Quarantine #3: The Burnouts

Wow. The end (I think) to the Quarantine series is crazy, brutal, and flat-out awesome. At the end of the last book, brothers David and Will "graduate" from the high school, the prison holding the infected teens, and begin a life outside with the other adults, parents of the kids still in McKinley. Another graduate exits the school weeks later to tell will that Lucy, the focus of both brothers' affections, is pregnant. It's Will's. Will decides to don a gas mask and reenter the school to rescue Lucy before David can talk him out of it. Will sneaks back to school,and David follows to help and protect his bro. What follows is detailed, scary actions and descriptions of how the student gangs have deteriorated to blood sport, cruelty, and one of the teens has found a gun, which she uses to hold the gangs hostage. Not for the weak, Burnouts, in my mind, really paints a frightening, accurate picture of what humans may be reduced to when all of society's rules and checks are gone, with only fear, hunger, and desperation left behind. Some issues with the book's end made things a little confusing, but really didn't do anything to change how I felt about the book. Definitely a choice for teens, probably older teens, who like their fiction extreme!