Author: Courtney
Summers
Publisher: St.
Martin’s Griffin (2012)
Pages: 200
Format: eBook
Description:
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?
Review:
It’s so hard for me
to talk about this book. I don’t want to forget it, I don’t want to read
anything after this, I feel kind of numb actually, and I sure don’t want… I don’t
even know what I want or don’t want anymore. All I really do know is that This
is Not a Test has touched me incredibly, and I seriously hope I’ll never be in
a situation like the one Sloane or any other character from the group, was. It’s
desperation to its maximum. It’s constant fear. It’s dealing with the unknown,
with the infected ones, the starved ones, who will haunt you, hunt you, chase
you and eat you at the first chance they get. This story is so well written,
the characters are so astonishingly damaged and scared and lost, the plot is so
damn emotional and raw and thrilling and mysterious… that anything can happen
and everything undoubtedly will.
I fell in love with
Sloane at first line. I’m still in love with her. I’m still in love with Rhys,
and Cary, and Harrison, and Grace, and even with Trace. I absolutely love them
all, because every single one of them is special, was special, in their own
way, and every single one of them served a purpose. Not all had a happy ending—or
when you come to really think about it, they just might have had their happy
ending—but they were certainly all memorable. Sloane for her numbness and
persistence, Rhys for his passion and loyalty, Cary for his leadership and
strength, Harrison for the innocent panicked comments and questions that
somehow made me laugh even when they were not intended to be funny, Grace for
her beauty and forgiving will, and Trace… Trace for his devotion to his sister
and his beliefs and, of course, his edgy side that always kept me in alert
mode. But more than just a book with remarkable characters, this is a story
about tension, about sacrifice, guilt and about being unable to move on, to
subsist, when all we care about and everyone we love are simply taken away from
us. It’s a book about will, about what’s truly important, and more importantly,
about survival.
Nothing could have
ever prepared me for the journey I was about to enter when I started this
novel. Ingenuously, maybe, I thought I was going to read a cool book about
zombies—I admit, I haven’t read many living dead stories so my curiosity was
really high—but this ends up being so much more than that. In fact, this is not
a zombie book. This is a book about a group of kids who clearly have no idea or
are even prepared for what just happened to them and to their city and that,
somehow, have to manage to survive together… oh, and with some zombies in the
mix. What I mean with this is that the zombies are just a small piece of this
overwhelming puzzle, and although their presence is a heavy burden, they are
not the main core of the book or the reason—in my opinion—why this story was
written.
I will always cherish
this book deeply. I felt it in my bones, with my entire being, and whenever I
had the opportunity to turn some pages, I would go completely oblivious to the
world. I would hear nothing, see nothing, and speak nothing. Gosh, what a
powerful experience this reading was! It’s so wonderful when, a day or two
later, you can still sense the characters around you, sense the pressure they
were under, and still think about them like they were real to you, like they
exist. To me, that’s the most gratifying gift an author can give me.
At the end of the
day, I just wish I was Sloane’s sister and that Lily would continue to be a
ghost in her life. I wish I knew what happens next, ‘cause that ending was literally
to die for. I guess, ultimately, I just wish there was more, because I need
more, I want more. Absolutely amazing.
Quotes:
«"This is not a test. Listen closely. This is not a test." But I think she's wrong. I think this is a test. It has to be...»
«The thing no one tells you about surviving, about the mere act of holding out, is how many hours are nothing because nothing happens.»
«I move closer to the glass, as close as I can get to it, begging her, begging Lily, begging Grace, begging all of them to tell me what's left, to just tell me, while the girl pushes against the window, turns her tiny hands into tiny fists, begging me for a taste of—life. My life.»
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