*based on an ARC edition
Well...very rarely am I forced to write a truly negative review, and I am disappointed that this is the one for which I must write one. I loved the first two books of the Quarantine trilogy, The Loners and The Saints, respectively. The trilogy follows the aftermath of a virus that affects only teenagers, in the sense that they carry a disease that makes them deadly to adults. Instantly deadly. So when the virus breaks from a lab, carried by one boy, our main characters are locked into a quarantine inside their high school. Over two years pass in the span of the trilogy and what occurs puts Lord of the Flies to shame. The kids break into gangs; these include the Freaks, the Geeks, the Varsity, the Pretty Ones, the Sluts, and the Loners, kids who couldn't find a gang but made one of their own. There are other kids that have kind of gone insane and live in the ruins of the school with the dead and refuse. As expected the Varsity and the Pretty Ones rule the school, and they do it violently. There is sex, murder, beatings, cruelty, and horror throughout the books, but I thought the first two did a very impressive job. The main three characters are two brothers, David and Will, who have always had a kind of strained relationship mostly due to their shared affection of Lucy. David has been taken out of the picture after the first book, as the kids who "graduate" (they pass out of the holding of the virus and are now susceptible) leave the school. David always loved Lucy and then Will and Lucy found something too.
And boy did they. The Burnouts is a poor way to end such a promising series. The second book ended with a huge gang fight that killed several important people, leaving Lucy hated and hunted, while Will graduates and is gets a shock upon getting to the outside. But Lucy is pregnant with Will's child and when that news reaches him, he can't leave her inside, so he must risk his life to try to save her- somehow. I mean, she can't actually leave so I don't know exactly why this was an option. This isn't the bad part of the book, though. What was upsetting to me is really just the last few chapters. The adults on the outside have decided to just kill all the teenagers and let God sort them out, and because of that things get "resolved" in a messy and too fast way. Two of the main people survive and it seemed to me the one who bought it was the worst kind of deus ex machina. Plus despite living as monsters for two years, none of the very real consequences of their actions was ever addressed in some kind of epilogue; no tying up ends of any kind. And finally, the ending was so abrupt and silly I kept trying to swipe the page on my Kindle, convinced it was broken and there really was more to the ending than that. Authors can make many mistakes when they right, but if you don't write a good ending, the entire thing is toast. Unfortunately this is what happened to The Burnouts.
I would recommend reading this if you are the type that really needs closure, but it will tick you right off. I give it two stars only because I liked the first two as much as I did.
Well...very rarely am I forced to write a truly negative review, and I am disappointed that this is the one for which I must write one. I loved the first two books of the Quarantine trilogy, The Loners and The Saints, respectively. The trilogy follows the aftermath of a virus that affects only teenagers, in the sense that they carry a disease that makes them deadly to adults. Instantly deadly. So when the virus breaks from a lab, carried by one boy, our main characters are locked into a quarantine inside their high school. Over two years pass in the span of the trilogy and what occurs puts Lord of the Flies to shame. The kids break into gangs; these include the Freaks, the Geeks, the Varsity, the Pretty Ones, the Sluts, and the Loners, kids who couldn't find a gang but made one of their own. There are other kids that have kind of gone insane and live in the ruins of the school with the dead and refuse. As expected the Varsity and the Pretty Ones rule the school, and they do it violently. There is sex, murder, beatings, cruelty, and horror throughout the books, but I thought the first two did a very impressive job. The main three characters are two brothers, David and Will, who have always had a kind of strained relationship mostly due to their shared affection of Lucy. David has been taken out of the picture after the first book, as the kids who "graduate" (they pass out of the holding of the virus and are now susceptible) leave the school. David always loved Lucy and then Will and Lucy found something too.
And boy did they. The Burnouts is a poor way to end such a promising series. The second book ended with a huge gang fight that killed several important people, leaving Lucy hated and hunted, while Will graduates and is gets a shock upon getting to the outside. But Lucy is pregnant with Will's child and when that news reaches him, he can't leave her inside, so he must risk his life to try to save her- somehow. I mean, she can't actually leave so I don't know exactly why this was an option. This isn't the bad part of the book, though. What was upsetting to me is really just the last few chapters. The adults on the outside have decided to just kill all the teenagers and let God sort them out, and because of that things get "resolved" in a messy and too fast way. Two of the main people survive and it seemed to me the one who bought it was the worst kind of deus ex machina. Plus despite living as monsters for two years, none of the very real consequences of their actions was ever addressed in some kind of epilogue; no tying up ends of any kind. And finally, the ending was so abrupt and silly I kept trying to swipe the page on my Kindle, convinced it was broken and there really was more to the ending than that. Authors can make many mistakes when they right, but if you don't write a good ending, the entire thing is toast. Unfortunately this is what happened to The Burnouts.
I would recommend reading this if you are the type that really needs closure, but it will tick you right off. I give it two stars only because I liked the first two as much as I did.
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