Q
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3 months free
Q
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Narrated by:
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Lisa Flanagan
About this listen
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....
©2020 Christina Dalcher (P)2020 HarperCollins Publishers LimitedListeners also enjoyed...
Critic reviews
"Like all the best dystopian fiction, Q takes the reader just a pace or two beyond where we're already at. This is a sharply written and terrifyingly plausible tale of an education system where less than perfect is a life-threatening condition.... I devoured it in a single day." (Louise Candlish)
"Shocking and a powerful tale exploring themes of survival and superficiality." (Cosmopolitan)
"Christina Dalcher is fast becoming one of my favourite authors. It's a master class in dark dystopian fiction, clever, thought-provoking, beautifully written and terrifyingly believable." (Alice Feeney)
Not the worst listen
Much like VOX
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wow!
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Gripping
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I binged this book - listened to it almost all in one sitting. The narrator was perfect and set the tone so well.
As others have said - like Vox, this is fantasy but you can see how it isn’t completely impossible that the worlds Dalcher create may come true one day.
Dalcher does it again!
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It's OK! Maybe better as an intro to genre?
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A picture of where the world could end unless we are all vet vigilant.
A book you must read
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Not a world for me
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Scary, thrilling, and unnerving, this is story is well told by Lisa Flanagan. I highly recommend you set a day aside and absorb the events as they unfold.
Excellent!
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Vox was terrifying. A world too close to our own, as dark as you can get, and impossible to forget. On the basis of that, I was always prepared to read Dalcher's next without knowing anything about it. And she clearly has a head full of black thoughts about our society and where we are heading. Another dystopian world awaits readers, one in which genetic screening through to a child's education determines and separates their potential, their Q (Quotient) score. Similar to an IQ, young people are segregated and judged based on their number, which are tested regularly.
Nobody will not see the parallels between this civilisation and their own - standardised testing, , teaching to the test, the class system of the private and grammar schools. Elena Fairchild works in one of the most elite schools, catering to those with the highest Q scores, given the most money and resources and whose students are destined for the highest positions and satisfying, privileged lives.
Her eldest daughter breezes through her lessons and every test, apple of her Department for Education executive father's eye. Their youngest though, has always found herself close to moving down a Q category, and one month the inevitable happens. The immediate consequences of this causes friction within Elena and between her and Malcolm.
We follow Elena's realisations as she sees the system she has been a part of for so long for what it is for so many. As a mother, her instincts trump any loyalties elsewhere and readers are taken along with her as she delves into just what her society decrees is permissible for those deemed intellectually subservient.
Vox may have the edge on Q (also called Master Class) slightly, but it's a wakeup call nevertheless in a system based on test scores alone. Elena proves herself the fiercest and bravest of mothers, and her world is one just a shade away from our own, too easy to picture.
Elena's voice comes across powerfully in the Audible version, it's a perfect book for listening to. Her narration makes this immediate and gripping. Malcolm, and the history of their relationship that Elena gradually shares with us are both intriguing, dark and enlightening. How their marriage fares with the trajectory of their daughters is shocking. And seeing the past brings its own illumination.
Dalcher is a new generation's Atwood, with an instinct for mirroring the contemporary world in a dystopian-esque reflection. I can't wait to see what she holds up to our faces next.
With thanks to Nudge Books for providing a sample Audible copy.
Another powerful dystopian world from Dalcher
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Only a whisper away from reality.
Scary.
A truly harrowing tale.
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