Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for an advance copy of this book in return for an honest review.

Great book. I loved reading it. Very interesting and covers alot of information

Early this year, I picked up Vox by the same author. I enjoyed it so much that I could not stop reading it and had finished it within a day. When I saw this on Netgalley, I knew I had to try and get my hands on a copy (thanks HQ for approving my request!).
Q is just as thought provoking as its predecessor. Yet again, it focuses on something we take for granted, in this case education, and how in a dystopian future it could be strictly controlled or even taken away from some. The thing I like most about Christina Dalcher's work, even though it scares me a little, is how realistic this feels. Given the state the world is in currently, this could happen to us very soon and that's a chilling and sobering thought. I am intrigued to see which aspect of society Dalcher writes about next.

This was an enjoyable and somewhat disturbing read. Set in a dystopian future where an individual's worth is determined by their 'Q' score.

This follows the story of a teacher, Elena and her daughter Freddie who is sent to board in a controversial yellow state school.

I don't want to give too much away about this book because it should be read or be appreciated with as little information as possible but it touches on a lot of controversial and difficult topics with a particular focus on eugenics in the second half.

There are parts of this book which are very upsetting and it's not a feel good read by any definition but it's thought provoking, gripping and interesting.

I've seen lots of online reviews comparing this to Vox which I haven't read yet but will be doing soon for comparison, so watch this space. In the meantime I recommend picking up Q!

Thank you to Netgalley, Christina Dalcher for the chance to review Nd I'll be watching out for more from this author!

Wow totally thought provoking and gripping which really made me think think....set in a world which had familiar tones about control and inequality. Really good

Thank you to Netgalley for my copy of this book.
I requested this after reading Vox and loving it but also being creeped out at the same time!!
Nothing more scary than a book that seems so far fetched it could be real.... and that's exactly what Vox and Q are, stories you never hole to have to live through!!
Vox and Q both start quite similar and are similar stories, so if you enjoyed Vox you must read this!
I loved Elena and her daughters and I was so rooting for them to see this ordeal out and live happily ever after! Had tears in my eyes at the end, this book takes you on a bit of an emotional ride, ranging from anger to sadness to warrior to happy!
This book gave me chills but I couldn't but it down, Christina Dalcher is one of my go to authors now!
If you are a fan of dystopian novels then you have to read this!

Excellent book. Different to my usual choice of read but I loved it.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the ARC in return for an honest and unbiased opinion.

Q was a tension filled dystopian read that really caught me from beginning to end and my few complaints with the book are more to do with how some important aspects felt shoe-horned in at the end and how quickly it became very black and white. Set in a future America, everyone is graded from birth with a Q score. Above 9 and you're in the top tier; the best schools, the best jobs, fast lanes specially for you... that kind of thing. Elena Fairchild is one of those people, working in a Silver school and married to a top government official, her life is as easy as it comes. Until one day her daughter fails her test and her Q drops below 8. And Elena's life changes in a flash. Her daughter is taken away to a Yellow school, and her grandmother is determined that the past is repeating itself with 'undesirables' removed and detained.

A lot of people seem to think that the second half of the book was the strongest here, and I'm going to have to say that I disagree. I felt the real tension building in the first half of the book, and even though I knew where it was going, I couldn't look away from the train tracks. Dalcher sets up this dystopian world exceptionally well, exploring how societal norms have changed gradually over the years until this new future where you are your number is accepted as normal. I felt she built up the system well, never falling into didactic writing but managing to put across all the various ways your Q score could slip and your future become uncertain. I was completely sold on this disturbing yet scarily realistic future.

What I felt was less well done was how quickly she spiralled aspects completely out of control; from the moment Freddy fails her testing, things become black and white and farcically unbelievable quickly. Not that I can't see the end result of this kind of society being exactly how Dalcher imagines it, and there is certainly historical precedent which she touches on with Elena's conversations with her German grandmother. Eugenics is not a new thing, after all. But the delivery of these bombshells felt frankly rushed in comparison to the tension filled set-up of the society. Elena's husband becomes a caricature evil character, not just in the policies he is spear-heading but in every other aspect of his life to boot.

From the timeline described, the yellow schools only became boarding houses a month or so before the events of the novel and Elena has only recently started to notice previously high scoring students being removed from the elite schools. It was apparently unheard of for a silver school student to move straight down to the yellow school, and we are expected to believe that this is a new and unprecedented change. And from there, Dalcher moves further to some of the most extreme of solutions with barely a blink. It felt... rushed, unrealistic and frankly, more like a cartoon than the realistic dystopia she had so painstakingly built up.

When Elena decides that her child is not going to get left behind, the reader is given a whole new view into the realities of what lies behind the public facade of the yellow schools. But it is nowhere near enough. Within a few short chapters events have moved on to yet more extreme examples, and the tone seems to change from a cleverly built up dystopian novel to a rushed thriller. It just didn't quite work for me. And if I'm honest, the reveal came far too easily for my liking. It felt forced, without any of the nuances or complexity that I was looking for and over-whelmed by a simple good vs evil narrative. Instead of gradual, seemingly innocuous, change unnoticed by the many, you suddenly have evil plans at the highest levels rushing along at a neck-breaking pace.

To my mind at least, the second half of the novel really needed to be built up more carefully and drawn out with the same level of tension, suspense and uncertainty as the first half. This could have been done by removing many of the chapters dedicated to revealing Elena's teenage past, as I didn't think they added much to the narrative. They built up her character, but that could easily have been done by slotting in the important aspects through memories, or even conversations with her parents and grandmother. Instead of a third of the novel, they would take up a handful of chapters at tops and make room for a more detailed and complex analysis of later events and a far less simplistic finale.

So, this is probably 3.5 stars and I've rounded down rather than up because I can't help but think that the tone of the novel changes too dramatically. I also felt that the inclusion of new 'undesirable' characteristics was rushed, leaving the LGBT and disability elements of the novel sorely lacking and feeling more like a token gesture than anything with any substance behind it. There's also a difference between 'flawed' characters, which are really interesting, and straight out 'evil' caricatures, which aren't. And I felt like many of the characters fell into the latter category by the end. Would I be interested in reading more by Christina Dalcher? Probably. There's certainly real potential here, it just didn't quite follow through on it for the second half of the novel.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for my free review copy of this title.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC.

Another view of how society could go if Black Mirror really came to life. While this was very compelling, both Dalcher's novels to date have been based on a main protagonist of a mother of a nuclear family. It would be nice to see a viewpoint outside that perspective.

Q (also known as Master Class) is the latest dystopian novel from Christina Dalcher, author of Vox. The book is set in a world in which perfection and intelligence is everything and these qualities are monitored through ‘Q Scores’. The main character, Elena Fairchild is a teacher in one of the silver (top) schools, she’s beautiful, clever and, of course, has a high ‘Q Score’ much like her husband Malcolm who also happens to be a government official with a great amount of power to yield. Their daughter Anne also has an outstanding ‘Q Score’, their youngest daughter Freddie, however, isn’t quite as gifted and when she fails her exam, she’s kicked out of the middle green school and shipped off on a yellow bus to a yellow, state boarding school. All Elena wants is to get her daughter back by any means and she soon concocts a plan she hopes will work.

This terrifyingly possible novel by Christina Dalcher is a work of fiction, however, the themes and ideas highlighted in this work run parallel with the early movement of American Eugenics which strived to improve the genetic quality of the American population, and the later similar movements in Nazi Germany. Through stories told by Elena’s Oma, who grew up in Nazi Germany, and through Elena’s own journey to rescue her daughter, the reader soon learns more and more about the similarities in this fictional world to those of the American Eugenics Movement and Nazi Germany.

The parallels are portrayed by the author through the colour coded tier systems, immigration restrictions and the colour coded armbands used in the state schools which represent the classification systems used in Nazi Concentration Camps to show groups such as people from LGBTQIA+ community, specific religions such as Jews and Jehovah’s Witnesses, travellers, and other ‘non-conformists’. What’s more, as the story comes to its shocking conclusion, we see many characters excusing their grim actions with the simple idea that they were ‘just following instructions’ an idea that was often heard after World War Two.

This thought-provoking and chilling narrative also provides a necessary education for the reader in some of the horrific solutions that were previously used by the American Eugenics Program to try and improve the genetic quality including euthanasia and sterilisation. As the author points out in the notes at the end of the novel, this awful part of American history is so rarely talked about or taught in history classes, and while many American citizens may be aware of what went on in Nazi Germany, they may be unaware that this movement was actually inspired, in part, by what went on in America prior to World War Two.

What’s more, through this narrative, Christina Dalcher examines the influence of prejudice by showing the impact of prejudice-based bullying or distancing on groups such as those from poorer backgrounds, those from different religions or ethnic backgrounds and those whose academic intelligence doesn’t meet the criteria. Dalcher also highlights the often prejudice way society still sees women and single mothers by showing them in this narrative as being viewed as less competent parents, even if, like Elena, they would lay their life on the line for their children.

Christina Dalcher’s Q is a truly frightening dystopian novel which remains plausible enough with links to the current state of affairs where society is still judging people based on race, gender, sexuality, class, religion and many other factors, throughout to make it all the more terrifying. While it is slow to start as the author starts to embed the themes of American Eugenics and Nazi Germany into the mind of the reader, once the action properly begins the pace continues to climb until it meets its dark and horrifying climax.

Having previously read Vox, by the same author, Q relates to IQ (my interpretation) and essentially if a child is deemed of a low Q then they're not worthy. How very judgemental. You follow Elena's story as she breaks the mould and decides that certain government-led schemes are not working. You learn her reasoning behind her actions because she has two daughters who are very different.

Although a work of fiction, you do believe that it could easily be a scenario in the world we live in today. Sad really! Many blurbs and reviews describe Q as Dystopian but if I'm being honest that's probably a little harsh on the sense that I don't think it's that extreme, some people may disagree.

All in all, I did enjoy the novel. It's thought-provoking and makes you wonder about the world we live in, especially as a female.

It was very similar to Vox in story and structure, characters and other. However, that might have been the intention as I can see Vox and Q part of a.collective of books that can be read standalone but are associated.

As a huge fan of feminist dystopian novels and having enjoyed the discussion around Vox last year, I was curious to read Christina Dalcher's new novel, Q. Imagine a world where you're judged, categorised and oppressed by your IQ. It defines who you are, which school you can attend, where you will live, which occupation you will hold.
Eurgh. No thanks! :) The story follows Elena Fairchild, a teacher at an exclusive 'Silver' school, and mother to two daughters, one of whom is a literal golden girl (and daddy's girl) of the regime, the other who is struggling at school...

What I really enjoy about Christina Dalcher's writing is that you can tell the subjects she writes about are her great passions. Her social media becomes dedicated to that topic, and the writing delves deeper into this than any other element. With Vox, it was Dalcher's background in linguistics; with Q, it is an interest in [the horrors of] eugenics. I sometimes find the characters a little flat, or the thriller aspects of the story a bit convenient, but there's no doubting these are big, scary themes set in small, angry worlds, and we need fiction like that more than ever.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the advance copy.

These Q numbers now run lives. It dictates which line you stand in at the grocery store, whether you can have petrol or shop at the hardware store. Those that at one time were the most popular, the cheerleaders and football stars, now amount to nothing more than frustrated folks unable to do what those that they no doubt used to pick on now can. Why, because they do not have the right level of IQ.

The pressure of gaining the highest IQ possible is extreme.

Years ago, your mother would wake you by shouting to you up the stairs to get a move on before you missed the bus, now the smart ones make sure they have set multiple alarms in order to be on time because missing a bus to school is too costly. Imagine that; being late for school could mean you lose valuable IQ points and in a society where this dictates your entire future it is not something that any child wants.

Mixed ability schools are also a thing of the past. Now different coloured school buses arriving to collect their cargo, but not all are welcome. You don’t want to see a yellow bus trundle down the street. Get on that and you may not be seen again for a while. Those living in the right neighbourhoods with intelligent children of course only ever see the green and silver buses where the drivers smile as the children embark.

Then imagine having two children with two drastically different capabilities.

This is exactly Elena Fair’s concern. Her oldest daughter Anne is naturally gifted and easily passes the tests. Frédérica, or Freddie, on the other hand, is completely different. She is a young girl of just nine years old who clearly struggles with the god awful weekly tests that all children are required to take. The problem is if she fails to attend and her score is too low, she will be riding on that hated yellow bus.

“Frédérica Fairchild, nine years old, sweet as sugar, no problems or hang-up aside from the problems and hang-up of any girl her age. She spikes a mean volleyball, gives Malcolm a run for his money at chess, loves everything except Brussels sprouts. But here she is, terrified because it’s testing day.”

The problem is, every time Elena tries to bring the topic of scoring up with her husband Malcolm and the way it makes her feel, she hits a brick wall. You see, unfortunately for Elena her husband is the man who invented the tier system and the Q rankings.

At first, when they were at college together, Elena and Malcolm used a similar sort of scoring system to decide who they wanted to mix with and who, they hoped in later life, would struggle. As you can tell, they were not sporty or popular and it became a way of protecting themselves against the bullies and the popular kids. They saw themselves as superior, as people who were more likely to succeed in the world. At the time they thought it would be a wonderful way for the country to run, but little did they know it would become the thing that would ruin them.

Perhaps if not for Freddie, Elena would not have seen a problem with the way IQ dictated their lives – but even for those that created the system, they are not immune or exempt.

Unfortunately for both Freddie and Elena their worst fears are realised the day the big yellow bus drives down their street and waits outside for Freddie to climb aboard. With no way of controlling the outcome, Elena can only watch as her tearful daughter is whisked away to who-knows-where with the knowledge that it may be some time before she sees her again.

It’s only then that Elena wants to know more.

What is really happening in these bottom tiered schools?

Schools that are so far away parents are unable to visit more than once a month and even if they did want to visit more frequently they are penalised and lose Q points. And for that matter, why are they so far away? Elena has heard it’s because of cost but is that really the case?

Suddenly passionate to find out the truth behind these schools, Elena takes off in search of answers knowing that it will lower not only her Q points but also that of her entire family and in doing so will destroy everything she once held dear.

Q by Christina Dalcher is about American Eugenics and segregating people depending on their IQ. From the author of VOX.

My Thoughts on Q by Christina Dalcher
Whilst extreme, the theme of segregation in this novel really does highlight that as a society we are still very judgemental of people today. School systems still rely heavily on testing and scores which don’t always play to the strength of the individual and can leave them feeling deflated. We are still far too quick to place success on a number rather than on a person’s individual merits, even though successful people try to highlight that it is not IQ but determination and imagination that leads to triumph.

We wouldn’t have the ability to fly around the world if it wasn’t for the Wright Brothers but they never graduated from high school. Richard Branson dropped out of school at the age of 16 but has succeeded in writing numerous books and has become a household name with the Virgin empire, Milton Hershey dropped out of school but then created a well-known chocolate brand, and Einstein dropped out of school at 15.

This novel does go one step further than simple segregation though; it also explores the concept of breeding for an improved world. This concept was introduced to America back in the 1880s by Sir Francis Galton when he started the American Eugenics Movement which looked at improving biological genes to create a human race known as the ‘well-born’. This led to a mass sterilisation project in the US which continued into the 1970s where more than 60,000 individuals were sterilised either because of a disability or because they were part of a socially disadvantaged group and was also adopted by the Nazis during World War II.

For anyone interested in knowing more about this awful episode in American history Michael D’Antonio wrote The State Boys Rebellion, which conveys the shocking truth about a state-run school in Massachusetts during the 1940s.

Christina Dalcher has written a gripping narrative that explores something most people could never envisage living through and yet for some it has already happened, we are just too naive to realise it. It may be classed as a dystopian thriller but for me, it represents a world that we could easily become because we live in a world hell-bent on creating the ultimate race. As humans, we spend so long striving to be better than everyone else that we fail to see that everyone is successful in their own right.

Q is a novel that has made me personally reflect on the way others are viewed. Even if we don’t like to admit it we live in a world with a class system in place, where some races are seen, by some at least, as more important than others and where some lives seem to matter more than others. You have to challenge why we haven’t moved forward in our judgemental thinking.

If you want a thought-provoking, emotive read, Q by Christina Dalcher, author of VOX, will both shock and terrify you.

Another brilliant dystopian fiction by Dalcher, adding to an incredible collection of these terrifying and all to real texts

I hate the author's first book, Vox, so I thought I'd give her another go, and this one is better, but honestly not by much.
This dystopia involves a world where 'stupid' children get sent away to schools out in the back of beyond where their families can't see them. The heroine of our book has two daughters, one smart, one not, and gets herself reclassified (as a stupid teacher) so as to be with her 'stupid' child.
One thing I don't like about Dalcher's books, in both, the protagonist is married to a man she hates. Not only a man she hates, but a man who is against everything she stands for, a powerful man in the government, and is actually behind the scheme that is destroying her world. And you have to wonder why these strong, smart women don't do anything until it's too late.
There are some interesting ideas here, but it's hard for the reader to root for anyone, and therefore to care.

This really was a thought-provoking read.
It plays with the concept of a class system fed by a person's IQ in this instance it’s named Q.
This number is where you are placed in society.
Your privileges and choices heavily reliant on this and it can be affected just by taking a sick day or arriving late for work.
This then takes us even further down the rabbit hole enabling prenatal screening for pregnant mothers thus encouraging selective breeding and even a force that governs suitable parenting meaning anything deemed undesirable you are at risk of judgement by the powers that be.
Children are also separated and placed into 3 camps silver, green and yellow.
So here Elena seemingly is living a perfect life.
Her husband Malcolm works for the board of education and she herself is a teacher of sciences at a silver school.
Her teenage daughter Anne has a high Q and excels but her youngest daughter Frankie struggles with anxiety and is only barely managing to maintain her scores for a place at a green school.
When she fails the latest rounds of tests and get demoted to yellow status she is shipped off to board at a school in Kansas.
Elena taking drastic action to help her daughter stumbles on the truth and What she finds shocks her to the core.
There is way more going on than simple IQ and it soon becomes apparent that to save her daughter she needs to expose the shocking truth.
This also analysis’s Elena’s past actions bringing them to the forefront and showing just how easy it is to be sucked into this elitist mindset.
That we all have the potential for undesirable quality’s and prejudices buried within and all it requires is the correct set of circumstances to unleash them.
This really made you think and reflect and the ending for this was also very bittersweet.
Unfortunately, I did actually struggle to connect with the characters involved and never felt I got to know them on any deeper level here.
My disconnect was such that I didn’t even connect with Elena herself and this was written from her POV.
Despite the above I did appreciate this it was well written but I found it a tad depressing and I wasn’t really invested in the unfolding story.
This gets its 3 stars mostly because it was a solid and unique read and it imparted a deeper message.
I voluntarily reviewed a copy of Q.

This read like it could have been an episode of Black Mirror, and I really enjoyed it. If you're a dystopian fan then this may be a good one for you!

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…

Now, I love the dystopian genre, so I was very intrigued by this as the premise sounded fantastic. It turned out to be a very thought-provoking read.
There were so many big themes raised: equality, family, women's rights, and eugenics. It was horrifying in parts as it felt like it was totally believable. Yes, there were a few bits that were a tad far-fetched, but the political message was very well-translated overall.
I did feel that the middle parts lagged a bit, and I found myself losing interest in the story. However, the pace picked up again, and I was wholly satisfied with the remaining half.

I haven't read anything else by this author, but given how much I enjoyed this, I'll definitely be checking out her other work!

Many thanks to the author, publisher, and Netgalley for sending me a copy of this book in return for an honest review.

3.5 stars

A thought provoking dystopian book about how everyone’s life is dictated by their Quotient (Q), a score determined at or even before birth. Drawing similarities with IQ scores, people with a higher Q receive better education, work better jobs, and just all-round have a better life. It definitely was a book that I didn’t want to put down, till about ⅔ of the way in. The action didn’t slow as per-se, but I just lost interest. It became slightly too far fetched, but I really was interested in the reasoning of Q and the parallels that they drew to real life events in the early 20th century. It reminded me a bit of the “Black Mirror” episode “Nosedive”.

Wow totally thought provoking and gripping which really made me think think....set in a world which had familiar tones about control and inequality. Really good

I really enjoyed Vox by Christina Dalcher and this book didn't disappoint either. Q is a very thought provoking book. There are already complaints that we test our children currently to the umteenth degree. The author has taken this further where not only children but adults are tested. Depending on their scores it can affect what jobs are available, which schools you go to and what social standing you have. What happens then to people/children who cannot achieve this?? What would people do to have a perfect world? Can society be changed?

Another excellent book by this author and I look forward eagerly to the next subject she explores.

I've read Christina Dalcher's other critically acclaimed (and perhaps a touch controversial) book Vox. Q felt very much like more of the same. More drama, more oppression, another view of our world pushed to a more extreme version. This time, instead of women being silenced, Q is about how dividing children into schools based on intelligence/aptitude/test results can go horribly wrong. Test results are used to segregate away not only the less academically capable but those that society deems undesirable - the poor, the downtrodden, those that are not white or straight.

Q, like Vox, features a woman with a disappointing husband who is complicit in the churning system of oppression. Elena Fairchild is a teacher and has two kids: the elder, Anna, is clever and motivated and doing fine at school; the younger, Freddy, is not quite so academically inclined. When Freddy is shipped off to a school that is little better than a prison that uses the kids as free labour, Elena decides to follow her.

Q is a fine book. Thematically and in terms of characters - particularly the leading lady and the relationships she has with her family - it felt a lot like Vox. Reading it felt like playing a remake of a video game that has some slight changes. On its own terms, Q had what I felt was a very rushed ending, and it spent very little time in the school that Freddy gets shipped off to. This surprised me as from the synopsis I thought that this would be the key focal point of the novel.

If you liked Vox, you will like Q.