. Elena hatches a plan to join her, but to get her out the whole thing will need exposing.

This is a dark book that fits very much into the kind of dystopia where only a few details from reality have to be changed to form the crux of the narrative and where calling it 'sci-fi' doesn't seem appropriate. Dalcher takes historical (and not so historical) ideas about intelligence and eugenics and looks at what would happen if these became the new basis for an educational system that spills out into other areas of life. Elena is an interesting choice of protagonist, someone with a complicated, morally questionable past and a controlling husband in the present. The novel made me want to know more—about the supporting characters, about what the yellow school was like—which was unexpected (often dystopias give you too much detail), and sometimes the plot felt a bit too neat and easily resolved, but as a relatively quick read it at least wasn't bogged down.

The concept of this novel is interesting and the viewpoint of the protagonist brings complexity due to her past and her present clashing. Easily linked to elements of the modern day, it will probably spark a few conversations and shock a few readers.

I thoroughly enjoyed Vox, so when I saw that Dalcher had another book coming out, I was very excited, and instantly requested it on NetGalley. However, I was surprisingly disappointed in this tale of a world where a new social order has changed how people interact, and certain classes are more oppressed than others. Although I enjoyed Vox, there's very little new or appealing in Q, as it retreads the same ground with a thinly disguised alteration of what is, at this stage, a slightly tired trope..
There were lots of interesting parts of this book - Elena Fairchild, the middle-class, highly educated main character, mother of two, is quietly rebelling against the system that her husband is wrapped up in - but this is very similar to Vox, where the main character is quietly rebelling against the system that her husband is wrapped up in. The difference this time is that Elena herself seems to have been involved in it, which is unveiled slowly through flashbacks which parallel the narrative.
Given that it's a first-person perspective, however, I found it quite frustrating that Elena shied away mentally from thinking of what it was that she did in her past that led to the implementation of this new system. There's no real reason for her to hide it from herself, so the slow reveal over many pages of what her heinous act was is clearly designed only to heighten reader tension. Someone else discovering this alongside Elena would make far more sense.
My other complaint about this book was that it took far too long to get going - 55% of the way through the book is when Elena makes the choice to follow her child. This is despite the fact that this is flagged on the blurb as being the trigger point of the story.
I just expected more from this. I was hoping for a twist in that the perfect child would be sent to a reform school, or her husband would be working against the system from the inside, or something, anything, which would make this less formulaic and near-identical, once you scratch the surface, to her previous novel.
Originally I had rated this four stars (rounding up from 3.5), after reading, but the more I think about it, the more dissatisfied I become, and so I've downgraded it to a three. It's not terrible, and it's not even really bad, it's just not brilliant, and doesn't do anything new that Vox didn't do.

3.5 stars


Dalcher writes well,about a future that isn't all that hard to believe could happen.
Where America just wants to be great again...
A tiered system where everyone knows their worth and most fight to stay at the top.
There's no childhood,relaxing or vacations in sight... Or all that many happy families I'd think.
What we do have though is a mother's love that has her doing anything she can to save her daughter.

It's positively menacing at times.

Great central character,and super pacing.


I worry what the authors dealing up for our future next though. 😁

A society where your performance in school and in life determines your social standing and the performance and behaviour of your family can sway that standing.
Q takes to a new level (but perhaps not that unimaginable) the social tiers of society based on a number of factors that add up to give your "Q" score. A world where everything is scrutinised and tested on a frighteningly regular basis should feel very dystopian and unreal but actually is worryingly familiar in many ways.
The Q system is a repeat of some of the worst incidences of eugenics and widespread human rights abuses and yet those in charge of the system, seemingly derived from a few innocent comments made by the unpopular kids at school, have learned nothing from history and plough on regardless with their bright new society.
When Elen finds that her younger daughter has failed and is moved to a yellow school (the worst case possible) she does all she can to bring her back by deliberately demoting herself to the same status. All is definitely not as advertised as Elen finds out when she reaches Kansas and the yellow school and finds herself stuck in a system that is upheld and run by her husband.
There are a few points in the book where great leaps are made, perhaps in the edit, where I could have done with a bit more detail or background but overall a great premise for a story with plenty of breath-holding moments as Elen fights for her child's rights.

I am sure this is a very good book but the uncorrected arc I received from netgalley makes this unreadable.

Working in education, this was both fascinating and horrifying. A very well written read, did lose its way somewhat towards the middle but quickly regained pace and kept me reading well into the night twice! Highly recommended.

Q is shocking. I finished reading about two hours ago and still have chills.

You HAVE to read this book. You’ll be talking about it forever. Set in a dystopian world where your social class is decided on how well you do at life. Elenas daughter has failed and is sent to a “yellow” level school so it’s only fair that Elena follows. What comes next is insane! Literally insane. I devoured Q, it’s the kind of incredible story that I love and I can highly recommend to anyone and everyone!

5/5