The Burnouts by Lex Thomas

Series: Quarantine (bk. 3)

Genera: Dystopian Sci-fi

Subjects: survival, gangs, cliques, high school, quarantines, viruses, diseases

Setting: Pale Ridge, Colorado, inside a high school building

POV/Tense: 3^rd person POV: David, Lucy and Will

Age/Grade Level: Teens 15+

Length: 264 pgs.

HC/PB: Hardcover

List Price: $17.99

Publisher: Egmont

Summary/ product description: “Lord of the Flies in a 21st-century high school setting.Welcome to Quarantine 3: The Burnouts , where readers of The Maze Runner, Gone, and Divergent go when they're hungry for more dark, compelling survival stories.

When an explosion rocks David and Will's suburban high school one morning, a deadly virus is unleashed on the school. After a year of quarantine, with no adults around, the students have created their own society. All of the social cliques have developed into gangs-The Nerds, The Geeks, The Freaks, The Sluts, The Skaters, The Burnouts, The Pretty Ones, and The Varsity-and each gang provides a service with which they can barter for provisions. Without a gang, it's almost impossible to secure food, water, territory, or supplies. In the final installment in the Quarantine trilogy, the brothers are reunited on the Outside and it appears as if, for once everything is going right. But inside the school, Lucy is alone with no gang and no hope, until the Burnouts welcome her into their filthy arms.”

My Review:  The finale book in the Quarantine trilogy, The Burnouts makes for a thrilling dramatic and sometimes horrifying conclusion to this dystopia series. I enjoyed it even when I was disgusted by it. It’s been a gruesome and gritty ride and I doubt I’ll even read another series quite like it. It’s so fast paced/page tuner. It’s realistic and horribly so.

At the end of the previous book, we find out the David is still alive. Will has graduated and the virus has left his body. Lucy is still stuck inside the school, still infected. She used to be part of the Loners, and then part of the Sluts, and now she’s nothing. She feels so alone that she ends up joining the Burnout and getting high on gasoline. Will and David heard there’s a cure to the virus, but decided to go back into McKinley to get Lucy out of there. They’ve got gas masks on and the virus can kill them.

I don’t want to spoil how this final book ends, so I won’t give away the plot. We do get to see what’s going on out side the school and how the country is handling it. I will say that it’s everything you’d expect and want in a conclusion from the series. There are twist and death and character that act psycho. There’s disgusting descriptions that’s make you puke a little if you actually try to picture what’s being described. It’s the kind of situation that you wouldn’t want to be it, but yet sound cool. The different gangs/cliques are almost like factions.

If you haven’t read this series yet, you might like this series if you enjoyed: No Safety in Numbers by Dayna Lorentz, Monument 14 by Emmy Laybourne (Also set in Colorado like this book), Variant and Feedback by Robison Wells, Maze Runner by James Dashner, the Gone series by Michael Grant, Divergent by Veronica Roth, or The Hunger Games series. It’s also like Lord of the Flies or Battle Royale, too. Dystopian fiction in general, you should read this.

Cover Art Review: That pool is so gross. Ew. Fits the series, though.