Waiting around to be saved is like waiting to die and I have done more of both than anyone else in the room.
This is Not a Test (This is Not a Test # 1)
Courtney Summers
Summary: 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 Review: Courtney Summers is becoming one of my favorite authors, because she has this ability to take tropes and flip them upside down. That’s what happened with This is Not a Test, which seems like a standard teen zombie novel on the outside, and instead we’re introduced to a cast of characters so unlike any other. By the end I was in shock and awe about how brutally human this was, how painfully sad, and in the end, a little hopeful. If you’re looking for a last minute Halloween/spooky read, I highly recommend this one.
Recommended age: 15+ (thematic elements, violence)
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