Transferring from an elite post to the state boarding school where her daughter has been placed, a teacher is horrified to discover that the students are secretly being put to work as child laborers and subjected to involuntary lab experiments.
"From the critically acclaimed author of Vox comes a suspenseful new novel that explores a disturbing alternate reality where the government has legalized eugenics. Elena Fairchild is a teacher at one of the state's new elite schools, where children undergo routine tests for their quotient (Q). Those who don't measure up are placed in the many state boarding schools that have cropped up under a new government mandate--Elena's daughter, Freddie, is one of them. In order to be with Freddie, Elena immediately requests to transfer to the state school. To her horror, she learns that the children are receiving the bare minimum of instruction. Instead, they spend their days making handcrafted goods--valuable commodities in the age of machine-made products. Whatbegan as a shock quickly becomes a nightmare as Elena discovers the terrifying atrocities inflicted upon the students. Not only have their test scores been tampered with, but they're also unwitting subjects of experiments, one of which tests a new methodof chemical sterilization. The plan? To render all adolescents with undesirable quotients infertile...and Freddie may be next in line"--
From the critically-acclaimed author of the international bestseller VOX comes a suspenseful new novel that examines a disturbing near future where harsh realities follow from unreachable standards.
Its impossible to know what you will do…
Every child's potential is regularly determined by a standardized measurement: their quotient (Q). Score high enough, and attend a top tier school with a golden future. Score too low, and it's off to a federal boarding school with limited prospects afterwards. The purpose? An improved society where education costs drop, teachers focus on the more promising students, and parents are happy.
When your child is taken from you.
Elena Fairchild is a teacher at one of the state's elite schools. When her nine-year-old daughter bombs a monthly test and her Q score drops to a disastrously low level, she is immediately forced to leave her top school for a federal institution hundreds of miles away. As a teacher, Elena thought she understood the tiered educational system, but as a mother whose child is now gone, Elena's perspective is changed forever. She just wants her daughter back.
And she will do the unthinkable to make it happen.
