[review] This is Not a Test by Courtney Summers (2012)

Tags

book, book review, dystopia, school, survival, teenager, teens, young adult, zombie apocalypse, zombies

This is Not a Test (2012)
by Courtney Summers
Paperback Edition
Publication Date: June 19th, 2012
Publisher: St. Martin’s Griffin
Buy a copy via Amazon.
Synopsis from 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.

My Thoughts:
I was hesitant to read Courtney Summer’s This is Not a Test because I’m not a fan of zombies. However, This is Not a Test keeps zombies to a minimum, with them mainly appearing in flashbacks and in the denouement. I can see how zombie fans would be disappointed with the lack of action and epic fight scenes, but I was fine with it because the all of characters were rendered with such complexity, from their inner motivations to their flaws. I was skeptical how Summers could make being stuck in a school last 300 pages, but she did–and beautifully too. This is Not a Test is a wonderful, poignant character-driven story and what happens when you are stuck in a school with five less-than-perfect people in a hopeless situation, which may be more evil than the rancid zombies looming outside.

[review] I Am Not a Serial Killer by Dan Wells (2010)

Tags

book, book review, demon, horror, killers, killing, lying, paranormal, psychotic, serial killers, sociopath, teenager

I Am Not a Serial Killer (2010)
by Dan Wells
Paperback Edition
Publication Date: March 30th, 2010
Publisher: Tor Books
Buy a copy via Amazon.
Synopsis from Amazon.
Goodreads.

John Wayne Cleaver is dangerous, and he knows it.

Obsessed with serial killers, he never wants to be one. Yet terrible impulses constantly tempt him.Having grown up helping his mom at the family mortuary, dead bodies are no big deal to John. He likes them, actually. They don’t ask for the empathy he’s unable to offer. Perhaps that’s what gives him the clarity to recognize that something is frighteningly different about the freshest body on the slab.
For the first time, John must confront a danger outside his own mind, a threat he cannot control, a menace to everything and everyone he would love, if only he could.

My Thoughts:
Since I enjoyed Dan Wells’s 2012 foray into Young Adult, Partials, I decided to go back and read his other work: The John Cleaver trilogy. The idea of getting into a mind of sociopath intrigued me; I expected a thought-provoking, character-driven novel with an complex, yet also unreliable narrator. I went in with high expectations, but although it was an exciting read filled with suspense, the John Cleaver’s character was too forced–nor did the plot twist that almost ruined the story. However, I still found the story enjoyable–a very easy read. I didn’t like John very much nor could I grasp his thinking, but I’ll let it go–he is a sociopath after all.

I’m Not Sure If I Would Classify It As An Adult Novel:
If it were up to me, this novel would be classified as Young Adult. Well to be fair, it was originally pitched as a YA novel, so maybe that’s why I didn’t get the adult vibe from it. Or because the protagonist was a high school freshman. Perhaps it was the horror, “gore” aspect that kept it from being in YA–but it really wasn’t that horrific. I’m the girl who got scared with that hanging man song from Suzanne Collin’s Mockingjay, but this novel…didn’t faze me at all. So even if you are a YA lover, don’t let the adult classification deter you.