This is Not a Test by Courtney Summers

Rating: 3.5/5

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?

I think I rated this book 3.5 because I was expecting more from it. It started out pretty depressing with Sloane thinking about killing herself. I thought that maybe going through an "end of the world" situation would shake her out of that state of mind. Sadly it didn't. Here's the thing, I blame myself for not liking it so much. How can I expect an already depressed person to get better by killing zombies? I'm used to zombie books and movies to be action packed with kick-ass heroes. I was waiting for Sloane to become this Alice form Resident Evil kind of character. Somehow I thought the kids were going to find machine guns hidden in the High School's basement and later they would pimp their school bus by turning it into a Zombie-Proofmobile. Not very original, huh?

Don't get me wrong, there were zombie encounters and plenty of gore. This is Not a Test was a page turner and the writing flows nicely. I really don't know if this is a stand-alone book but I'm hoping for a sequel because the ending was kind of a cliff hanger. If you are looking for a different style of zombie book with average teens trying to survive and people dying, then this book is for you. This is Not a Test was very realistic, with flawed characters and full of raw emotions. 

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