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The Loners

ebook
1 of 2 copies available
1 of 2 copies available
It was just another ordinary day at McKinley High—until a massive explosion devastated the school. When loner David Thorpe tried to help his English teacher to safety, the teacher convulsed and died right in front of him. And that was just the beginning. A year later, McKinley has descended into chaos. All the students are infected with a virus that makes them deadly to adults. The school is under military quarantine. The teachers are gone. Violent gangs have formed based on high school social cliques. Without a gang, you're as good as dead. And David has no gang. It's just him and his little brother, Will, against the whole school. In this frighteningly dark and captivating novel, Lex Thomas locks readers inside a school where kids don't fight to be popular, they fight to stay alive.
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  • Reviews

    • Publisher's Weekly

      March 5, 2012
      First in the Quarantine trilogy, this debut novel from Thomas, a pseudonym for first-time writers Lex Hrabe and Thomas Voorhies, is a violent and somewhat campy high-concept mashup, tossing Walter Hill’s The Warriors into a high school setting and seeding it with elements of Lord of the Flies. After a biotech disaster unleashes a weaponized disease that creates teenage carriers and kills adults exposed to them, McKinley High is quarantined. A year later, themed gangs—including Varsity, Freaks, Pretty Ones, and Sluts—have formed to fight over a once-a-week food drop from the government. David, an unaffiliated “Scrap,” works with his epileptic younger brother, Will, to get by, and eventually ends up leading his own gang of outsiders after saving the life of an outcast Pretty One named Lucy. The battle between Varsity and the newly christened Loners occasionally gets muddled, and the authors are more interested in high-impact brutality than realism, but the fast and gory action (one trap-filled hallway sequence is particularly memorable) should satisfy the core audience. Ages 14–up. Agent: Mollie Glick, Foundry Literary + Media.

    • School Library Journal

      June 1, 2012

      Gr 9 Up-David's experiences at his typical American high school turn into terror after a huge explosion changes everything. He and the other students watch as their teachers die gruesome deaths, and, when they try to escape, they are fired upon by the military. Weeks later, the canopy that traps them opens to drop supplies, and they are forced to fight tooth and nail to survive. A giant television screen is brought in, projecting a talking head that explains that they are carrying a contagion that only affects prepubescent teens, and so they are under quarantine. Quickly, the students form into gangs to protect one another and to help snap up the food that is delivered via black helicopter every two weeks or so. Sam, whom David attacked at a party while drunk, is the head of the strongest gang, called Varsity, and David ends up leading The Loners. The relationship between David and his brother, Will, may be the best part of this story, but it takes a backseat to the battles and struggle of the rival gangs in this first book in the series. While some of the treatment of girl and boy characters seems a bit cliched, this is a solid choice for teens hooked on the dystopian genre.-Jake Pettit, Thompson Valley High School, Loveland, CO

      Copyright 2012 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Formats

  • Kindle Book
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Languages

  • English

Levels

  • ATOS Level:4.5
  • Lexile® Measure:620
  • Interest Level:9-12(UG)
  • Text Difficulty:2-3

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