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. It’s impossible to know what you will do… 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.
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I don’t read much dystopian fiction but I enjoyed VOX by this author and wanted to give this one a try and am sure glad that I did. This novel is frightening because I could see it happening in our world the way things are headed. There is so much prejudice in the world over people who are different than ‘us’ – immigrants, physically and mentally disabled, LGBTQ and the elderly to name a few. In Master Class, everyone has a ‘Q’ score based on their mental ability, their income and their race. The ‘Q’ rating changes constantly but if you have a high score, you can shop at the better stores and buy nicer things, get treated better by everyone and, most importantly, for students, they can attend the better schools because it was felt that there was no reason to use education money for students who were less than perfect. If a student had a high score, they would go to a top tier school with their future bright. If their score dropped a little, they went to a school that had worse teachers and little support. However, the students with the lowest scores were sent to boarding schools in other states and away from their parents and families. The purpose? Education costs are cut, teachers focus on the best students, and parents are happy.
This novel is about the Fairchild family. The husband is Malcolm and he is a government worker who leads the new changes in education, the wife is Elena who teaches at a top tier school and there are two daughters:
Anna, who has a high score and goes to a top tier school and is fawned over by her father and Freddie who appears to be on the autism spectrum (Asbergers?) and is in danger of losing her score and being sent to a state school. When the worst happens and she is sent to Kansas, her mother’s goal is to be with her and rescue her from the school and her new life and she is prepared to do the unthinkable and risk her marriage and her ‘Q’ score and maybe even her life to be with her daughter.
This is a wonderful, thought provoking look at a world that is only concerned with the rich and intelligent people and has no concern for other people. I find that I am still thinking about it, weeks after I finished reading it.
Thanks to goodreads for a copy of this book to read and review. All opinions are my own.
I had read and loved Vox, so I had this pre-ordered for months in advance because I knew it would be a home run. I was about halfway into Master Class when I posted my reaction to this in emojis which went from: wow to shock to horror, and I think that perfectly sums up the brilliance that is Master Class.
I won’t summarize this as I normally do because I think the blurb speaks for itself. My emotions were everywhere regarding Elena. In equal parts, I sympathized with her and hated her. I watched in horror as the worst thing imaginable happened to her and adored her determination in getting Freddie back. I hated her husband Malcolm from the very first introduction, and I cheered on Dalcher for creating such fantastic characters that could make my emotions swing so wildly. The setup of a country going so awry is our worst nightmare. We could easily give up our power in little pieces as the characters did because it seems the right thing to do.
I wanted to read some poorer rated reviews on Goodreads because I wanted to see why people aren’t screaming in joy from the rooftops about the brilliance of Master Class. I struggle with people that poorly rated it because they hated the characters because that means Dalcher has done her job.
While I knew about the US eugenics programs, it didn’t make this any easier to read. This could easily happen again with everything going on in the world, and the way we’ve slid back in time with things we thought we were overcoming. I loved the social aspect of this, and I loved the inclusion of the characters which plays a huge role in the book. I found myself racing towards the finish to see some resolution but slowed myself down because I didn’t want to see the book end. This is a brilliant, haunting work of art.
REVIEWED THE UK VERSION WHICH IS CALLED Q
The society in this book is made up of “those that have” and “those that have not” though your place in society is decided by your very own Q score. Every single person has their own Q score. A Q score can be tested for and given to an unborn baby. This Q score is constantly checked and updated whether it may go up or down. The Q score is the deciding factor on what school you go to, which has a knock-on effect of what social circles you move in, where you live, as well as what job you do.
The main family this book focuses on is the Fairchild family which consists of Malcolm Fairchild, a high ranking, government official, his wife is Elena Fairchild who is a teacher at a high-class school. They have two children, the naturally bright, studious, and confident 16 year old, Anne, and their younger, more anxious, 9 year old Frederica, though everyone but her father calls her Freddie. Elena’s parents and grandmother do not agree with the current system and Malcolm knows this which is why they don’t get along and it is a rarity for him to visit when Elena takes their daughters Anne and Freddie.
The school system is on three colour, silver, green and yellow coded levels. The highest ranking being Silver schools, the middle ranging Green schools and the Yellow state schools. Elena is a teacher who has a great Q score so works at a Silver school. Anne Fairchild is the “perfect” student who seems to thrive on the continual tests to reassess her Q score. Anne is in what you would call the popular crowd (not like her parents when they were her age) and all the popular crowd go on about are of course the newest Q scores, and who has lost so many points they have lost their place at the Davenport Silver School and will be going to the nearby by Sanger Green School. Q scores can go up as well as down and Elena lives in hope that Freddie’s anxiety of tests etc will improve and she will move up from Sanger Green School and join sister Anne at Davenport Silver School. It is normal to be moved one school down but it soon becomes apparent things are changing for the worse, it seems the tests are also becoming harder too.
Elena actually ponders within the book how people can get used to all sorts of systems when they are forced upon them. One example of this is Elena’s neighbour being 100% in favour of the Q scores and the colour coded schools the whole time her daughter is getting on the silver bus to the high Q score silver school. However, the shock of her daughter being sent off to a state boarding school, her silver status rapidly downgraded to yellow infuriates her mother and the once staunch supporter of the Q system now has increasing doubts and becomes instantly more verbal about the bad points of the system.
When her husband Malcolm refuses to do anything about the fact their very own youngest daughter who suffers from anxiety is to be sent to one of these state schools it is up to Elena to try and hatch a plan to reunite with her daughter. Elena thinks if she can get demoted to a state school, and by forging Malcolm’s signature makes sure it is to the same school their daughter has been sent to it will be of comfort to Freddie and somehow force Malcolm into actually doing something about the situation. It really is a difficult decision for Elena to make as she loves both her daughters. To help Freddie, it means abandoning Anne. Malcolm has always favoured Anne and even prior to Freddie being downgraded to yellow card/state school status he blatantly ignored her. He bestows attention on Anne whilst brushing off Freddie like she is just some irritant to be put up with.
When Elena arrives at her new job at a state school that doesn’t even have a name just a number, #46 she is in for an even bigger shock than the one she had on the journey there, though at least she has made a friend in Ruby Jo, and the quieter older woman also on the bus with them destined for school #46. It’s not long until Elena realises there is more to her new teacher friends than she at first thought, luckily for her as she is drawn deeper and deeper into to the darkness and evilness her husband and his colleagues are creating and think of as being totally acceptable.
In an attempt to save her own daughter, and get the word out about what is really happening in the state schools Elena has to agree to be a test subject for another measure those in charge are wanting to introduce. She soon learns that those in charge including her husband are willing to go to extreme lengths to protect the future they envision no matter who gets hurt in the process.
This is a ‘dystopian’ tale that could quite well happen in the near future. I had drawn comparisons with the Nazis system and Hitler’s plans before they were referenced by Elena’s parents and grandmother, though I do read quite a lot of both fiction and non-fiction about that era of history. I thought the way Oma Maria reveals the old uniform of her days in the Hitler’s Youth Girls group. Oma Maria encourages Elena to question the very Q system that Elena had helped Malcolm to create. Elena can see that the system is going to far, becoming too harsh and when her grandmother Oma Maria compares the state schools to Nazis concentration camps, she really doesn’t want to believe things have really gotten so bad.
I adored the story about the frog and how it was recited in front of Malcolm when he insists on accompanying his wife and children on a visit to Elena’s parents and grandmother (last visit for Freddie). Oma Maria asks if they know the story of the frog…
If you put the frog in a pot of boiling water, he’ll jump out.” She silences Malcolm with a hand and smiles. “If, on the other hand, you put the frog in a pot of cold water and turn up the heat one degree at a time, well, before long you’ll have a boiled frog. And he’ll never know what’s coming.” Then, taking my father’s hand in her own, she says, “Our parents saw the frog boil in Germany. One degree at a time.” The way Oma Maria recites it as the wise woman who has seen and borne witness to the system that Malcolm is deeply involved with creating. I found it sad to read her family almost not believing Oma Maria when she tells her stories. They think she is making them up, or changing them as she goes along because of her age but this elderly woman is wise and has a lot that needs to be heard and acted upon as we discover as the book progresses. In fact, it turns out that some of Oma Maria’s family were actually involved in some of the nasty experiments that the Nazis inflicted in the concentration camps.
My favourite character, if I had to choose only one was Oma Maria, her love for her family and shame about the past are really well conveyed throughout the book. She is determined the horrid experiments she had heard about in the past would not happen to her great granddaughter Freddie, or anyone else if she had anything to do with it.
The character I enjoyed hating was of course Malcolm, though there were others I could add to this category too, such as Madeleine Sinclair and Petra Peller. Malcolm is a despicable, ignorant, hateful, selfish idiot who cannot see his wife Elena and youngest daughter Freddie. I wonder does he really see his eldest daughter Anne, or does he just see her Q score?
I have to mention the byline from the book cover again as it really is a case of “Only The Perfect Will Survive” in this book. It’s not “survival of the fittest” as it is in some sci-fi books more of only those with great Q scores in their ancestry, their current family and siblings and those who can maintain that Q score will survive and have a “life” as opposed to those with lower scores in their ancestry, siblings and themselves being unable to keep up with the ever higher expectations who will just “exist”. This author really has done her research and this book is so much more than a fictional story, especially when you look around at the way the leaders of the world are leading, sometimes dragging us along. The society and its system has been really well thought out and explained in detail as the story unfolds.
My immediate thoughts upon finishing this book were Amazing! I can’t express how much this book has made me feel and think! Like Vox, it is a book that will stay with me for a long time after finishing reading it! Probably due to the kind of books I read I had picked up on the subtleties of what the Q numbers were based on and where this book was going long before it was at first clearly hinted at and then revealed. I readily admit to being in tears throughout the last chapters but it was the ending that had to be, though I think a sad one. I will most certainly be on the lookout for any other books by Christina Dalcher she has the ability to tie history, current probabilities and future possibilities all into one fantastic story. I have already purchased and added another couple of books to my “must read” list as Christina recommends them.
To sum up I thought this book was an amazing read and I highly recommend reading it. Honestly the way the world is progressing at the moment it may not be as far fetched as you may at first think. Definitely thought provoking and made me eager to know what is coming next from this brilliant author.
An Orwellian look at a possible future of our educational system and our society, and how the two are tied together. The scary part is you can really see this happening.
WOW! This story left me speechless. It was insightful, terrifying, and a sad story all wrapped up in 3oo+ pages. A definite must-read.
Master Class is a dark look at how a near-future America slides into totalitarianism and eugenics. The system relies completely on a system of Q scores which encompass each person’s intelligence, economic status, etc. The higher one’s Q score, the more privileges are available: from better schools to special lines in the school cafeteria to special lines in the grocery store. The system was largely designed by a man named Malcolm Fairchild. Unfortunately, the protagonist Elena is a married to him. At one point, in high school, she was completely in step with his beliefs. Her devotion to him and his system begin to fail when she gets pregnant and refuses to do the prenatal testing that would determine her fetus’s first Q score. If it’s not high enough, Malcolm will insist she abort the fetus. She fakes the test results, and they have a daughter, Frederika (Freddie) who is possibly on the Asperger’s spectrum. When nine-year-old Freddie fails her standardized test for the month, she is taken from her parents and sent to a farm in distant Kansas, never to return. Even teachers face monthly testing, and the quality of the schools in which they can teach drops if they fail their tests. The book is essentially Elena’s struggle to save her daughter while revealing the horrors the Q system has wrought.
The world-building is great. Elena has a full character arc in which she moves from believing in Malcolm’s views on education to standing up for herself and her children—in fact, standing up for all children. I loved the book except that the ending seems a bit rushed. Despite the hurried ending, I’d give this a full five stars because of its subject matter and its dystopic look at a potential American future.
This is a disturbing, thought-provoking look at a near-future America at its worst. A world concerned only with the bottom line in education, which has deconstructed all the efforts to promote diversity in schools and education for all. There is no quality of life for those with low Q scores. I read it in one night, then stayed up all night thinking about it. Like Margaret Atwood’s dystopian novel, The Handmaid’s Tale, Master Class will change your views on education, power, and politics.
Elena Fairchild is a teacher in a futuristic world where her own children are in the school system. Her husband Malcolm works for the department of education and is instrumental in overseeing change. The current system uses a standard measurement to evaluate the potential of students called the Quotient (Q). It is a standardized test score where each student’s progress is calculated and measured. Those achieving high Q’s attend top tier schools with rewarding futures, and those with the lowest tests Q’s are sent to a federal boarding school.
Elena’s youngest daughter, Freddie, is nine and performed terribly on her recent test. Her Q score deteriorated so far that her parents were notified that she will be sent away to the federal boarding school. Malcolm believes in the system and feels his own family should not be exempt. Elena becomes unhinged at the thought of losing her daughter but fighting the system will lead to the end of her career and marriage.
Master Class by Christina Dalcher is a suspenseful dystopian novel. It is a thought-provoking book and raises questions and concerns about social change. The tension mounts throughout the story making it exciting to read.
cool unique something obvioulsly dystopian wich is a genre I love
Christina Dalcher, author of “Master Class” has given her novel the perfect title, which can be interpreted in many ways. This is a terrifying, suspenseful, intense, edgy, psychological thriller that is extremely thought-provoking and frightening. The genres for this novel are Thriller and Fiction, although there is some type of Eugenic studies and experiments that are mentioned, that actually occurred many years ago. The author describes her characters as flawed, dysfunctional, complicated, and complex. A few are psychopathic and possibly sociopathic. I am not a psychiatrist or a psychologist, but Freud would have had a field day analyzing some of the characters.
Elena Fairchild is a teacher in a complex teaching setting where students and teachers are defined by their Q (“quotient). Malcolm Fairchild, her husband is instrumental in devising the standards for the Q. Their older daughter is extremely competent, and their 9-year-old daughter seems to have a testing phobia, and at times acts out. In this system, the children with low Q scores are often sent away to a state school, where they have to stay.
It seems there younger daughter has not done well on a test and is being sent to a state school. Elena’s older grandmother keeps warning her to get her daughter out. Elena teaches in an elite school and has to devise a plan to get her daughter back. You might wonder why Malcolm Fairchild is letting his youngest daughter be sent away. I wouldn’t say that Malcolm is the father of the year, or for that matter husband of the year. I do have some titles for him that I can’t put in writing.
I was so shocked at many things in this story that I couldn’t put this book down, and I couldn’t fall asleep after reading it. This is quite an intensely suspenseful, disturbing, horrific, and thought-provoking novel that I would recommend for those readers who appreciate a chilling thriller.
I was given an advanced reader copy for an honest review.
Masterfully written story that had me wondering, questioning, mad, very upset, shocked, and finally in tears. The thought of history repeating itself and what was not taught to us in school, that is such an intricate part of this story, left my jaw dropped and had my fingers flying across Google. A deeply disturbing and fantastic must-read story.