Q: An explosive thriller from the bestselling author of VOX

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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.

Elena Fairchild is a teacher at a silver school who is just barely able to contain her seething anger at the entire system and the society it’s built. Her fury boils over when her nine year old daughter Freddie gets sent to a yellow school, amidst a wave of high-performing students suddenly plummeting down the Q scale for no apparent reason. Determined to get to the bottom of what’s really going on, Elena intentionally flunks her teacher evaluations to follow Freddie, and thus uncovers the sinister secret behind the entire Q system. A shameful and part of America's history rears its ugly head and is taken to extremes. Although this is not something I learned from history textbooks, I have read many books about this since I was out of school. It is the best future and now everything is monitored by Q scores. Scores which measure ones IQ, but also includes other socioeconomic indicators, family members performance, and the positions they hold in the work force. But a good premise doesn’t make for a good book. As I’ll explain in a minute, Q’s premise isn’t as strong as it appears at first glance, but that ultimately doesn’t matter because the story built on top of it isn’t great either. Thank you again to the publisher, Harper Collins, for sending me a free copy of Q and giving me an opportunity to share my thoughts on it, particularly after my 1 star review of VOX. I am sad to be giving this one the same. But I think what matters in this book is the consequences of all these people making choices, especially Elena. And sometimes, it may be too late to fix something that has gone out of control.The top tier, prestigious schools, money and social status. Always first in line for everything. Privileged. The best. Perfect. The (only) humans that America wants. To say that Christina Dalcher’s writing astounds me is not enough. The fact is, I cannot do this novel justice. I simply adore her writing. A follow up to “Vox” - I had no idea what I was in for reading “Master Class” all I can say is that it was worth the wait. Dalcher also seems to be somewhat fixated on the usage of the word "it". Her distain for the word appears in both books in exactly the same fashion, although thankfully less so here. In the book, the country breaks all people out according to their Q score—an index of their intelligence but also certain factors about their life, such as their parent’s Q scores and jobs. Elena Fairchild is a mother to two daughters—Anne and Freddie.

Master Class is without a doubt one of the most thought-provoking, socially terrifying books I have read. Not by overt horror but through the way she crafts a society that by the end of the book doesn’t seem so far off from our own. Absolutely gripping and brilliant! It is mentioned that the LGBTQIA+ community, people with disabilities and those that suffer with mental health issues are specifically targeted groups of society under this new and oppressive mandate. But, not giving them any voice or representation past a single token lesbian character, who has no role within the context of the story, I found to be shameful.

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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. This review will reference VOX fairly often, but I hope to make my points clearly enough so as not to have made it necessary to have read it to understand my criticisms. Why is society doing this? To decrease funding for education by focusing only on the students with supposedly “brighter” futures. So, the privileged become more privileged and gaps between groups widen. Oh, and did you know that kids are tested regularly, and they can drop and have to move between schools at any time? Talk about the pressure. This is the second book written by Christina Dalcher. I read her first book, VOX, last year and unfortunately I really didn't enjoy it. My spoiler-filled, and equally loathsome, review for that can be found here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... I definitely believed the premise but...it felt like it had a few holes in it that were distracting.