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She was right. By the time the Fitter Family Campaign turned ten years old, they were holding Best Baby Contests in every single state. The motives were different, but each of them united together in a sickening solidarity. Middle America was tired of what they called underprivileged overbreeders; the Boston Brahmins wanted schools that focused resources on their own child prodigies (although even the champagne communists voiced their concerns about overpopulation—they just voiced them in their penthouse salons); the baby brigade worried over allergies, autism, a growing list of syndromes. Everyone wanted something new, some solution, a reason to feel safe about their little wedge of the human race pie in a country that would see skyrocketing population numbers in another generation.
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“You should have studied history, you bitch. Don’t you know it repeats itself?�

In a near-future America, your place in society is controlled by your Q score, a constantly recalculated number that seems to be a combination of your GPA and credit score on steroids. The novel focuses primarily on the school system, where a great score means admission to the best schools and where a slide into a mediocre score sends you to a state vocational boarding school far from home. Elena Fairchild helped create this system, and while she’s clearly soured on it, she’s stayed silent about it until the long-feared day when her youngest daughter gets ticketed for the dreaded yellow school bus....

I’m not going to spoil what lies at the heart of Q/Master Class (the novel has a different title in different countries); it’s a slow reveal though it’s not exactly a surprise. But even aside from that point, there are a lot of critiques of contemporary America in this novel. Of the obsession with standardized testing, and the pressure it places on both students and teachers. Of those who silently help prop up unfair social systems until the system personally harms them. Of how Americans risk repeating mistakes from the past because we are so ignorant of not just world history, but even US history.

The reader is dropped into an extreme, improbable future that is being used to highlight what’s wrong in the here and now. Often these school-based dystopian novels are told from the kids� perspectives with the kids as the protagonists, so telling this novel from a mother’s perspective is a bit unusual. And once Elena makes up her mind to rescue Freddie, her mama bear powers know no bounds. Like Ms. Dalcher’s debut novel Vox, Q/Master Class is not subtle. Still, it’s an entertaining, propulsive story that will quickly draw you in.