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Quarantine #4
The Giant
In the violent early days of the quarantine, Gonzalo joins a gang of thieves who live in the ductwork of McKinley High School. There he falls in love with Sasha, but as he grows too big to fit, he is forced to leave without her.
A year later, he scours the infected zone for her. No matter how many murderers, puncture wounds, or militia he has to survive, Gonzalo can't give up on Sasha.
In the fourth installment of the Quarantine series, Lex Thomas delivers two intertwined stories about love and longing, which merge in a conclusion where the fate of the entire infected zone hangs in the balance.
A year later, he scours the infected zone for her. No matter how many murderers, puncture wounds, or militia he has to survive, Gonzalo can't give up on Sasha.
In the fourth installment of the Quarantine series, Lex Thomas delivers two intertwined stories about love and longing, which merge in a conclusion where the fate of the entire infected zone hangs in the balance.
346 pages, Hardcover
First published September 1, 2016
49 people are currently reading
1617 people want to read
About the author
Lex Thomas
10 books361 followersLex Thomas is the pen name for the writing team of Lex Hrabe and Thomas Voorhies. Their first novel, QUARANTINE: THE LONERS, earned a starred review from Booklist, and Huffington Post Books praised it, saying, "You will not be able to put this book down."
Lex received a BA in Drama and English from the University of Virginia and has worked as an actor, director and writer. Thomas graduated with a Bachelors of Fine Arts from the Rhode Island School of Design, and now writes, and exhibits his realist oil paintings in Los Angeles.
Lex and Thomas met in a writers' group in Los Angeles. Their friendship developed as they tried to blow each other's minds with clips from bizarre movies. In 2005, they became a screenwriting team, and found that writing with a friend is much more fun than doing it alone. Visit them at www.lex-thomas.com.
Lex received a BA in Drama and English from the University of Virginia and has worked as an actor, director and writer. Thomas graduated with a Bachelors of Fine Arts from the Rhode Island School of Design, and now writes, and exhibits his realist oil paintings in Los Angeles.
Lex and Thomas met in a writers' group in Los Angeles. Their friendship developed as they tried to blow each other's minds with clips from bizarre movies. In 2005, they became a screenwriting team, and found that writing with a friend is much more fun than doing it alone. Visit them at www.lex-thomas.com.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 54 reviews
January 9, 2023
Lex Hrabe and Thomas Voorhies are back at it for a fourth Quarantine book, and they've done their fans proud with The Giant. The point of view shifts from David, Will, and Lucy's compelling drama to the wistful saga of Gonzalo, the gigantic high-schooler who turned the tables in favor of the Loners in the first book by standing with them when Sam and his Varsity thugs were about to execute David. Gonzalo was so huge and strong that Varsity couldn't kill him without losing a significant number of their gang, and Scraps without the nerve to stand up to Sam were braver about joining the Loners with Gonzalo in the picture, giving David's gang the critical mass needed to keep Varsity from exacting vengeance. We learn a few things in The Loners about Gonzalo's background, meeting his girlfriend Sasha when she joins the gang, but then he graduates from McKinley High School's plague-infested halls and isn't seen again. What happened to Gonzalo after he passed off the scene? Though the school was supposed to be secure against escape by the disease-carrying teens within, a group that included Sasha broke out, but the landscape beyond McKinley turned out to be a war zone for the infected. Terrified adults hunt down infected teens, putting bullets in them as though they were rabid animals. No one is safe as long as pestilence gnaws away at the population of Colorado. Gonzalo phased out of infection months ago, but he refuses to wait out the danger at home once he learns Sasha is out there, infected and vulnerable to any crazed hunter on a killing jag. Against his family's pleas, Gonzalo hits the road to save Sasha from the barbarism of the post-disease world, aware that he probably won't return alive. The conclusion of the Quarantine odyssey has begun.
"(B)ut when you turn over rocks, you tend to find snakes."
—The Giant, P. 39
Gonzalo wasn't a giant when McKinley High's faculty all suddenly died in graphic, bloody ways and the government issued the quarantine that trapped students in the school until they aged out of their contagious period. Gonzalo was a skinny runt, a prepubescent sixteen-year-old who rarely scored items of value at the helicopter supply drops in the quad. Bigger guys usually got to the food first, or beat Gonzalo up for it if he did. An incident between Gonzalo and a group of aggressive Skaters serendipitously leads him to meet Sasha, a member of the secret Mice gang who hang out in the school's ductwork and steal food from other gangs at night. Gonzalo falls in love with Sasha, who evidently returns his feelings and teaches him the gang's survival tactics. The budding romance is not overlooked by Baxter, unofficial leader of the Mice. Baxter is a tinier kid than even Gonzalo, but his manipulative disposition and hot temper when he doesn't get what he wants are formidable. Stay away from Sasha, Baxter warns Gonzalo, or he'll be sorry he accepted her invitation to join the Mice.
Interspersed with the flashback chapters about preadolescent Gonzalo adjusting to life with the Mice are sections that see him on the road in the infected zone, tracking down leads on where Sasha is now. The Colorado streets are a murderous arena; teens band together and waylay adults to steal their valuables, or for payback against the older demographic for ostracizing teenagers because of the plague they carry. Adults called hunters roam around with high-caliber weaponry and itchy trigger fingers, breathing through gas masks as they splatter infected teens around town. Every dead kid is a step toward reclaiming order in the world, they believe. Gonzalo faces danger from teens and adults because he has a foot in either world, young enough to have been infected but now phased out of it for some time. He's a sitting duck for young or old to shoot as long as he's on the open streets, but he'll risk it to find Sasha. Before he received his clean bill of health and left McKinley, he promised Sasha he'd find her on the outside, and he's prepared to keep that promise no matter the cost.
Why is Gonzalo preoccupied with rescuing Sasha? She was drawn to him before they met, observing him through the vents at school, pulling for him as bigger kids stole his food and beat on him. Sasha decided he was worth taking a chance on, adding him to the Mice without knowing if he'd work out as a member. Her chemistry with him is immediate and we feel it deeply, but Gonzalo hesitates to go further than friendship because of Baxter's threats. When Gonzalo gives in to Sasha's prodding and reciprocates her public interest in him, he's elated to be close with her, but Baxter has a trick in reserve. His twisted gambit separates Gonzalo from Sasha, and there's nothing either of them can do about it. Gonzalo is effectively exiled from the Mice without Sasha knowing it was Baxter's doing, but by now Gonzalo isn't the little squirt he was a few months earlier. He's grown to the size of most male adults in his family, a tall, wide, hulking guy who towers above the biggest Varsity athlete. Gonzalo can't squeeze into the air vents anymore, but he's more than capable of taking care of himself. Embittered by Baxter's cruel trick that stole Sasha from him just as they were becoming close, just as he felt there was real incentive to survive this whole McKinley ordeal, Gonzalo establishes himself as a furious ogre at supply drops in the quad, a giant who will hurt anyone to get the food and other items he wants. Carefully cultivating his brutish image, Gonzalo settles into a routine and tries to ignore the loneliness eating at him in Sasha's absence. She's up there somewhere in the vents, but the Mice's headquarters can't be accessed without crawling through ductwork, and for Gonzalo that's beyond the realm of possibility. Gonzalo is alone constantly, and remains that way until the seminal moment when he joins the Loners. We know most of what comes next from the first Quarantine novel.
If you expect Gonzalo's quest for Sasha after his graduation to be an introspective journey leading to heart-swelling success, you haven't been paying attention to the series. The Giant isn't as blood-soaked as The Loners or The Saints, but there's gore aplenty, including a few scenes that stained my brain a little bit. The closer Gonzalo gets to Sasha's reported whereabouts, the cloudier his thinking becomes, and that's a serious peril in the infected zone. Sasha isn't guaranteed to survive until Gonzalo reaches her, not with Lex Thomas controlling the narrative, so we're sweating as Gonzalo enters the building where Sasha supposedly is. The deadliest dangers yet surround her in these cavernous walls, a sanctuary run by an egotist who only pretends to care about the teens under his watch. The human body is so fragile for a chalice that contains the blood of life, which when poured out soaks instantly into the ground, never to be retrieved. The death of even the one who means everything to us is irreversible, the final note of a dirge whose strains haunt our every memory. What could we have done to alter the outcome, to preserve this life more precious than our own and prevent our fall into the endless darkness of the abyss? Sometimes that question is all we're left with after putting everything into a journey we couldn't afford to fail at. Sometimes a love story doesn't end as we know it should, the only way we can live with. That, more than any splatter-ific scene in McKinley High, is the true horror of this series.
The Giant is highlighted by gorgeous bits of writing, belying the gore surrounding it. It's also a wise novel, which isn't surprising for readers of the previous books in the series. A continuing theme is the typical mistrust between adults and teens, taken to an extreme by the infection that adolescents can carry but not be hurt by. Adults violently die from airborne exposure, puking their lungs in a geyser of blood, and that's led some post-adolescent folks to join forces against the teens. The punk kids are rotten, they say, and don't care if they harm others; why should they get off scot-free for the deaths of innocent adults? This attitude comes into major play in the tragedy at the end of the third Quarantine book, The Burnouts. Many grownups want to kill all the teens and ask questions later, because showing clemency means risking their own lives. Gonzalo is amazed when he meets a hunter who thinks this way, a man who converses with him amiably while speaking of infected teens like mangy animals that should be put down. Gonzalo still feels like a teen, hardly used to his own huge body, but since he's no longer infected, the man has no problem with him. "Don't fool yourself," the guy says. "You're not one of them no more. You're a man. And there's things a man's gotta do to stay alive. Topmost on that list is putting those creatures out of their misery when they cross you." Gonzalo can't imagine how the man lives with himself. "Gonzalo wanted to fight this guy, to tell him how wrong he was. How could he treat Gonzalo like a human being now, but a year ago he would have shot him on sight?" Youth and adulthood in the Quarantine series are clearly delineated by phasing out of infection, but in real life, too, we put too much stock in age divisions. We convince ourselves that turning eighteen, twenty-one, or whatever arbitrary age we designate as the start of adulthood means we're a new, mature person. We think we've upgraded overnight into someone smarter and more respectable, but in truth we're just another day older. Adult elitism can lead to dehumanizing the younger generations, fearing them and thinking they have to be defended against. The Quarantine books reinforce that everyone is scared of being harmed, and the situation only deteriorates when carriers and potential victims turn on one other and start spilling blood without any help from a virus. We need one another more than ever when tribulation hits, and it's a grave error to take up arms instead of standing in mutual support. We don't need to make life tougher than it is.
McKinley High is a torture chamber for the underprivileged, and Gonzalo is usually a victim until he grows. When he meets Sasha he feels a bit of hope, like the sun's rays tinting the clouds after an interminable monsoon. "Gonzalo had soda pop in his veins. He'd never felt this way before. Warm all over, tingly, and full of enough energy to sprint a mile. He'd wanted Sasha so badly, and waited so long, and everything had actually worked out. It was kind of mind-blowing. The quarantine didn't seem quite so oppressive anymore. The universe didn't seem out to get him. He was feeling something that he'd forgotten you could feel in McKinley: hope." Love has a way of transforming your outlook regardless of other circumstances. You may have felt trapped your entire life, but the golden key of love unlocks the heaviest chains. We never forget how Sasha made Gonzalo feel for the brief time they were together, and that makes his hunt feel as viscerally high-stakes for us as for him. What wouldn't you put on the line to reunite with the one you love? But there's a lot for Gonzalo to endure in the hellhole of McKinley and the infected zone after graduation, torment that could part the strongest person from their sanity. Survival these days depends on getting used to the hideously macabre, shrugging enormous loads off your psyche so you don't get squashed. A line from when Gonzalo is scoping out a gruesome new place to live in McKinley sums this up perfectly: "As long as he didn't lose his mind, he'd be fine." What a transcendent thought for when we're faced with troubles we don't think we can surmount, weight that will crush our psyche if we let it get to us. Don't lose your mind and you can overcome any adversity, learn to cope with the heaviest burden on your mental health. It's all about staying sane whatever duress heads your way.
I'm glad Quarantine didn't end with The Burnouts. Good as parts of that novel were, it was a step down from The Loners and The Saints, both of which were raunchy, loud, and uncomfortably violent, yet superlative examples of YA literature. The Giant lifts the series back almost to the level of the first two books: it's inventive, exciting, and powerfully emotional. Nothing is easily gained, so we appreciate every blessing the characters get after the losses they've lived through. Sensitive and ultimately endearing, the Quarantine series is a keeper, and I love The Giant in its own right. These novels fill a hole in teen literature that I didn't perceive was there, and I can't express sufficient gratitude for them. I will always feel a special connection to this story.
"(B)ut when you turn over rocks, you tend to find snakes."
—The Giant, P. 39
Gonzalo wasn't a giant when McKinley High's faculty all suddenly died in graphic, bloody ways and the government issued the quarantine that trapped students in the school until they aged out of their contagious period. Gonzalo was a skinny runt, a prepubescent sixteen-year-old who rarely scored items of value at the helicopter supply drops in the quad. Bigger guys usually got to the food first, or beat Gonzalo up for it if he did. An incident between Gonzalo and a group of aggressive Skaters serendipitously leads him to meet Sasha, a member of the secret Mice gang who hang out in the school's ductwork and steal food from other gangs at night. Gonzalo falls in love with Sasha, who evidently returns his feelings and teaches him the gang's survival tactics. The budding romance is not overlooked by Baxter, unofficial leader of the Mice. Baxter is a tinier kid than even Gonzalo, but his manipulative disposition and hot temper when he doesn't get what he wants are formidable. Stay away from Sasha, Baxter warns Gonzalo, or he'll be sorry he accepted her invitation to join the Mice.
Interspersed with the flashback chapters about preadolescent Gonzalo adjusting to life with the Mice are sections that see him on the road in the infected zone, tracking down leads on where Sasha is now. The Colorado streets are a murderous arena; teens band together and waylay adults to steal their valuables, or for payback against the older demographic for ostracizing teenagers because of the plague they carry. Adults called hunters roam around with high-caliber weaponry and itchy trigger fingers, breathing through gas masks as they splatter infected teens around town. Every dead kid is a step toward reclaiming order in the world, they believe. Gonzalo faces danger from teens and adults because he has a foot in either world, young enough to have been infected but now phased out of it for some time. He's a sitting duck for young or old to shoot as long as he's on the open streets, but he'll risk it to find Sasha. Before he received his clean bill of health and left McKinley, he promised Sasha he'd find her on the outside, and he's prepared to keep that promise no matter the cost.
Why is Gonzalo preoccupied with rescuing Sasha? She was drawn to him before they met, observing him through the vents at school, pulling for him as bigger kids stole his food and beat on him. Sasha decided he was worth taking a chance on, adding him to the Mice without knowing if he'd work out as a member. Her chemistry with him is immediate and we feel it deeply, but Gonzalo hesitates to go further than friendship because of Baxter's threats. When Gonzalo gives in to Sasha's prodding and reciprocates her public interest in him, he's elated to be close with her, but Baxter has a trick in reserve. His twisted gambit separates Gonzalo from Sasha, and there's nothing either of them can do about it. Gonzalo is effectively exiled from the Mice without Sasha knowing it was Baxter's doing, but by now Gonzalo isn't the little squirt he was a few months earlier. He's grown to the size of most male adults in his family, a tall, wide, hulking guy who towers above the biggest Varsity athlete. Gonzalo can't squeeze into the air vents anymore, but he's more than capable of taking care of himself. Embittered by Baxter's cruel trick that stole Sasha from him just as they were becoming close, just as he felt there was real incentive to survive this whole McKinley ordeal, Gonzalo establishes himself as a furious ogre at supply drops in the quad, a giant who will hurt anyone to get the food and other items he wants. Carefully cultivating his brutish image, Gonzalo settles into a routine and tries to ignore the loneliness eating at him in Sasha's absence. She's up there somewhere in the vents, but the Mice's headquarters can't be accessed without crawling through ductwork, and for Gonzalo that's beyond the realm of possibility. Gonzalo is alone constantly, and remains that way until the seminal moment when he joins the Loners. We know most of what comes next from the first Quarantine novel.
If you expect Gonzalo's quest for Sasha after his graduation to be an introspective journey leading to heart-swelling success, you haven't been paying attention to the series. The Giant isn't as blood-soaked as The Loners or The Saints, but there's gore aplenty, including a few scenes that stained my brain a little bit. The closer Gonzalo gets to Sasha's reported whereabouts, the cloudier his thinking becomes, and that's a serious peril in the infected zone. Sasha isn't guaranteed to survive until Gonzalo reaches her, not with Lex Thomas controlling the narrative, so we're sweating as Gonzalo enters the building where Sasha supposedly is. The deadliest dangers yet surround her in these cavernous walls, a sanctuary run by an egotist who only pretends to care about the teens under his watch. The human body is so fragile for a chalice that contains the blood of life, which when poured out soaks instantly into the ground, never to be retrieved. The death of even the one who means everything to us is irreversible, the final note of a dirge whose strains haunt our every memory. What could we have done to alter the outcome, to preserve this life more precious than our own and prevent our fall into the endless darkness of the abyss? Sometimes that question is all we're left with after putting everything into a journey we couldn't afford to fail at. Sometimes a love story doesn't end as we know it should, the only way we can live with. That, more than any splatter-ific scene in McKinley High, is the true horror of this series.
The Giant is highlighted by gorgeous bits of writing, belying the gore surrounding it. It's also a wise novel, which isn't surprising for readers of the previous books in the series. A continuing theme is the typical mistrust between adults and teens, taken to an extreme by the infection that adolescents can carry but not be hurt by. Adults violently die from airborne exposure, puking their lungs in a geyser of blood, and that's led some post-adolescent folks to join forces against the teens. The punk kids are rotten, they say, and don't care if they harm others; why should they get off scot-free for the deaths of innocent adults? This attitude comes into major play in the tragedy at the end of the third Quarantine book, The Burnouts. Many grownups want to kill all the teens and ask questions later, because showing clemency means risking their own lives. Gonzalo is amazed when he meets a hunter who thinks this way, a man who converses with him amiably while speaking of infected teens like mangy animals that should be put down. Gonzalo still feels like a teen, hardly used to his own huge body, but since he's no longer infected, the man has no problem with him. "Don't fool yourself," the guy says. "You're not one of them no more. You're a man. And there's things a man's gotta do to stay alive. Topmost on that list is putting those creatures out of their misery when they cross you." Gonzalo can't imagine how the man lives with himself. "Gonzalo wanted to fight this guy, to tell him how wrong he was. How could he treat Gonzalo like a human being now, but a year ago he would have shot him on sight?" Youth and adulthood in the Quarantine series are clearly delineated by phasing out of infection, but in real life, too, we put too much stock in age divisions. We convince ourselves that turning eighteen, twenty-one, or whatever arbitrary age we designate as the start of adulthood means we're a new, mature person. We think we've upgraded overnight into someone smarter and more respectable, but in truth we're just another day older. Adult elitism can lead to dehumanizing the younger generations, fearing them and thinking they have to be defended against. The Quarantine books reinforce that everyone is scared of being harmed, and the situation only deteriorates when carriers and potential victims turn on one other and start spilling blood without any help from a virus. We need one another more than ever when tribulation hits, and it's a grave error to take up arms instead of standing in mutual support. We don't need to make life tougher than it is.
McKinley High is a torture chamber for the underprivileged, and Gonzalo is usually a victim until he grows. When he meets Sasha he feels a bit of hope, like the sun's rays tinting the clouds after an interminable monsoon. "Gonzalo had soda pop in his veins. He'd never felt this way before. Warm all over, tingly, and full of enough energy to sprint a mile. He'd wanted Sasha so badly, and waited so long, and everything had actually worked out. It was kind of mind-blowing. The quarantine didn't seem quite so oppressive anymore. The universe didn't seem out to get him. He was feeling something that he'd forgotten you could feel in McKinley: hope." Love has a way of transforming your outlook regardless of other circumstances. You may have felt trapped your entire life, but the golden key of love unlocks the heaviest chains. We never forget how Sasha made Gonzalo feel for the brief time they were together, and that makes his hunt feel as viscerally high-stakes for us as for him. What wouldn't you put on the line to reunite with the one you love? But there's a lot for Gonzalo to endure in the hellhole of McKinley and the infected zone after graduation, torment that could part the strongest person from their sanity. Survival these days depends on getting used to the hideously macabre, shrugging enormous loads off your psyche so you don't get squashed. A line from when Gonzalo is scoping out a gruesome new place to live in McKinley sums this up perfectly: "As long as he didn't lose his mind, he'd be fine." What a transcendent thought for when we're faced with troubles we don't think we can surmount, weight that will crush our psyche if we let it get to us. Don't lose your mind and you can overcome any adversity, learn to cope with the heaviest burden on your mental health. It's all about staying sane whatever duress heads your way.
I'm glad Quarantine didn't end with The Burnouts. Good as parts of that novel were, it was a step down from The Loners and The Saints, both of which were raunchy, loud, and uncomfortably violent, yet superlative examples of YA literature. The Giant lifts the series back almost to the level of the first two books: it's inventive, exciting, and powerfully emotional. Nothing is easily gained, so we appreciate every blessing the characters get after the losses they've lived through. Sensitive and ultimately endearing, the Quarantine series is a keeper, and I love The Giant in its own right. These novels fill a hole in teen literature that I didn't perceive was there, and I can't express sufficient gratitude for them. I will always feel a special connection to this story.
November 2, 2017
I was not sure I would like this but I was quickjly drawn into the story. I liked getting a better idea of hte outside world. It is heartbreaking to see adults turn on teens and vice versea though. I kept wondering about the infected gangs and what they do to the teens as the transition out from the virus. DO they kill they or let them go? The trust is so very broken. Gonzolo walks a fine line from once being infected to now not. A teen can kill him just be breathing around them yet those are the ones he must seek to find her. Yikes! He really does journey across Colorado a bit which I found amusing, having lived there. I loved the setting.
I found the mountain lion scene at the beginning a bit disbelieving as a cat does not tend to go after larger prey and Gonzolo is HUGE. So what is up with that. Especially being hunted a ways down the road like he was. No-a cat will find a different target. Also Gonzolo is a bit naive. While far from stupid, he makes a terrible tracker.
Baxter is such a nasty character. Just ewww. Perfect to hate on him when things go wrong. ANd wrong they go. Again and again and again. It's dark, twisted and morbid.
I loved the flashbacks to the days at McKinley. I loved learning about the character that was always a rather silent but imposing figure in the book.
I found the mountain lion scene at the beginning a bit disbelieving as a cat does not tend to go after larger prey and Gonzolo is HUGE. So what is up with that. Especially being hunted a ways down the road like he was. No-a cat will find a different target. Also Gonzolo is a bit naive. While far from stupid, he makes a terrible tracker.
Baxter is such a nasty character. Just ewww. Perfect to hate on him when things go wrong. ANd wrong they go. Again and again and again. It's dark, twisted and morbid.
I loved the flashbacks to the days at McKinley. I loved learning about the character that was always a rather silent but imposing figure in the book.
February 13, 2018
The Giant part four of the Quarantine series is just as amazing as the first three. The duo Lex Thomas have written a series that I will love and remember forever. The book continues with the story of a character that was once a background character named Gonzalo. He has to continuously fight for his life in the search for his lost girlfriend. Not knowing if she is even alive he risks it all to get to her.
December 25, 2017
Although I liked the earlier books, this one did not capture my attention. I didn't really like the characters and there was too much blood and guts.
September 20, 2016
I enjoyed the first 3/4 of the book, but wasn't a huge fan of the last 1/4. It was a little strange and confusing, and felt rushed. I liked that every other chapter was a flashback of Gonzalo's time in the high school, but I wish there would've been more time with Gonzalo and Sasha together after he found her.
November 13, 2017
Link to my blog: https://thatreadhead1.wordpress.com/2...
Only gave this one 3 stars, as it was pretty boring! Nowhere near as good as the first 3. I think there just wasn't enough action for me, although the gore still appealed to me. This book was just a bunch of travel and deceit, and quite a lot of confusion on Baxter's part. Didn't grip me enough. Think that's the last one in the series. Not sure if I actually needed to read that, as it didn't really relate whatsoever, but I suppose I did appreciate the blanks being filled in. And I could imagine a lot of other people wanting to know what went on with them after Book 3. One thing I did think was a really smart idea was I actually could not believe it either, when So pleased it wasn't.
Only gave this one 3 stars, as it was pretty boring! Nowhere near as good as the first 3. I think there just wasn't enough action for me, although the gore still appealed to me. This book was just a bunch of travel and deceit, and quite a lot of confusion on Baxter's part. Didn't grip me enough. Think that's the last one in the series. Not sure if I actually needed to read that, as it didn't really relate whatsoever, but I suppose I did appreciate the blanks being filled in. And I could imagine a lot of other people wanting to know what went on with them after Book 3. One thing I did think was a really smart idea was I actually could not believe it either, when So pleased it wasn't.
November 9, 2017
Ethan Raabe
Quarantine (The Giant) by Lex Thomas
Have you ever wanted to know what it's like to try to survive an airborne disease that can kill you in a matter of a second? The story revolves around a big fellow named Gonzalo who is on a man hunt to find his girlfriend Sasha. During these events however Gonzalo come across some conflict along the way. There's more danger in this town than he was expecting read the book to find out how he survives and his story. I like this series, it's a very exciting book to read with a lot of action. I personally don’t like to read, but this book doesn't get old or boring it keeps you excited to see what happens. I would recommend this to someone who wants a graphic book with action, and excitement. Or someone who needs to read, and wants to try something that's not a hard to read or understand.
Quarantine (The Giant) by Lex Thomas
Have you ever wanted to know what it's like to try to survive an airborne disease that can kill you in a matter of a second? The story revolves around a big fellow named Gonzalo who is on a man hunt to find his girlfriend Sasha. During these events however Gonzalo come across some conflict along the way. There's more danger in this town than he was expecting read the book to find out how he survives and his story. I like this series, it's a very exciting book to read with a lot of action. I personally don’t like to read, but this book doesn't get old or boring it keeps you excited to see what happens. I would recommend this to someone who wants a graphic book with action, and excitement. Or someone who needs to read, and wants to try something that's not a hard to read or understand.
December 13, 2016
Really liked this novel in the series. Told the story of 'the giant' who escaped from the school and aged out of the virus. Takes us on his journey to find the girl he fell in love with at the school who is now still infected living among other infecteds. Tells the story in present and past.
June 16, 2017
love love love! they left it open still where they can add a 5th book.
May 5, 2022
my second favorite in the series its nice to get new characters so its not the same ones over and over
May 20, 2021
As I have said in my previous reviews for the first three books in the QUARANTINE series, I am more than a few years past the target audience for this YA series, but I am a fan of a good story, especially a good riff on LORD OF THE FLIES. The earlier books centered around plague ravaged McKinley High in Colorado, where an escapee from a government facility unleashed a virus that infected teenagers while causing anyone post puberty to puke up their lungs and die an awful death. With all the teachers dead, and the school quarantined from the rest of the world, the kids are on their own, and if you’ve read the other books, then you know how bad that went. Those volumes centered around brothers David and Will, and Lucy, the girl to whom both are attracted. The third book in the series, THE BURNOUTS, wrapped up their story; the fourth book, THE GIANT, takes a minor character from earlier in the series, and tells his story.
That title character being Gonzalo, a hulking giant of kid who helped David and Will in a tight spot in a confrontation with a rival gang, but who later “graduated” from McKinley to the outside world. This book tells his story in two parallel time lines, one set in the post McKinley present, the other in the past, which begins with Gonzalo as a very small for his age sixteen year old on his own after the virus is unleashed. He falls in with a gang called the Mice, who travel about the school in the overhead air vents, stealing what they can from other gangs. Here Gonzalo meets Sasha, the girl he falls in love with, and Baxter, the runty little creep who leads the Mice. Baxter is jealous of the attention Sasha is giving Gonzalo, and separates him from the gang just as Gonzalo experiences a sudden growth spurt, making it impossible for him to go back into the vents in search of the girl he loves. The upside is that his new size makes him a object of fear, and forcing the other gangs leave him alone. The present day sections of the book chronicle Gonzalo’s search through plague ravaged, and quarantined off, Colorado for Sasha, who, along with the rest of the infected student body, has fled McKinley, and is now in hiding from roving adults, determined to hunt down and shoot on sight the virus carrying teens.
The authors, a duo who goes by the pen name Lex Thomas, do have their particular teen dystopia formula down pat, especially when it comes to creating characters worth getting invested with. I empathized with Gonzalo from the start, and understood his immediate attraction to Sasha, who seems like a great girlfriend, but they leave us with enough doubt that her feelings for Gonzalo might not be as deep as his for her. This creates more than a little tension as we follow him on his odyssey across Colorado searching for her. And the authors’ penchant for ending each chapter on a cliff hanger is in full use here, which helped draw me more into the story. There’s not as much gore as in the earlier books, which I thought excessive at times, but enough to satisfy the fans, and I thought THE GIANT had much less of a sexual content than those earlier books as well. Still, there is plenty of profanity, and what I call the “ick” factor, where the authors go for the gross out. Also, as everyone who has read the first three books know, the writers are not wedded to happy endings, even to characters we have come to love. This too, helps create tension as Gonzalo gets closer to finding his lost love. The themes of cruelty and sheer meanness that have run through the entire series also on display in the fourth book, as one generation attempts to destroy another, while gangs and cliques made up of different members of the social hierarchy turn upon one another as well. The entire QUARANTINE series has turned on the notion that when it all hits the fan, the utter worst in people will come out.
By putting out a fourth book, I feared that Lex Thomas might be going to the well one time too many, as there has been a glut of YA fiction teen dystopias in the past decade, and frankly, after THE BURNOUTS, I thought the story had all been told. What I liked best about THE GIANT was that I cared about the Gonzalo and Sasha, and wanted to see what the finale of their story would be, and it was enough to carry me to the final page. Moving most of the tale’s action outside of the walls of McKinley dilutes some of the built in suspense inherent in the earlier book, and the writing gets annoyingly repetitive at times; why do we constantly need to be reminded that Baxter has a “handsome” face? At the present there seems to be no more books in THE QUARANTINE series to read, and I don’t know if Lex Thomas have any plans to continue with it, but it is worth noting that they leave things at a point where there are many more survivors’ stories to be told, and many more sequels could be written.
That title character being Gonzalo, a hulking giant of kid who helped David and Will in a tight spot in a confrontation with a rival gang, but who later “graduated” from McKinley to the outside world. This book tells his story in two parallel time lines, one set in the post McKinley present, the other in the past, which begins with Gonzalo as a very small for his age sixteen year old on his own after the virus is unleashed. He falls in with a gang called the Mice, who travel about the school in the overhead air vents, stealing what they can from other gangs. Here Gonzalo meets Sasha, the girl he falls in love with, and Baxter, the runty little creep who leads the Mice. Baxter is jealous of the attention Sasha is giving Gonzalo, and separates him from the gang just as Gonzalo experiences a sudden growth spurt, making it impossible for him to go back into the vents in search of the girl he loves. The upside is that his new size makes him a object of fear, and forcing the other gangs leave him alone. The present day sections of the book chronicle Gonzalo’s search through plague ravaged, and quarantined off, Colorado for Sasha, who, along with the rest of the infected student body, has fled McKinley, and is now in hiding from roving adults, determined to hunt down and shoot on sight the virus carrying teens.
The authors, a duo who goes by the pen name Lex Thomas, do have their particular teen dystopia formula down pat, especially when it comes to creating characters worth getting invested with. I empathized with Gonzalo from the start, and understood his immediate attraction to Sasha, who seems like a great girlfriend, but they leave us with enough doubt that her feelings for Gonzalo might not be as deep as his for her. This creates more than a little tension as we follow him on his odyssey across Colorado searching for her. And the authors’ penchant for ending each chapter on a cliff hanger is in full use here, which helped draw me more into the story. There’s not as much gore as in the earlier books, which I thought excessive at times, but enough to satisfy the fans, and I thought THE GIANT had much less of a sexual content than those earlier books as well. Still, there is plenty of profanity, and what I call the “ick” factor, where the authors go for the gross out. Also, as everyone who has read the first three books know, the writers are not wedded to happy endings, even to characters we have come to love. This too, helps create tension as Gonzalo gets closer to finding his lost love. The themes of cruelty and sheer meanness that have run through the entire series also on display in the fourth book, as one generation attempts to destroy another, while gangs and cliques made up of different members of the social hierarchy turn upon one another as well. The entire QUARANTINE series has turned on the notion that when it all hits the fan, the utter worst in people will come out.
By putting out a fourth book, I feared that Lex Thomas might be going to the well one time too many, as there has been a glut of YA fiction teen dystopias in the past decade, and frankly, after THE BURNOUTS, I thought the story had all been told. What I liked best about THE GIANT was that I cared about the Gonzalo and Sasha, and wanted to see what the finale of their story would be, and it was enough to carry me to the final page. Moving most of the tale’s action outside of the walls of McKinley dilutes some of the built in suspense inherent in the earlier book, and the writing gets annoyingly repetitive at times; why do we constantly need to be reminded that Baxter has a “handsome” face? At the present there seems to be no more books in THE QUARANTINE series to read, and I don’t know if Lex Thomas have any plans to continue with it, but it is worth noting that they leave things at a point where there are many more survivors’ stories to be told, and many more sequels could be written.
December 2, 2016
With flashbacks to Gonzalo's survival as one of the "Mice" and then a "Loner" in McKinley High School until released from the nightmare, "The Giant" the fourth book in the " Quarantine" series vibrates with high-energy,tension and violence when at nineteen he begins to scour the infected zone for Sasha, the girl he never stopped loving. Facing a lion attack, the manipulation of a conniving bully, and vigilantes gunning for the infected, Gonzalo is determined to put his life on the line to save her. In a gripping and exciting dystopian novel that keeps you on the edge of your seat the action never stops as two teens clash in a battle to possess the object of their affection while the fate of all the infected stand at a crossroads.
With snapshots into Gonzalo's past the writing team of Lex Hrabe and Thomas Voorhies draw a horrific picture of violence, brutality and corruption in a high school where students quarantined with a lethal virus roam the halls in gangs, depending on food drops to survive. Confusing at times as past events overlap with the present the plot begins with Gonzalo's struggle at McKinley High School as the hungry, friendless "scrap", often beaten up takes compassion on a loner like himself. Yet through his self-sacrifice he meets the intrepid Sasha, his life changing when he joins the "Mice" who live in the school's vents, stealing from the stashes of other gangs. Only when Gonzalo clashes with the malicious conniving leader of the Mice who craves Sasha's love while growing too big to crawl through the vents does he have to adapt to the hostile environment again, learning to be a "monster" to survive.
Tension and suspense ratchet higher in the present as Gonzalo fearing for Sasha's safety in the infected zone dons a mask for protection and begins to search for her. Well-developed and fast-paced events unfold that have Gonzalo reluctantly agreeing to participate in a wild goose chase by a vengeful enemy who's not only intent on locating Sasha himself, but hungry for power. Hard-hitting and filled with twists, the plot is intoxicating as the challenges Gonzalo faces prove to be almost as insurmountable as they are life-threatening.
Gonzalo a loner until joining the Mice is quiet, unobtrusive and stoic until faced with saving another scrap from being beaten. He's honest and direct with Sasha, falling for the risk-taker who's feisty, open and looking for someone who will love her enough to sacrifice anything to be with her. Short, but good-looking Baxter is bossy, wily and deceitful, scheming to stop any romance brewing between Gonzalo and Sasha. Hating each other Gonzalo naively forms a shaky alliance in the present with Baxter hoping he's a link to finding Sasha among the infected but the unlikely allies are both injured in their collaboration. Skilfully Lex Thomas has created characters like these and others who are not only multi-faceted, intense and fiery but add an explosive edginess to the atmosphere.
I liked "The Giant" a dark dystopian thrill -ride that's not soon forgotten and I will look for other young adult adventures by this team.
With snapshots into Gonzalo's past the writing team of Lex Hrabe and Thomas Voorhies draw a horrific picture of violence, brutality and corruption in a high school where students quarantined with a lethal virus roam the halls in gangs, depending on food drops to survive. Confusing at times as past events overlap with the present the plot begins with Gonzalo's struggle at McKinley High School as the hungry, friendless "scrap", often beaten up takes compassion on a loner like himself. Yet through his self-sacrifice he meets the intrepid Sasha, his life changing when he joins the "Mice" who live in the school's vents, stealing from the stashes of other gangs. Only when Gonzalo clashes with the malicious conniving leader of the Mice who craves Sasha's love while growing too big to crawl through the vents does he have to adapt to the hostile environment again, learning to be a "monster" to survive.
Tension and suspense ratchet higher in the present as Gonzalo fearing for Sasha's safety in the infected zone dons a mask for protection and begins to search for her. Well-developed and fast-paced events unfold that have Gonzalo reluctantly agreeing to participate in a wild goose chase by a vengeful enemy who's not only intent on locating Sasha himself, but hungry for power. Hard-hitting and filled with twists, the plot is intoxicating as the challenges Gonzalo faces prove to be almost as insurmountable as they are life-threatening.
Gonzalo a loner until joining the Mice is quiet, unobtrusive and stoic until faced with saving another scrap from being beaten. He's honest and direct with Sasha, falling for the risk-taker who's feisty, open and looking for someone who will love her enough to sacrifice anything to be with her. Short, but good-looking Baxter is bossy, wily and deceitful, scheming to stop any romance brewing between Gonzalo and Sasha. Hating each other Gonzalo naively forms a shaky alliance in the present with Baxter hoping he's a link to finding Sasha among the infected but the unlikely allies are both injured in their collaboration. Skilfully Lex Thomas has created characters like these and others who are not only multi-faceted, intense and fiery but add an explosive edginess to the atmosphere.
I liked "The Giant" a dark dystopian thrill -ride that's not soon forgotten and I will look for other young adult adventures by this team.
June 19, 2020
The Giant is a follow-up book to the Quarantine series. It's all about Gonzalo, "the giant" of McKinley, and switches between two times. Meeting Sasha when he's in the school, and searching for her when he gets out.
It killed me that the chapters switched between times, because everytime it left off at a cliffhanger, you had to read another whole chapter to find out what happened. I also much prefered the McKinley chapters, because we got so little of the school in The Burnouts, and also just because they were more fun. If you've read the book and feel like it, put your opinion in the comments!
This book had lots of action, lots of romance, and lots of betrayal and heartbreak and lying. Honestly, I couldn't see why Gonzalo was so obsessed with Sasha. It seemed like he knew hardly anything about her, and she didn't seem that into him. Just saying.
This book was good and a fun read. The only things missing (for me) were a clear climax and a nice, conclusive ending.
It killed me that the chapters switched between times, because everytime it left off at a cliffhanger, you had to read another whole chapter to find out what happened. I also much prefered the McKinley chapters, because we got so little of the school in The Burnouts, and also just because they were more fun. If you've read the book and feel like it, put your opinion in the comments!
This book had lots of action, lots of romance, and lots of betrayal and heartbreak and lying. Honestly, I couldn't see why Gonzalo was so obsessed with Sasha. It seemed like he knew hardly anything about her, and she didn't seem that into him. Just saying.
This book was good and a fun read. The only things missing (for me) were a clear climax and a nice, conclusive ending.
September 28, 2024
Though there was plenty of violence and gore, this book still felt slow paced. The plot is to find Sasha, but man, the continuous dead ends drove me crazy. The saving grace were the flashbacks to McKinley. I like Gonzalo, but him as a main character wasn't what I was hoping for. So it was nice to get a few scenes with the Loners again.
The descriptions of Gonzalo were wild. Just about every other paragraph talks about how freakishly big he is. The way they describe him is like Gonzalo is a monster. Even at one point, saying Sasha climbs up him like a jungle gym. Then the character Baxter is made out to be freakishly small. I guess there may be some symbolism here somewhere. But I couldn't get with it. It threw me out of the story completely. I couldn't see Gonzalo and Baxter as fully human, so it felt like it changed the vibe of this series.
I did enjoy the first part of the book. But unfortunately, I had to skip to the end.
The descriptions of Gonzalo were wild. Just about every other paragraph talks about how freakishly big he is. The way they describe him is like Gonzalo is a monster. Even at one point, saying Sasha climbs up him like a jungle gym. Then the character Baxter is made out to be freakishly small. I guess there may be some symbolism here somewhere. But I couldn't get with it. It threw me out of the story completely. I couldn't see Gonzalo and Baxter as fully human, so it felt like it changed the vibe of this series.
I did enjoy the first part of the book. But unfortunately, I had to skip to the end.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 11, 2021
Wow, a great ending. That Zeus is crazy, he seems normal when they first have him talking but as he leads Baxter and Gonzalo to where Sasha is, you realize he’s a zealot. And Baxter finally got what he deserved, I was just going to say that Gonzalo showed mercy by not killing Baxter but now that I think about it what he did was much worse. Baxter won’t be able to defend himself anymore when he heals up and who to say the Thunder don’t kill him on sight because he’ll be a liability dude to his crippled from and he killed their leader also so there’s that. Like Gonzalo said “Convince ‘em you’re a god now”.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 31, 2023
What an ending to a series… and tragic that it took me a lifetime to finish it. I found this series by accident and while I’m not super into sci-fi or dystopian reads, this one just pulls at your teen-heart-strings.
•
Read October 2023 ⚠️
•
Gut Instinct Rating: 4
Characters: 4.63
Believability: 5
Uniqueness: 5
Writing Style: 5
Excitement Factor: 4
Story Line: 5
Title Relevance: 5
Artwork Relevance: 5
Audiobook Narration: n/a
Overall: 4.74🏳️🌈
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CW: Adventure Stories, Takes place during a Quarantine, Science Fiction/Dystopian Story Line
•
Read October 2023 ⚠️
•
Gut Instinct Rating: 4
Characters: 4.63
Believability: 5
Uniqueness: 5
Writing Style: 5
Excitement Factor: 4
Story Line: 5
Title Relevance: 5
Artwork Relevance: 5
Audiobook Narration: n/a
Overall: 4.74🏳️🌈
•
CW: Adventure Stories, Takes place during a Quarantine, Science Fiction/Dystopian Story Line
August 10, 2018
Well I think you definitely accomplished what you were going for in this book. If you wanted me to want to rip that little twerps head off straight from the start. Then mission accomplished. I love a book that can get me so riled up that all I can think about is reaching in the book, and sticking my fingers up their nose just to pull out their brain. Thank you for this book and I hope to read of your writing in the future.
April 11, 2025
the male gaze in this whole series was very present but it was IMMENSE in this one in particular oh wow
this book was just boring and didn’t need to happen. i like gonzalo as a character but i wasn’t itching for a story all about him. it added nothing to the overall series and was just…pointless. everything that happened in this book was so convenient which, in my opinion, doesn’t make for a very entertaining story
but maybe i just missed lucy and david idk they were my favs
this book was just boring and didn’t need to happen. i like gonzalo as a character but i wasn’t itching for a story all about him. it added nothing to the overall series and was just…pointless. everything that happened in this book was so convenient which, in my opinion, doesn’t make for a very entertaining story
but maybe i just missed lucy and david idk they were my favs
March 25, 2020
I was real excited to read the rest of Gonzalo’s story. I hated, hated Baxter. I really do think he was obsessed with Sasha, not love, obsession. The things he did to both Sasha and Gonzalo were despicable, and he got what he deserved. Kind of wondering why Sasha had not aged out of the virus. Overall great book to read.
April 7, 2020
So while I liked this book and thought it was good, I also felt like it didn’t tie into the rest of the books in the series. I would have liked it to include more about David and Lucy but oh well. Like I said overall still a good book but I don’t feel like it made a difference in the series. My least favorite of the whole series.
August 17, 2020
Just eh, I really liked this series but this side story just didn't do it for me. Baxter had me thinking I needed anger management. I couldn't stand his character or understand why he was kept around. He just all around sucks.
The rest of it just goes into the Giants fighting and questioning his worth otherwise. It could've been better.
The rest of it just goes into the Giants fighting and questioning his worth otherwise. It could've been better.
March 31, 2025
3.5 stars
While not necessarily as good as the original trilogy, it's a pretty solid companion. Gonzalo and Sasha were cute and his journey on finding her did have some suspenseful moments
Also fuck Baxter
Also...
While not necessarily as good as the original trilogy, it's a pretty solid companion. Gonzalo and Sasha were cute and his journey on finding her did have some suspenseful moments
Also fuck Baxter
Also...
August 11, 2017
I was disappointed with the fourth book in this series. It was a complete let down. I still very much enjoyed the style of writing, but the first three had something more that this one didn't. I could have done without reading this one and ended the series with The Burnouts.
October 1, 2017
A sequel I never saw coming, since I thought the series was over a few years ago. Told in 3rd person POV rotating from Gonzalo at school during quarantine and after he "graduates" and want to track down Sasha who is still infected. Gruesome as always, it's pretty exciting.
August 4, 2023
Wasn’t really that invested in Sasha and Gonzalo’s story to begin with but this turned out to be an enjoyable read. I definitely would’ve preferred a continuation of the trilogy but this book provided the happy ending I really didn’t get from the trilogy.
October 24, 2017
Great book. Highly romanic and shows lots of undying love that is very rare to see in real life. Needs to be mature to read though...
May 18, 2018
I only give it a one star because you don't know what happens to the other characters. It only focus's on the two.
June 5, 2018
While it was interesting to learn Gonzalo's back story, I was disappointed that it wasn't a continuation of the other three books in the series.
September 5, 2018
Loved the entire series
January 7, 2019
Not as good as the trilogy
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