GoodRead - The Testing

After reading The Guest Cat over a very short period of time (while I was away of holiday), I asked Twitter if I should read this or if I should read The Bone Season. Twitter, to my surprise, told me to read The Testing. Whenever I ask Twitter to pick my next read, you guys always surprise me...

Every year, the United Commonwealth invites the top students from each colony to take part in The Testing. If you are successful, you go onto University and, after that, help the Government rebuild the war-stricken world. If you failed... best not thinking about.

Cia Vale is one of the successful students going to take part in The Testing. But her father gives her one warning - Trust No One. And what Cia sees within The Testing will change her...

This book is a bit of mixed bag. While I liked reading it, I saw real issues with it and, because of these, it makes it hard to warm to the book.

I liked the idea of this story and the series - the idea of education becoming more lethal - and I know that the second and third books in this trilogy are better than this first book from several reviews I have read.

But, I hate to say this, the execution of this idea is lacking. I'm not sure if it's how the main character, Cia, told the story or the packing of the story. There were times where information was thrown in a paragraph to speed things along (when it might have been more interesting to read the characters talking about the same information). Also, with the four Tests that took part in The Testing, the first 3 test took part within the first 40% but the last test took part in, roughly, the last 40-45%.

What worse is that, at times, I couldn't help but compare to The Hunger Games. Which you should never do, as The Hunger Games isn't the be-all and end-all of YA dystopia novels, but when you have something so successful, you can't help but compare. And at times, you couldn't help but wonder if, because The Hunger Games was so successful, someone wanted something similar and wanted to publish it quickly and The Testing was what was written.

But, like I said before, I know from other book reviewers/vloggers that the series does improve and I do have Independent Study and Graduation Day on my kindle (all 3 of these books are 99p at the moment! BARGAIN!) so I will continue the series. But I don't think that this book is a great book to start a trilogy with.

GoodRead - The Testing Guide

I try and put my posts in the order I read them (am writing this on the first of June) but with this one, as it was such a fast read, I thought I would quickly slot this in here.

Plus, this was a free eNovella. FREE! And you guys know how much I love a bargain!

In this prequel to The Testing, we follow Zeen (the older brother to the trilogy's lead's, Cia) on his gradulation day and he finds out if he has been accepted for The Testing and to go onto University like his father did before him...

Ok, am going to say this here and now. I am VERY glad this was free because if I bought this, I would have been quite angry. Because this is very short. VERY short. It's around 18% of the download. The rest is the first three chapters of The Testing. Which is fine by me as I still haven't read this trilogy yet and I have been interested in this trilogy but I can't seem to get my hands on a copy of any of the books (and I want the physical books as the UK editions are super shiny!).

And this trilogy sounds interesting. The Hunger Games or Legend by Marie Lu but with education being the vocal point rather than entertainment and revolution.

Anyway, the novella. It sets up the world in the trilogy nicely and, as I am interested in the trilogy, it did wet my appetite. However, it was such a short read and not much really happens that, if you were not curious about the trilogy and you solely read this, you might feel quite disappointed and not read further.

But I do want to go further with this trilogy and reading this got my use to Joelle's writing style. But we shall see if I actually get my hands on a copy of The Testing...