Review: The Testing

The Testing by Joelle Charbonneau

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



If there is any justice in the world, this will become bigger than The Hunger Games.

I thought I was sick of the whole dystopian thing until I had an opportunity to read The Testing, which takes place in a post-war American society where the remaining teens are tossed into a "testing" to see if they're deserving of a college education, a career, basically a life.

What is set up as a fairly straightforward, standard dystopian teen book becomes something incredibly packed with a lot of action and a lot of mystery. We spend just enough time on worldbuilding as to get the feel for the society, and then the rest on an interesting progress through the actual Testing, where you never quite figure out who is good and who is bad.

I absolutely devoured this in an afternoon when I read it. I know I liked it more than Insurgent, and I think I liked it a lot more than The Hunger Games, the two books this story becomes the closest on. If you have any interest in this genre at all, read this book now. It's really the frontrunner for teen book of the year, and leaves me with a lot of hope and anticipation for the rest of the series.



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