Review: This is Not a Test by Courtney Summers

Title: This is Not a Test
Author: Courtney Summers
Reading level: Ages 13 and up
Paperback: 320 pages
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin (June 19, 2012)

Book Synopsis: It’s the end of the world. Six students have taken cover in Cortege High but shelter is little comfort when the dead outside won’t stop pounding on the doors. One bite is all it takes to kill a person and bring them back as a monstrous version of their former self. To Sloane Price, that doesn’t sound so bad. Six months ago, her world collapsed and since then, she’s failed to find a reason to keep going. Now seems like the perfect time to give up. As Sloane eagerly waits for the barricades to fall, she’s forced to witness the apocalypse through the eyes of five people who actually want to live. But as the days crawl by, the motivations for survival change in startling ways and soon the group’s fate is determined less and less by what’s happening outside and more and more by the unpredictable and violent bids for life—and death—inside. When everything is gone, what do you hold on to?

About the Author: Courtney Summers can't wait for the zombie apocalypse. Also she is the author of CRACKED UP TO BE and SOME GIRLS ARE, FALL FOR ANYTHING (available now) and THIS IS NOT A TEST (June 19th, 2012), four edgy young adult novels published by St. Martin's Press.

She lives and writes in Canada, where she divides her time between a piano, a camera, and a word-processing program when she’s not planning for the impending zombie apocalypse.

My Review: What can I say, but wow!

I loved this book. First off, I love me some post-apocalyptic plot lines. I don’t know why. I’m a guy. It is fascinating. As a society we walk a tight rope every day, over a thousand different ways, life as we know it could end. It’s not likely to happen and we have tons of security measures in place, but it could happen. I think that’s why I love these novels. It answers all the “what-ifs” in a fictional realistic way. Its over-the-top, but plausible, which offers a fun read.

The Plot: This is not a test attacks the story from a different angle. We still have zombies, or mutated walking dead caused-by-a-virus things. In this variation the “zombies” can run, an important note for a zombie novel. A good majority of the book is spent in a single location. It isn’t until the end of the story the plot line focuses on the outside world.

In fact, the zombies aren’t the main focus of this novel whatsoever. They exist. They are the cause for the purpose of the book. They are the driving force that causes this group of characters to come together. But they are not the primary focus.

This Is Not A Test focuses on two different events; how a group of people act and react together in a survival situation, and what if one of the people doesn’t want to survive? This is a very different and interesting approach for this kind of book.

The Survivors: I love, love, love the fact that everyone is not honkey dorey and good with each other in this book. In most survivalist books and movies you typically have a generalized group of people with a leader and protagonist that love to make things difficult. The struggle at the end is usually only made worse by this trouble maker. This Is Not A Test is a little more realistic. This group of teenagers come together from all cliques with different motivations. The leadership line isn’t clear. At various point Cary, Rhys, or Trace take the leadership role. At different points each character causes trouble for someone else. There is no clear cut social status here. The approach is much more realistic.

The Depressed: While everyone is trying to simply survive and figure out what is next, the main character, Sloane, wants to die. She has nothing to live for in her eyes. She has a very troubled background. In all reality the zombie apocalypse gives her more relief than the average day living at home with her father. Her attitude isn’t helped by the fact that her sister, her confidant, left her 6 months prior to the world ending. As far as she is concerned, even is she survives she has nothing to live for.

She won’t be selfish like her sister though. She won’t off her self in a way that will effect the rest of the group and that means not putting the others at risk of being bitten while outside or killing herself without a way to dispose of the body and attracting the attention of the zombies. She really is the most thoughtful suicidal person I’ve ever read about. Throughout the book she only finds more reasons she should die and what she doesn’t have. She also finds more reasons why everyone else should live.

Final Thoughts: In the end I highly recommend this book. Even for those that are not that big of a fan of zombie novels, This Is Not A Test is a very interesting read. This book goes beyond a simple and fun read, but analyzes a more realistic approach of how groups of people would react together in extreme survival situations. The story is also told through the eyes of a severely depressed individual with no reason to survive which only makes the title more interesting. I recommend picking this up once it’s released.

Purchase Links

Amazon | The Book Depository | B&N

Looking for the Kindle or Nook Book?  Hit up the respective links above too!