I would like to thank HQ, Netgalley and Christina Dalcher for the opportunity to read and review this book.

Wow what can I say this was a shocking and sometimes uncomfortable read but brilliant. This is a very thought provoking story set in America in the future. Q is a test the students have to take to decide if they are good enough to stay at the school or that they go on the Yellow bus to a state school leaving their families. Where we find out why they are there.

3.5 stars.
As someone who has been meaning to read Vox, from the same author, I was definitely intrigued when I saw that Q was being released. And even though I'm not normally drawn to these kinds of stories, I was willing to step out of my comfort zone to do so.
The premise immediately piqued my interest and the fact that I could easily imagine this dystopian fiction being a reality was scarily on point and makes you want to keep reading.
There is no doubt that this can be a difficult read at times, given the subject matter.but it is also quite slow in places, which was a little frustrating.
I also didn't feel like I empathised with any of the characters enough to truly care what happened to them.
And sadly the ending felt rushed, after all the build up, which is why it went from being a 4 star read for me to a 3.5 star one.
I would, however, be interested in reading more from the author in the future.
Thank you to Netgalley for providing me with an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for allowing me to review this book.

An excellent story and well told.

Please note that this book is not for me - I have read the book, However I had to DNF and because i do not like to give negative reviews I will not review this book fully - there is no specific reason for not liking this book. I found it a struggle to read and did not enjoy trying to force myself to read this book.

Apologies for any inconvenience caused and thank you for the opportunity to read this book

Christina Dalcher has gone and done it again!! Another engrossing, scarily realistic and believable dystopian to get our hands on! Q is the set in a future America where an individual's intelligence determines their value to society and their 'tier' (class in society). Adults are tested regularly in their jobs, school kids are regularly tested in a variety of subjects, and even foetuses are tested! The results of these tests can be literally fatal in some cases. Everyone hopes to get the best results, the best Q, which would enable them to live more freely and more comfortably in society, and enable them to have good career options.
Elena Fairchild is married to the infamous Malcolm Fairchild, the creator of the Q system, and they live with their daughters in relative luxury and safety. However, things start to unravel for the family when the youngest Daughter Freddie fails her latest round of testing and is immediately demoted to being a 'yellow card' holder, which is basically the lowest tier meaning she will be removed from her parents and sent to live at a refugee type labour camp. She will spend her days farming and have very low prospects for life with very minimal contact with her family. Malcolm is not bothered in the slightest that this has happened, except maybe that it is an embarrassment to him, but Elena can't just let her baby girl be taken away from her. So she decides to fail her own Teacher testing the next day to try and gain a place in the labour camp with her Daughter and attempt to rescue her and bring her home.
There are very strong Nazi themes running through the book with characters having links to the Hitler Youth and glorifying the Aryan ideas. For me, this all made the idea of a Q type system more believable and I could actually see how society could get there and justify it. It freaked me out just thinking about the possibilities.
As with other similar dystopian stories this is more of a slow burn, long world building type of book. Don't go into it expecting some big action, you will be disappointed. It's more of a gradual build up and explanation of how things are and how they came to be but fans of this type of creeping, mind bending storyline will love it.

I received this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest, independent review.

"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…"

'Q' is a deeply chilling dystopian novel about a world where your Q level, your quotient level, affects your schooling, your relationships, your life.

The book was powerful and very thought-provoking. The tension rose throughout the book, and at times I felt very on edge and uncomfortable, but just had to keep reading.

I liked the characters of Elena and her children, but really disliked her husband Malcolm, who made me squirm and feel uncomfortable at times in his treatment of Elena and their youngest daughter.

A great concept and a real page-turner.

After reading Vox I knew I had to read this! wow couldn't put it down, read it in twenty four hours. Dalcher produced another book set in a dystopian society that I hope never ever comes to fruition. Terrifying but engrossing. Highly recommend.

I liked this for most part but I thought that this would be better than it was I did find that after all the build up, the pay off was much weaker than expected. The premise was really promising and I liked some of the elements this explores but this just missed the mark for me. The characters were fine but I thought the husband was too 2-d and far too irritating as he started at the highest drama point he could meaning he could not develop at all.

Thankyou NetGalley and Harper Collins for the opportunity to read Q by Christina Dalcher.

Q is a terrifying thriller that demands you’re attention. I read it in one sitting this afternoon and whilst it shocked and made me distinctly uncomfortable, I couldn’t tear myself away from it.
The story has foundations in the Eugenics movement of the early 20th century and its application by the Nazis during WWII. It is set in America in what feels like the near future, a society that demands perfection and aims to discard anything or anyone that does not mean this predetermined level and your Q score (Quotient i.e. educational, intellectual professional performance level) dictates where you are on this scale, dictating your place in society, your whole life.

The Q score is assessed from conception to the end of life, it determines which school you attend - silver, green and yellow categories and if your child is sent to a yellow school, they are taken away from you and shipped off in a yellow school bus to a state institution.

Our protagonist, Dr Elena Fischer Fairchild is married to Malcolm (Deputy Secretary of Education,) and has 2 daughters, Anne (16), a Q9.3 Silver school student and Freddie (9), an anxious, struggling Q8.3 Green school student.

The story focuses on what happens when Freddie gets a Q7.9 in her monthly test and is demoted to a Yellow school and the events that follow this. Elena is a loving mother forced to make some of the hardest and most difficult choices a mother could ever have to make. Alongside these events, the story confronts Elena and Malcolm’s failed marriage, the coercive and controlling nature of their relationship, including flashbacks that bring understanding and clarity to the choices Elena made in the past, including her decision to marry Malcolm.

This story brings to life how easily society can evolve into this again; It is human nature that like is attracted to like and the unknown or unfamiliar is something to be afraid of or feel superior to...even now there are tranches in society globally that do believe this. This story reinforces just how important it is to fight against this and to fight for equality, freedom and love.

“It makes me wonder whether we’re born with bigotry in our blood or if hatred has to be taught.”

Q is a story that reminds us of the importance of history, of never forgetting the dreadful events and actions of the past and ensuring they are not repeated.

Elena is the protagonist, mother, centre and heroine of this story. She is eminently believable and compels empathy and is a role model and true inspiration for fighting with all you have body and soul for what is right.

This is an amazing book that has totally flown into my 2020 top 5!

Christine Dalcher has done it again with another fantastic, yet terrifying novel, 'Q' (also published as Master Class I believe).

'Q' is set in a society where everyone is measured and judged according to their Q, aka their quotient. This measurement is particularly important on each child's education, as their Q is based on their intelligence (along with other, hidden factors), which determines which colour-tiered school he/she then goes to. Q is tested every first Friday of the month, which means that the pressure is constantly on children to perform well. According to the government, this ensures that perfection is achieved as teachers can focus on the high-achieving students, rather than being stretched and underfunded due to the previous 'no child gets left behind' movement. The lowest scorers get sent away from home to the yellow-tiered boarding schools, in which they don't actually receive an education at all.

Elena, a mother to two daughters, is all for this educational reform, especially as her husband is a high-up member in the government's Education department and eldest daughter, Anne, is the model student with a constantly high Q. However, when her youngest daughter, Freddie, receives a low Q and gets sent to a yellow school, Elena is made to readjust her entire perspective towards the educational system.

Forget ghosts and demons; I think is is one of the most terrifying topics because I can actually visualise it being real! In fact, the author highlights recommended reading based on similar historic events, which I am definitely going to do. I don't normally react emotionally to books, but, for the second time, the author has stirred up real feelings of anger and despair in me!

For these reasons, I wouldn't hesitate to recommend this book (or Dalcher's previous novel, VOX).

This book wasn't quite what I was expecting. I was expecting it to be more a sci-fi dystopian thriller. As it turns out it was more of a real life thriller. The book paints a believable picture of how we could get from here to there and also of how similar things have happened in the past. The ending wasn't as strong as it could be but never the less I would recommend reading this book in order to understand how situations like this can and do occur in the world.

This is a fascinating dystopian novel that I can totally imagine happening for real, which is pretty scary. The events in this book were awful, and I felt really bad for Freddie and Elena throughout. I absolutely despised Malcolm, he was a horrible man. Having said that, it kinda felt like not a lot happened. Regardless, it was a pretty interesting book and the ending was both sad and pleasing.

The concept behind Q is fascinating and I was really excited to read this book. A dystopian society where everybody was defined by a score? Yes please. I felt like I was going into a Black Mirror episode when I first started this book and I dove in head first.

Although the Q score was really interesting, not to mention a terrifyingly realistic concept, I didn't find that there was much else about this book that I cared about. I couldn't relate to our main character in any way and that meant I had a big disconnect between wanting to love the book and how I really felt about it.

The book did take a turn around 70% in, where I was intrigued for a while, but it didn't last and I found myself struggling to get to the end of the book.

At the end of the book, I was left with a lot of thoughts to process about our own society and the way we view people. If the concept of this book intrigues you at all, I would highly recommend reading other reviews as I've seen many really positive ones from people who absolutely adored this book. It just wasn't my cup of tea.

I really loved VOX so I was super excited to read this and my expectations were high. This book saw my expectations and laughed.

This book is phenomenal for a whole bunch of reasons that individually would make a book good and all together make a book amazing.

1. it challenges your opinions, i loved how it took a fairly common opinion 'the education system is broken' and pushes it just that wee bit further and then a wee bit further still. It really made me think about what education is, wither education and academic success are the same or if education has a wider remit.

2. The characters are fantastic. every single one of them i could picture because they are all real and I guarantee that you will see people you know in there and you may even see yourself.

3. the 'now' of it. One of the scariest things is that I can totally see the seeds of this happening now and in 5 years, who knows where we will be.

4. it's just a really well written, well researched book that rips along.

Q is intriguing
Q is scary
Q is very well written

But wasn’t for me

A 100% dystopian thriller, Q is about everyones Q rating, basically your intelligence level and exam pass level that affects schooling, employment and everything in life

Elena is a teacher in the prestigious ‘Silver’ schools and has 1 daughter with a very good Q level and 1 who fails to get the required grade and gets moved to a ‘Yellow’ school, these schools are in cheaper areas, sometimes thousands of miles away and new rules mean parents can only visit for 5 hours a term, they even have different buses to ferry the kids around in, they are everything the Silver schools aren’t, it turns out there is much scandal behind these ‘Yellow’ schools
Elena has had enough and decides to get herself moved from her Silver school to her daughters yellow school where she starts to realise all is not as it should be
It doesn’t help that her husband is one of the creators of Q and this school system, their relationship is broken and the interaction between them is a joy ( as its so awful )

I think my problem, as was with The Handmaids Tale TV show is the belief that America would allow this, that they would just entertain their kids being taken off as, basically, they are being branded as thick
Saying that I probably said similar re books in the past that included a worldwide pandemic and lockdown

But this book is good, the writing powerful, the characters severe and play their roles well and it caused a lot of thought whilst reading, it just wasn’t for me but I am giving it a mark as deserves and am sure many will really enjoy it

8/10
4 Stars

The more I read of Christina Dalcher’s books the more I need. She writes these amazing dystopian novels that are just so uncomfortably close to reality that it makes me uncomfortable just reading them but then I can’t put them down. I think I did enjoy Vox just a fraction more overall but the ending to Q is utterly heartbreaking and completely unexpected. I can’t wait to read the next one she writes.

'Q' is an utterly absorbing book. It is a dystopian novel set in the near future that references real world history. The novel is fast paced and far more plausible than I'm happy with given the sinister plot. There is a lot to like in this book, but I particularly loved the way Dalcher wove the story of Elena's past throughout the novel. It tied together our past with the novel's present in a very satisfying way. Well worth reading.

I think that this will be a very difficult read for some people, but those are the people that might most benefit from it. It deals with a near-future reality that I could almost picture actually coming about. What happens when the nerds inherit the Earth, but not all of the nerds in charge are benevolent?

The story follows the teacher Elena Fairchild. Her husband Malcolm is a a higher-up member of the Department of Education. The pre-university schooling in the United States has been separated into three tiers. The Silver schools are reserved for the academic elite. If a child isn't not good enough to attend there, he or she will go to a Green school. Then there's the Yellow Bus. If the child can't hack it in the other two schools, they're required to board the Yellow Bus that takes them to one of the state-run boarding schools.

Elena teaches in one of the Silver schools, the one her eldest daughter Anne attends. Her younger daughter attends a Green school. At least for now. If they score too low on their monthly tests, they'll be dropped to the lower school. As could be expected, things don't always proceed as the main characters might hope. But just how far down does this rabbit hole go?

The novel portrays a world that seems relatively logical and reasonable on the face of it, but of course there's always something sinister going on (or there wouldn't be an interesting story). The sinister bits of this book are particularly horrifying. If you have any knowledge of history, you'll be chilled to the bone reading about a plausible scenario such as this.

One of my problems with this book is that anybody familiar with history will see things going on well in advance of the main character. I would have thought that someone with as much education as Elena would have figured some of this stuff out earlier than she does.

The other problem is a tendency to repeat certain topics one too many times. An example of this is a particular flashback that gets repeated only a few chapters after it's first introduced. Yes, the first time around is setting it up for a reveal of sorts later, and I think that might work in a more cinematic presentation, but I think the repetition is wasted in a novel.

All in all, a very good read. It might take a few chapters to get into it, but once you do, you'll be swept into it and enjoy yourself.

I recently read Vox by Christina Dalcher and was suitably horrified by the world that she created in that story so I was eager to see what else she could do and boy was I impressed.

Q is a dystopian story that managed to scare me senseless. Dalcher’s take on society and eugenics was genuinely terrifying. I think more so because it has happened before and because in the society in which we live I can very easily see happening again if we aren’t careful.

Elena’s story of a mother’s love is at the heart of Q and makes you ache with what she is going through. You love and loathe characters with such ferocity and I think, in Elena’s husband Malcolm, Dalcher has created a villain that I hate nearly as much as I hate Dolores Umbridge in Harry Potter.

I think that this book hit home for me because I work in a school and ranking systems are used. Not in the sinister way that are featured in Q but it is something that I am used to seeing. Who is to say that this dystopian ideal is not to be put in place in the future?

Q by Christina Dalcher is available now.

For more information regarding HQ (@HQstories) please visit www.hqstories.co.uk.

Reading a dystopian book set in the not so far future at this time was a little surreal really but Christina Dalcher has managed to write a book that seems so realistic and only a few steps away from where we are already are that it's almost a horror book.

If you're a fan of the tv show Black Mirror, or fiction that has a grounding in historical events than this one is definitely for you. There are references to Nazis/concentration camps/asylums which are as hard to read about in this book as any other so bare that in mind if those are things you chose to avoid.

The authors notes at the end sum it up perfectly for me and I think you will get a sense of the book by reading it too; "if the references in this novel disturb you then I have done my job because these events are disturbing."

The book itself is fast paced and interesting from start to finish. I felt engaged the entire time and found myself reading for easily an hour at a time and putting it down just to pick it straight back up. It's a hard one to review without giving too much away but it's a definite 5/5 stars for me.