Title: This is Not a Test
Author: Courney Summers
Source: paperback I bought myself
I rated this book 3 out of 5 stars on goodreads
goodreads...
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?
My take...
I really wanted to read This is Not a Test,
like really bad. I mean if you know me any bit at all...you know I love
zombies. I love the books, the shows, I even just love scouring over Pinterest
looking for stuff on zombies. So when I saw This is Not a Test I knew I had to
read it. I even slipped it in earlier than scheduled. The cover screams at the readers...READ ME! It's gorgeous! But it's
what I found between the covers that got me. And not in a good way.
Let me explain before the masses come and
try to spear me like one of the living dead in the story. I just could not
connect with Sloane, the girl whose Point of View we get throughout the book.
The girl is depressed the entire time. I am talking the entire freakin time.
And it brought me down with her. I get that she was abused by her dad, and I
guess I am just insensitive towards her, but the girl didn't try to get better. Usually I quit reading stories once I don't connect with the characters. But I
couldn't. I had to know what happened to all the kids. Did they make it out of
the school alive? Were they infected? Did help find them?
And so here I am continuing on...reading
the story...and it's just not any better. I wasn’t crazy about Summers’ writing
at all. And found it sometimes jumbled. There are several sentences I had to
reread due to lack of understanding. Not understanding on my part, but with
what the author was trying to portray. I hate that. If I have to reread a
sentence it takes away from the story for me.
I get that a lot of people loved it and
have seen reviews of others raving about the ending. But me? Yeah I was not impressed.
I think I was even more confused when I got to the ending. When I read a zombie
book…I want a zombie book. This was all about Sloane finding herself and
deciding on if she really wants to die or not. And to me, quite frankly…I was
bored. Hope you will give it a try and see if it is for you. Unfortunately it
was just not for me.
Ooohhhhh.... I love Zombies too!! And not just because they represent the sheep-like masses of society. (Course, there is THAT!) I like a good story where regular folks rise above what they were to battle Evil, and Zombie stories typically portray that. They also represent the evils that humans can sink to, (killing other humans for supplies, chaos and lawlessness, etc.) but yeah, I agree. You really want to connect to the characters. I suppose I could see how the premise would work, but that sort of makes the character like the hundreds of other humans who will end up dying if there ever is a major crisis. (Or, hey... why not, the Zombie Apocalypse!)
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