This Is Not A Test | Courtney Summers | Review

This Is Not A Test | Courtney Summers | Review

• Wednesday 16 January 2013

“The thing no one tells you about surviving, about the mere act of holding out, is how many hours are nothing because nothing happens. They also don’t tell you about how you can share your deepest secrets with someone, kiss them, and the next hour it’s like there’s nothing between you because not everything can mean something all the time or you’d be crushed under the weight of it.” - Courtney Summers, This Is Not A Test

This Is Not A Test is about six students that are taking cover from a world infested with zombies in their High School. One of the students name is Sloane. But the difference between Sloane and the others is that she can't find a single reason to survive. She doesn't want to fight. She wants to die.

Yes, this is another young adult novel about zombies. And yes, this is yet another review from me about a book involving zombies. But I have to say that this is pretty different from everything else I've read in this genre! This story is not about the action, the danger and the survival. This story is about emotions. It's about fear, about guilt, about love and about hopelessness. And to be completely honest, at first, that kind of made me a bit bored with it. I'm used to those fast paced novels about raw and simple survival. And this is just not it. So, I struggled with the first part of this book. The thing that annoyed me the most was the main character Sloane. I don't know how many times I thought "If you want to die, just walk out that door and get it over with!". But you know what!? The story really grew on me. Even Sloane grew on me. And in the end I found it to be a really enjoyable reading experience.

I'm not saying that the book should be more action filled or violent to deserve a full 4 stars (I give This Is Not A Test 3,5/5 stars). But I think there's just something missing. Something that would have drawn me into the story straight from the beginning. I'm a bit of sad about the fact that that something is missing. Because maybe this book actually deserves 4 stars, because it truly has something that makes it worth reading. That being said, I'll certainly pick up the sequel and I hope it will get at least that full 4 star rating... And I think you should give This Is Not A Test a go!

This post was written by regular reviewer Niina, get to know her here.