This Is Not A Test by Courtney Summers

Sloane Price really wants to die. She even carries a suicide note addressed to her sister Lily in her pocket so others will understand why. The main reason for wanting to end her life is that she has been physically abused by her father for so long, that she can’t see the light at the end of the tunnel where the beatings stop and threats go away and life gets better.

On top of all this, her older sister Lily pretty much abandons her by leaving her behind to her father’s abuse after promising Sloane they would runaway together. I can seriously relate to and empathize with Sloane on so many different levels in regards to the abusive parental unit.

Sloane could be considered the medical professionals post script example of what an abuse victim looks like. She is severely depressed and willing to expose herself to the zombies in order to die. She doesn’t allow herself to get close to anyone until later in the story.

Shortly thereafter, the zombie end of day’s starts and Sloane finds herself holed up at her high school with five other survivors after braving the zombie hoards for nearly a week. The survivors end up banding together, and making a decent enough fort to hold off any zombies who attempt to break into the school. They have plenty of water, and food, and can raid lockers to find clean enough clothing to wear.

If you are looking forward to a novel filled with blood and guts and lots and lots of bodies piling up; look elsewhere. Yes, there is blood. Yes, there are plenty of bodies, and yes, people do end up dying. It would be silly to expect everyone to survive a so called zombie novel.

If you are like me, and want to know what truly happened to make the zombies rise up and start killing in the first place; stand behind me in the “I want to know more line of questions” for Ms. Summers.

Even though the story itself is supposed to be about the zombie end of days, it ends up being the story of survival, determination, and figuring a way to actually continue to live versus giving up on one’s desires to end one’s life.

I’m giving this a 4, and that’s because of the opening and closing chapters of this book as well as the simplistic nature of Summer’s world building were well worth my reading the novel.

Yet, the ending gets points taken away because it abruptly ends without any sort of resolution to Sloane or her fellow survivor.

Received via NetGalley on 01/23/2012...releases April 2012