by Courtney Summers
Published on June 19th 2012
St. Martin's Griffin, 323 pages
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?
- Goodreads.com description
Wow. This book totally blew me away. I'm really in awe. And I am still trying to figure out if I connected with the main character so much that I actually felt all the feelings she was feeling, or that I was just in a bad mood. But I am willing to bet my money on the first ;) My emotions were all over the place. Literally.
Sloane. My sweet little Sloane. I felt so bad for her. She is so brave and so strong and in the same time so fragile, my heart was breaking all over for her. I don't know how much to say except for; Sloane, I really felt you. I did.
Well, it's a zombie book and I must admit it's the first zombie book I've ever read. And I liked it! I was terrified and scared most of the time, but it was incredible. And as a psychologist - the dynamics of the group was described amazingly. I guess the author knows a lot about Social psychology and group dynamics ;)
The writing. OMG the writing in this book was so freaking good. In the beginning I was shocked because I felt it was something I could have wrote. I felt like the writing style was so similar to mine, that the connection got me hooked for the rest of the book. So, really, Courtney Summers you did an amazing job with This Is Not a Test! ;)
So, if you're searching for an awesome zombie book filled with action, sorrow, loss, will to survive, and good romance, This Is Not a Test is the perfect book for you!
Waiting around to be saved is like waiting to die and I have done more of both than anyone else in this room. There's a whole lot of nothing before there's something and running was something.
The worst kind of emptiness fills me. Imagine loving someone that much, but imagine them loving you back. I thought I knew what that was like but I didn't. I never did.
And then I step into the lot, feeling the bravest and most indestructible I've ever felt in my life which is strange, I guess, because I'm readying myself to die.
"You really think there's nothing left for us?"
he asked.
"I think there's nothing left for me. I don't think that for everyone else."
"So what do they have that you don't at this point?"
I pressed my lips together. I don't want to talk about this anymore. I don't want to talk about how everyone has something even if they don't really have it anymore, that what they had makes them strong enough for this, to keep going.
Maybe the only way our story can end is varying degrees of sad. And that I miss her, that I need her, and this kind of missing, this kind of need, the kind of emptiness it leaves behind is worse than waking up one day and finding the whole world has collapsed in on itself, that I was over long before it was.
