Author: Joelle Charbonneau
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Genre: Sci-fi, Dystopian
Blurb: (from goodreads) Keep your friends close and your enemies closer. Isn’t that what they say? But how close is too close when they may be one in the same?
The Seven Stages War left much of the planet a charred wasteland. The future belongs to the next generation’s chosen few who must rebuild it. But to enter this elite group, candidates must first pass The Testing—their one chance at a college education and a rewarding career.
Cia Vale is honored to be chosen as a Testing candidate; eager to prove her worthiness as a University student and future leader of the United Commonwealth. But on the eve of her departure, her father’s advice hints at a darker side to her upcoming studies--trust no one.
But surely she can trust Tomas, her handsome childhood friend who offers an alliance? Tomas, who seems to care more about her with the passing of every grueling (and deadly) day of the Testing. To survive, Cia must choose: love without truth or life without trust.
Me: I think for this review to work, I'll have to do the downs of the book first, and then tie it all together with the ups. So here we go...
The Downs: This book was nothing special. It wasn't unique. I think that with all the dystopian/sci-fi books being released these days, it's hard to write one that has it's own special quality to it. However, I think that that is what really proves a great sci-fi author, and a great sci-fi novel. The Testing was the weirdest mash up of Legend, The Hunger Games, The Maze Runner, The Program, and Divergent. Seriously. It was major cray-cray.
"Graduation day. I can hardly stand still as my mother straightens my celebratory red tunic..."
Isn't that familiar? Oh right, DIVERGENT.
"The Testing-their one chance at a college education and a rewarding career."
Mhmm...Remember Legend and the tests? Oh yeah and when they don't pass they get "Redirected"...wonder what that means.
"A maze. We are in a maze." SERIOUSLY.
And so on and so forth. Also they go into the fourth testing in a place where they basically have to kill other contestants. (Ahem. Hunger Games.) They also are injected with a medicine that erases their memories. (The Program.) WHAT THE HECK.
The entire book, the plot, the characters, the writing, was just...average. I feel like sometimes that's worse than a completely horrendous book because I just have no opinion on it. It was extremely bland.
The Ups: That being said, it was decent. I got through the book considerably fast, and the writing did keep me going through the book. I could depict what was happening and what scenario it was, but again, maybe that was because it was kind of a copy of different images from other books.
The only part that I absolutely loved though, was the ending. It wasn't a cliffhanger or anything, but it brought chills to my arms and I feel like it really brought the book together nicely.
Overall: Not anything new, or special, but not a bad book either.
Rating: 3 kisses!
No comments:
Post a Comment