"Quarantine: The Saints" by Lex Thomas

Release Date: July 9, 2013
Publisher: EgmontUSA
Pages: 400

From Goodreads: "A cross between the Gone series and Lord of the Flies, Quarantine #2: The Saints continues this frenetically paced and scary young adult series that illustrates just how deadly high school can be.

Nothing was worse than being locked in—until they opened the door...
McKinley High has been a battle ground for eighteen months since a virus outbreak led to a military quarantine of the school. When the doors finally open, Will and Lucy will think their nightmare is finished. But they are gravely mistaken.

As a new group of teens enters the school and gains popularity, Will and Lucy join new gangs. An epic party on the quad full of real food and drinks, where kids hookup and actually interact with members of other gangs seemed to signal a new, easier existence. Soom after though, the world inside McKinley takes a startling turn for the worse, and Will and Lucy will have to fight harder than ever to survive.

The Saints brings readers back to the dark and deadly halls of McKinley High and the QUARANTINE series."

As becomes evident from the review of "Quarantine: The Loners", I wasn't a huge fan of- not feeling much of the plot, thinking it too far "out there". However, I am happy to say that I did start to come around it in this book and am overall quite glad that I did decide to continue on with the series. That being said, this book is not without its faults. 

I think that the biggest strength of this book are the characters- where in the previous book I don't feel like we truly ever got to know any of them, only seeing them for which gang they were a member of (ie. "The Sluts", "The Pretty Ones", and so forth) or for their actions (Sam, anyone?), in this book we truly do get a sense of who each of them are. Furthermore, I enjoyed this book because David,  the main character in the first, played very little, to any, part in this book- in the previous book I did, at times, feel like he dragged the story down. For instance, never did I expect to become such a fan of Violet, leader of "The Sluts", who is more likely to shank you than shake your hand or Will, David's younger brother, who was such an utter douchenozzle to him for much of "The Loners". 

Furthermore, I did find much of this book to be much more believable than the previous- not constantly shaking my head in disbelief at was going on. That being said, I do think that the first 3/4 of the book were much stronger than the last 1/4- because, again, the ending did get a but far-fetched for my liking (not to mention, extremely gory- for me to notice that means that it has to be excessively gory).

All in all, I think that fans of this series will be more than happy with this latest installment. For those who haven't read the series before, I highly recommend it if you are fans of Michael Grant's "Gone" series or fast-paced, high octane, thrillers. Despite my complaints I will be continuing on with this series- I'm especially curious to see where Lex Thomas takes the storyline next, especially with the large revelation at the end of this novel.

Rating: 3/5 

I received this book from the publisher to read and honestly review. I was not compensated in any way for said review.