The Testing

The Testing by Joelle Charbonneau is a young adult dystopian novel that takes place in a society that's rebuilding. The society chooses members of the community to participate in the testing every year to compete for spots in the university. When Cia is chosen her father tells her that he suspects that the testing that he went through was brutal. Things start out simple but soon become dangerous.

This book is the closest to a Hunger Games rewrite as I've seen. There's young teens chosen to compete in a dangerous contest that's run by the leaders in the capital city. There's a booby trapped city, teens killing teens to get further in the contest and even evil people/animal hybrids. While it was very reminiscent of The Hunger Games I did find it entertaining and couldn't put it down. It's full of non-stop action and has a great romance and a bit of a mystery. If you can get over the similarities you'll enjoy the book.

Appropriateness: This book is very violent with kids killing kids and it's hard to read at times. I would recommend this book to readers 13+