Review: The Testing by Joelle Charbonneau

If you raced through Hunger Games or Divergent, Joelle Charbonneau's thrilling YA dystopian novel The Testing is sure to be your next favourite read.

I'm often judgmental and skeptical of a YA dystopian novel. Although the reason is mostly due to the fact that once Hunger Games and Divergent took the YA world by storm, there was little anyone else could do to produce something different. Nothing sums up this fact like this hilarious and honest summary of EVERY YA STORY EVER from The Toast. Seriously. EVERY.SINGLE.BOOK.

So while The Testing can be summed up in this brilliant article, I'll also provide the publisher's summary.

Summary: It’s graduation day for sixteen-year-old Malencia Vale, and the entire Five Lakes Colony (the former Great Lakes) is celebrating. All Cia can think about—hope for—is whether she’ll be chosen for The Testing, a United Commonwealth program that selects the best and brightest new graduates to become possible leaders of the slowly revitalizing post-war civilization. When Cia is chosen, her father finally tells her about his own nightmarish half-memories of The Testing. Armed with his dire warnings (”Cia, trust no one”), she bravely heads off to Tosu City, far away from friends and family, perhaps forever. Danger, romance—and sheer terror—await.

While I did love reading this book, I think part of my enjoyment came from the blindingly obvious reasons why The Testing is Veronica's Roth Divergent. There are differences, of course, but MANY of the plot events and several details are very similar. I even made this handy chart:

	Divergent	The Testing
Inspiring Heroine	Beatrice “Tris”	Malencia             “Cia”
Love interest	Tobias	Tomas
Society’s divisions	Factions	Colonies
Gruesome injury during competition	Edward takes a knife to eye	Malachi takes a nail to the eye
Suicide by hanging	Al	Ryme
Vicious competitor	Peter	Will
Source of evil	Erudite leader	Tosu City Testing officials
Dystopian setting	War-ravaged Chicago	War-ravaged USA; featuring a race to what USED to be Chicago
Weapon of Choice	Guns	Guns

But in all seriousness, while I find it hilarious that the books are SO similar (more similar in comparison to all YA dystopian novels being similar—so much so that if I were Veronica Roth, I would write a strongly worded letter to Ms. Charbonneau) it WAS a thrilling story. Well-written, action-packed, suspenseful, filled with both loveable characters and characters we love to hate.

If you love these sort of novels, it's definitely worth a read! Independent Study is book two of the series and is available now!

... So I guess in this bok, Cia decides if she's honest or peaceful or... 

3 Stars 

I do not own any of these images.