This Is Not A Test - Courtney Summers

This Is Not A Test by Courtney Summers

Date Released: June 19th 2012
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Pages: 323 pages
Date Read: July 20, 2012
Format: ARC
Source: Netgalley

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?

From Goodreads

My Review:

Life is not a test.

You only have one and it's the only one you get. This Is Not A Test is, by far, the best Courtney Summers book I have read, it was amazing in a way I cannot even describe. It had the signature Courtney Summers writing, with troubled characters that go far beyond your average in YA books, and she always goes beyond the surface.

This Is Not A Test is the story of six students that are trapped inside their school while the zombie apocalypse happens outside - Wow, what a way to destroy a story, I just made it sound like some cheap friday night movie. I swear to you the story is way better that I just made it sound.

It's funny though, because these characters are finding it hard to hold on to something when they are just stuck inside their school. they are never going anywhere, not really. They're just waiting for their death. But when you really think about it, you're stuck in this planet, with really nowhere to go, except around the sun, over and over, waiting to die. Funny, huh?

Maybe they are not exactly living, they are waiting, surviving. They say you can be alive but not living, and I fully understand what that means; but, again, if you give a lot of thought to it, we're always waiting, waiting to finish college and start our lives, waiting for Christmas, waiting in line in McDonald's so they can take our order. We're constantly waiting, and, in fact, we are surviving. In a different way, but we are.

And once we start getting all philosophical you realize that pretty much nothing has a point. Why do my homework if I'm gonna die one day? Why follow the rules of society to end 6 feet under ground? In fact, why do anything? Everything looses it's value when you start with this train of though, and really, if you dwell too much on it, it'll simply drive you insane.

But Why? why do we go to school? Why do we fight for good jobs and to get a new car, to get the TV, the ipad, why do we bother to try and fit in? Why? And that, ladies and gentleman, is what This Is Not A Test is about, Courtney Summers portrays a character that is done with Why's, that cannot find the answers she is looking for and it's completely hopeless, until she's surrounded by people that have nothing else to cling to expect that - hope.

And just how far would you go for your own survival? Would you sacrifice yourself for someone? Or would you sacrifice someone else in order to save yourself? And who decides?

All of this is not answered until the very last page of this book, and, like all Courtney Summer's books, it left me breathless. Her stories all come in a nice white box, that once opened, whatever they bring inside, hits you with an incredible force that it simply rocks your world, then, like a friend of mine said, they are closed and neatly tied with a pink ribbon.

One word to describe this book: Flawless.

A satisfying ending. The story was everything I hoped for and more. Hard-Core Courtney Summers fan right here. If I could go around the streets shoving this book down people's throats, I would. A Must Read.

Life Changing Epic