This Is Not a Test (review)

After the zombie apocalypse hits, six teens fight their way to the relative safety of the school, then barricade themselves in. After that, there's not much to do but wait and slowly let themselves be torn apart by paranoia and mistrust. Summers crafts an astonishingly haunting and melancholy tale of the end of the world as narrator Sloane, whose father's abuse and older sister's abandonment pre-zombie attack left her suicidal, waits with virtual strangers for her chance to leave and die quietly without endangering them. The zombies are an oppressive outside force, but the action is minimal; this is all about the gradual psychological unraveling of the survivors that occurs in the quiet before the storm. The result is a tightly focused, slow-simmering narrative that builds as mounting external danger and the arrival of a possibly infected teacher forces them into impossible choices. Subtle parallels run between this and Sloane's own conflicted emotional journey as the details of her sister's betrayal are teased out and her death wish becomes apparent to the strangers—the drug-dealer turned surprisingly good leader, the popular twins whose parents the leader let die, the freshman who's already useless with fear, the cool smoker who's trying to keep the peace and save Sloane from herself—she's trapped with. With devastating emotional realism, compelling three-dimensional characters, and an absolutely brutal plot arc, this is an unforgettable and powerful vision of the end of the world, up close and personal.