Survival -- Juvenile fiction. |
Zombies -- Juvenile fiction. |
Family problems -- Fiction. |
High schools -- Juvenile fiction. |
Schools -- Fiction. |
Horror fiction. |
Available:*
Audience | Shelf Location | Material Type | Shelf Number | Current Location |
---|---|---|---|---|
Teen/Young Adult | Fiction | Book | YA FIC SUMMERS | Searching... Unknown |
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Summary
Summary
Available now: I'M THE GIRL, the new "brutally captivating" ( Publishers Weekly, starred review) queer thriller from Courtney Summers, based loosely on The Epstein case and "not for the faint of heart" ( The New York Times)
It's the end of the world. Six students have taken cover in Cortege High but shelter is little comfort when the dead outside won't stop pounding on the doors. One bite is all it takes to kill a person and bring them back as a monstrous version of their former self. To Sloane Price, that doesn't sound so bad. Six months ago, her world collapsed and since then, she's failed to find a reason to keep going. Now seems like the perfect time to give up. As Sloane eagerly waits for the barricades to fall, she's forced to witness the apocalypse through the eyes of five people who actually want to live. But as the days crawl by, the motivations for survival change in startling ways and soon the group's fate is determined less and less by what's happening outside and more and more by the unpredictable and violent bids for life-- and death--inside. When everything is gone, what do you hold on to?
Author Notes
Courtney Summers is the author of young adult novels including Fall for Anything , Some Girls Are , and Cracked Up to Be . She lives and writes in Canada, where she divides her time between a piano, a camera, and a word-processing program when she's not planning for the impending zombie apocalypse.
Reviews (3)
School Library Journal Review
Gr 10 Up-Sloane Price has been raised by an abusive father, and her life is a living nightmare. Her only silver lining is her older sister, her protector and her main source of strength. But Lily runs away, abandoning Sloane and leaving her to deal with the consequences. The past six months of torment have left the teen a shell of her former self and destroyed her will to live. When the zombie apocalypse strikes, she flees one life of horror in exchange for another. Rescued by a group of teenagers, Sloane and company painstakingly make their way across town, finding refuge inside Cortege High School. Huddled behind barricades, the group tries to make sense of the madness outside while grieving for their loved ones-all while hearing the constant thump, thump of the zombies at the doors. This Is Not a Test is a riveting and powerful novel that unfolds through the brutal first-person narrative of Sloane, a broken teen who in many ways is already dead. As the story evolves, the relationships among the characters intensify as they are pushed to the brink of humanity. Summers's brilliant writing has readers confronting their own fears while witnessing what happens to good people when forced to make ruthless decisions in a senseless world. This fascinating and haunting story with sophisticated content and themes will stay with readers long after they finish the last page.-Donna Rosenblum, Floral Park Memorial High School, NY (c) Copyright 2012. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
It's The Breakfast Club, George Romero style, as six teens who barely know or like each other seek refuge in their high school while the undead hordes lurk outside. This isn't as much of a departure from Summers's edgy contemporary novels like Fall for Anything and Some Girls Are as one might think-it's as much a character study as it is a "zombie novel." The end of the world unfolds through the eyes of high school junior Sloane Price, who has been contemplating suicide since her older sister ran away six months earlier, leaving Sloane with their physically abusive father. But these worries are pushed aside as Sloane tries to keep her fellow students alive. The fragile dynamic is disrupted by the arrival of another survivor, a teacher, and a news report about survivor camps. The interpersonal dynamics and growing tension take precedence over any explanations regarding the zombies-Summers is more interested in what it's like to be a girl who doesn't want to live, stuck in a world where death isn't what it used to be. Ages 12-up. Agent: Amy Tipton, Signature Literary Agency. (June) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
Falling between the frustrated longings of Carrie Ryan's The Forest of Hands and Teeth (2009) and the paranoia of Charlie Higson's The Enemy (2010) is this tense offering from Summers, who effortlessly switches genres from such contemporary fare as Fall for Anything (2011). She dispenses with setup: the world is in ruin, zombies are everywhere, and six teens are barricaded inside their old high school. Like any student of Night of the Living Dead (is Russo's Gas Station a nod to NOTLD's screenwriter?), Summers spends most of the book treating the zombies as an abstract threat, focusing instead on the poisonous relationships of the harried gang. Sloan, 16, whose broken family has her welcoming apocalypse, is our first-person protagonist, and that's an occasional stumbling block her morose behavior is frustrating next to the dynamism of her cohorts. But when Summers finally lets 'er rip in the final 100 pages, it's downright cathartic to watch these teens leave their cocoon and enter into a vortex of danger and gore. Zombie fans will eat this up, brains, heart, and all.--Kraus, Daniel Copyright 2010 Booklist