This Is Not a Test

Starred review from May 7, 2012
It’s The Breakfast Club, George Romero style, as six teens who barely know or like each other seek refuge in their high school while the undead hordes lurk outside. This isn’t as much of a departure from Summers’s edgy contemporary novels like Fall for Anything and Some Girls Are as one might think—it’s as much a character study as it is a “zombie novel.” The end of the world unfolds through the eyes of high school junior Sloane Price, who has been contemplating suicide since her older sister ran away six months earlier, leaving Sloane with their physically abusive father. But these worries are pushed aside as Sloane tries to keep her fellow students alive. The fragile dynamic is disrupted by the arrival of another survivor, a teacher, and a news report about survivor camps. The interpersonal dynamics and growing tension take precedence over any explanations regarding the zombies—Summers is more interested in what it’s like to be a girl who doesn’t want to live, stuck in a world where death isn’t what it used to be. Ages 12–up. Agent: Amy Tipton, Signature Literary Agency.

May 15, 2012
A girl wants to commit suicide, but she's caught in the zombie apocalypse with a group that's trying to survive in this intriguing psychological thriller. It takes some artistic guts to set a portrayal of a suicidal teenager amid attacking zombies, but Summers has a history of risky choices (Fall for Anything, 2010, etc.). Sloane was left trapped in her severely abusive home when her older sister, Lily, escaped. When the zombies attack, Sloane joins a group of her fellow students who take refuge in their high school, a building built almost like a prison. They barricade the doors and live off food from the cafeteria and water stored on the roof. Yet, although the zombie threat keeps tension high, Summers' focus remains on Sloane and the group of teens hiding in the school. The teen suffers from the betrayal she feels from Lily, while the others jockey for dominance and squabble over perceived ills done to them by others in the group. As events proceed, the teens make real decisions about life and death, while Sloane looks toward a possible reunion with Lily. Readers never learn why zombies attacked; they are kept in the moment by Sloane's first-person, present-tense account. The focus stays on the personalities and on Sloane's struggle with her emotions and her own decision to live or to die. Unusual and absorbing. (Paranormal suspense. 12 & up)

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October 1, 2012

Gr 10 Up-Sloane Price has been raised by an abusive father, and her life is a living nightmare. Her only silver lining is her older sister, her protector and her main source of strength. But Lily runs away, abandoning Sloane and leaving her to deal with the consequences. The past six months of torment have left the teen a shell of her former self and destroyed her will to live. When the zombie apocalypse strikes, she flees one life of horror in exchange for another. Rescued by a group of teenagers, Sloane and company painstakingly make their way across town, finding refuge inside Cortege High School. Huddled behind barricades, the group tries to make sense of the madness outside while grieving for their loved ones-all while hearing the constant thump, thump of the zombies at the doors. This Is Not a Test is a riveting and powerful novel that unfolds through the brutal first-person narrative of Sloane, a broken teen who in many ways is already dead. As the story evolves, the relationships among the characters intensify as they are pushed to the brink of humanity. Summers's brilliant writing has readers confronting their own fears while witnessing what happens to good people when forced to make ruthless decisions in a senseless world. This fascinating and haunting story with sophisticated content and themes will stay with readers long after they finish the last page.-Donna Rosenblum, Floral Park Memorial High School, NY

Copyright 2012 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

June 1, 2012
Grades 9-12 Falling between the frustrated longings of Carrie Ryan's The Forest of Hands and Teeth (2009) and the paranoia of Charlie Higson's The Enemy (2010) is this tense offering from Summers, who effortlessly switches genres from such contemporary fare as Fall for Anything (2011). She dispenses with setup: the world is in ruin, zombies are everywhere, and six teens are barricaded inside their old high school. Like any student of Night of the Living Dead (is Russo's Gas Station a nod to NOTLD's screenwriter?), Summers spends most of the book treating the zombies as an abstract threat, focusing instead on the poisonous relationships of the harried gang. Sloan, 16, whose broken family has her welcoming apocalypse, is our first-person protagonist, and that's an occasional stumbling blockher morose behavior is frustrating next to the dynamism of her cohorts. But when Summers finally lets 'er rip in the final 100 pages, it's downright cathartic to watch these teens leave their cocoon and enter into a vortex of danger and gore. Zombie fans will eat this up, brains, heart, and all.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)