Young Adult books are generally geared for readers between twelve and eighteen years of age. By any standards that is too broad of a range.

Anyway, this might be an okay read for middle-schoolers even though the plot revolves around a high school shooting. I had a problem with the author's generalizations. She groups the students into clichéd categories: drama queens, jocks, techies and freaks. These kinds of categories are fine for identifying interests but the author attributes certain charact More...

This is the kind of book you want to read in one go because the story just carries you along, the plotlines just keep getting more and more entwined and the stakes keeping go up and up so you must know what happens next!

The stakes actually start pretty high with this book. It opens in the quad of Muir High School where Ranger (a freak) is starting his day, putting up with the bullying of some jocks or "juicers" as Ranger calls them, when a series of pops slowly gets his attention. As the popping More...

Jared Widish
3/15/13
Block 5

This book was really interesting but was very confusing in some parts. I wish that in this book they would've explain some of the parts a little more. They explain all the important parts well but some of the less important ones they were just telling what was happening. The author really described the characters and the setting really well but the events were a little vague.
Now on to the whole plot of the book the plot off this weird book was to get revenge on someone More...

The premise of the book is interesting and... well, I suppose we sadly can't say fresh, but different, and that's why I picked it up.

That said, while the idea of the book is very good, the mechanics of it need some work. As the plot is that the reader is supposed to figure out the whodunnit, the book didn't need nearly as much emphasis on making every single character a suspect. I mean, we're reading about them because they already are suspects, right? Generally, as soon as the author gave a ch More...

QUAD is more of a straight thriller compared to HATE LIST, which I read right before QUAD. Both are about school shootings, but while HATE LIST is more concerned with the event and the recovery of those most affected by it, QUAD shows the escalation of a pattern of abuse by the ruling jock and social girl cliques, leading to the tragic collapse of one of their victims. Like HATE LIST, QUAD jumps backward and forward in time from the crucial month before the shootings start to the actual day.

The More...

I read this book very quickly, as it has short chapters and it's easy to read and breeze through. However, I was VERY disappointed in this story.

First of all, without giving anything away, I really didn't like the ending. Nothing was tied together in the end, and it just didn't give that satisfying ending feel like most books should.

I felt that the author has so much going on, that it just didn't work out or connect with anything. She started SO MANY side plots, and none of them were resolved an More...

Quad is a suspensful book about the events leading up to a school shooting. The author, C.G. Watson, takes the reader back and forth between April 4, the day of the shooting, and the weeks leading to that day. This book is very teachable; there are only a few issues with language. Although there is a rape scene, it is not graphic, and it is very brief, but important to the plot. I would suggest this book to any 9-12 grader who loves suspensful books, and I might read exerpts to my class if we we More...

I thought this book was aimed at a much younger audience than myself. Because of this it was a quick read with relatively short chapters and clichéd plot lines. The characters in the book were flat, grouped into their respective titles of 'freaks, techies, drama queens, etc'. I think this book had the potential to be something more, but perhaps because it is suited for a younger audience it lacks the maturity of the idea. I also found the ending to be short, quick, which i didn't like but I'll g More...

For some reason I absolutely love school shooter books. I don't know what it is about them, but I'm fascinated with them. We Need to Talk About Kevin is probably my favorite of them all just because of the weaponry. With that being said, Quad is probably one of my least favorite school shooter books. I think the main reason why would have to be who the shooter ended up being.

Quad takes you into the lives of several high school kids and gives you several reasons why they may kill off their peers More...

"Why? Why do people have to be so mean?"

Quad started out confusing. There were too many characters, the chapters flipped by so quickly and bounced between the characters like a ping pong ball in a heated five-way match between pros. I kept having to turn back a few pages to check who was who and when things were happening. It was disorienting. But after getting the hang of it, I was eventually able to get into the story, and it left me frustrated. Angry. Indignant. For the characters, the victim More...

The book Quad, by C.G. Watson has shown me new aspects that I have never been able to see before. I don’t think I have ever read a book formatted exactly like this, and it was interesting to actually see someone write a book this way. Furthermore, the way that it’s written contributes to the amount of action and mystery in the story. Overall it was a very interesting read.
First off, the book contains 296 pages that are split into chapters which only state the point of view and the date. From t More...

LATE REVIEW
THERE ARE NOT SPOILERS IN THIS REVIEW BECAUSE I CAN'T REMEMBER THE STORY CLEARLY

This is another book I did not intend or had an preconceived notions. The writing style took me by surprised and the short chapters also took some time to get accustomed to but put aside the and you got a really good book.

The book does (at the beginning) have characters based on cliché but further in the book you see the characters development into so much more. They surprise you with the things they do an More...

Reviewed by Sally Kruger, aka "Readingjunky" for TeensReadToo.com

This fast-paced read presents the frightening side of high schools today. The action starts by page five, when an unknown shooter is heard firing shots in the high school quad. Terrified students run screaming in all directions. One small group barricades themselves in the school store.

C. G. Watson begins her story on Monday, April 6. Through flashbacks, the reader learns about the lives of the students at Muir High School. Everyo More...

This novel was a refreshing and enjoyable read. I seriously could not put the book down when I began reading from the 1st page and I love how it goes back and forth from the quad shooting to the what happened before. I seriously had no idea who the shooter was till the final couple of chapters left in the novel.

Enjoyed this debut novel - along the lines of Hate List, 19 Minutes, Give a Boy a Gun, etc. High school content: language, drugs, alcohol, sex, homosexuality, violence - would be a good book to read and discuss in a controlled high school setting, as bullying is the theme of this title.

this book is about clicks and there is a school shooting and every chapter they talk about a click and how they make you think that the one click was the shooter but no. its a pretty good book and i enjopyed reading it...

I read this book very quickly in one morning, because you really get wrapped into it. The large cast of characters can be bad, since I kept forgetting which one was Christopher etc. but actually works in creating a large high school atmosphere in which these little cruelties aren't suprising. You keep reading wanting to answer the mysteries, but ultimately I was a little disappointed at the payoff. All the build up goes towards two reveals that didn't quite feel enough, and I would have loved so More...

very disturbing book, keeps you reading as you realize sadly enough that any one of the kids in the "cliques" could be the shooter because everyone can be affected by bullying. kids should read this book!

Not just about the school shooting itself-- this story is a collection of many students all dealing with issues like gay taunting, petty arguments, popularity contests, and roid rage.

My "mini"view:
This is a non-stop book, and I read it in almost one sitting. I liked it overall, but the beginning it felt like there were too many characters being thrown at me. I eventually got to know them, but I didn't get to connect to any of them deeply even with the strenuous conditions they were under because there were so many of them.
This book does make me think, and I hope others too. You don't really know what is going on in someone's head, when you might push too far. The walk a m More...

I love books like this, they have so much suspense with a bunch of different stories and what is happening right now, leading up to the amazing and shocking ending...

soooo not happy about the ending! (view spoiler)[ i mean come on, after all the sad stories of the kids who get bullied the ****ing bad guy was not even the one who died. damn it. i want to beat the daylights out of him. AND HE DOESN'T DIE? well life is never fair (hide spoiler)]

If there is anyone who doesnt feel for the book or understand why the characters did what they needed to do, it is most probably because you have never been bullied.

Stop bullying. Stop destruction. You should bloody well fear retribution. More...

It was a really good book. It switches from present time of the shooting to before leading to clues of who did it

I came for a school shooting. Not a flashback book about various forms of bullying from countless different viewpoints (all of them boring), with 10% waiting room anxiety and 5 pages for the shooter to be revealed at the end like an afterthought.

This book does not even deserve a star. It was inappropriate and I had only gotten to page 14.

It was an okay book, I figured out the shooter halfway through the book!

awesome, different point of views are intersting.

Quad: a novel
C.G. Watson

What happens when you bully someone until they snap?

One of the students of Muir High School is shooting people. Who sent them over the edge? When several students from different school cliques are trapped in the student store during a shooting rampage, they struggle to figure out who is doing this to them. Only by putting all of their stories together will you be find out who is trying to kill the other students, and why.

Grades 9 and up
High School Fiction – bullies, cliqu More...

Keeps you guessing...so plausible it's scary.