This Is Not A Test by Courtney Summers

Title: This Is Not A Test
Author: Courtney Summers

Release Date: 19th June 2012

My Rating: 3/5

Blurb:

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?

In A Nutshell:

This Is Not A Test is a compelling novel that looks at the psychological state of 6 teenage survivors as they fight to live during what appears to be a zombie apocalypse. A story of hope and finding a reason to live.

My Review: 

This Is Not A Test is a compelling novel that looks at the psychological state of 6 teenage survivors as they fight to live during what appears to be a zombie apocalypse. Although there is some action, the story isn’t based around the teens as they constantly battle the undead. Instead we look at each person’s state of mind and how they evolve during their time holed up at their now empty high school.

Sloane had planned to end it all after a lifetime of being a punching bag for her father. But before she could, the apocalypse started. This could have been the perfect opportunity for her life to end but while sitting in the middle of the street waiting for a zombie to come and munch on her (that wasn’t supposed to sound comical), two guys she went to high school with stumbled across her and helped her to ‘safety’. Sloane has no desire to ‘take anyone down with her’ so while she waits for the perfect moment when she can surrender to the banging on the otherside of the wall, she spends her days surrounded by people who want to live and are struggling to adjust to suddenly being faced with death. But perhaps what is even more significant is that without realising it, Sloane begins to form a type of bond with some of the others, possibly giving her a reason to fight, if not for herself, then maybe another.

It was a gripping novel with a message of hope but I finished it feeling rather blasé. For some reason, and I can’t quite put my finger on what or why, but it just wasn’t enough for me.