Graduation Day by Joelle Charbonneau

The second novel, Independent Study concluded with a startling discovery by Raffe and Cia. Raffe Jeffries, whose father, Rychard, is head of the Department of Education gives Cia Vale a tape recording that proves what really happened during the first set of tests. Cia and Raffe tell Michal Gallen that they will take the tape to the rebel camp rather than give it to Michal to do so. They agree to meet Michal at the edge of Symon Dean's rebel camp where Cia hears how she killed Will during the Testing. Michal believes that he has to get these recordings to Symon who will give them to President Collindar so she can play them in the Debate Chamber, revealing what is really going on during the Testing. This should pressure officials into voting against Dr. Barnes.

Michal takes the recordings and meets Symon as Cia and Raffe watch while hidden. Cia recognizes Symon as the man who gave her food and a drug to help her resist the questioning about her family during the interview. Symon shoots Michal, killing him instantly and then destroys the recordings.

Cia now realizes that The Testing's purpose is to select the best and brightest young minds and make sure they conform to the government's opinions and to be under government control. Those who believe differently have been tricked into believing they are part of a rebellion. Symon is not working to help the rebels, he is working with Dr. Barnes to ensure The Testing continues by deceiving them. Symon and Barnes have created the rebellion as a means to control those who are trying to end The Testing. He has counseled patience to the rebels who now want to attack, an attack Symon and Dr. Barnes know about and is certain to result in death for the rebels including Cia's brother Zeen. Cia realizes that she must now take control of the rebellion, one free of Dr. Barnes's control.

Graduation Day now picks up where Independent Study left off. Cia is contacted by her brother Zeen who is in the rebellion. She explains what has happened and that Symon Dean is a traitor who has engineered the rebellion to bring down those against The Testing. Once the rebels attack, there will be Security Teams waiting for them and they will be killed. Although Cia tries to warn her brother to leave the rebels, he decides to stay in order to retrieve information that might be useful to Cia. Meanwhile, Cia realizes her only hope is to approach the President and tell her what she has learned.

President Collindar tells Cia that she cannot cancel the Debate Chamber vote without raising Dr. Barnes and Symon's suspicions. Instead she decides to postpone the debate for a week at which time Michal's disappearance will become public. Collindar tells Cia that they must carry out the rebel's plan to end The Testing by eliminating specific people who have authority and control over The Testing. The President gives Cia a list of eleven names, supplied by Symon and tells her that if she wants to eliminate The Testing she must kill these people. The list includes Dr. Jedidiah Barnes, Professor Verna Holt, Professor Douglas Lee, Professor Chen,  Rychard Jeffries - Raffe's father, and Symon Dean.

Cia is devastated and has no idea how she is going to do this or if she even should. Collindar gives her a week to decide. Cia returns to the University campus to find that Professor Holt is interviewing everyone to try to discover the whereabouts of Damone Pyburn, whom Cia killed in self-defense. Cia manages to contact Zeen who tells her that she needs to leave the University as the rebels on campus are planning to attack Dr. Barnes and that Symon and Renatta have instructed the rebels to remove anyone who might interfere with their plans.

Cia begins to formulate a plan; she draws up a list of people who will help her to carry out the President's plan. This list includes her boyfriend, Tomas, Raffe, Stacia- a friend in the Medical field of study, Ian, Enzo and Brick. Cia tells Tomas what President Collindar has asked her to do and he is shocked.  They decide that she needs to test Ian, Enzo and Raffe to determine if they are trustworthy. All pass the test except Enzo who is seriously injured.

Tomas, Raffe and Stacia are the only students Cia knows for certain she can trust. They are determined to end The Testing and to find out what has happened to the students who failed and were Redirected. After looking more carefully over the list Cia decides that there are only five people who definitely need to be killed; Dr. Barnes, Rychard Jeffries, Professor Chen and Professor Holt as well as Symon Dean. One team will go after Barnes and Jeffries while the other one will target Holt and Chen. Zeen has indicated that he will kill Symon Dean.

Having escaped the University grounds, the four begin their plan to kill these people. Can Cia achieve her mission and end The Testing for good?

Discussion

Charbonneau's conclusion to The Testing series was well written, leading to an exciting conclusion that answers many of the questions posed in the first two books about The Testing. Readers might pick up on what is really behind President Collindar's request and have it confirmed in the final confrontation between Malencia and Dr. Barnes. We also get more of the backstory of how the continental United States was so devastated by a world war, followed by environmental damage and genetic damage to the human population and how the survivors have worked to recover their world and what was left of their society.

Through her narration of the story, Cia proves to be a young woman who attempts to maintain her integrity and hold on to the values of respecting life that her parents instilled in her in the Five Lakes Colony. When confronted by President Collindar, she tells the president that killing these people is murder. Eventually she comes to the undesirable conclusion that the means (murder) will justify the end (stopping The Testing). Rather than just blindly following Collindar's request to kill everyone on the list, she tries to find out about each person and whether or not they are truly responsible for The Testing.

Graduation Day is well paced for the most part, driven mainly by action. There is very little development of the numerous characters and their relationships to one another. For once I felt the romantic relationship between the two lead characters, Cia and Tomas, was well written - low key as it would be for two people struggling to survive under such challenging conditions.

Fans of the Hunger Games will enjoy this very similar series. 

Book Details:
Graduation Day by Joelle Charbonneau
Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt    2014
291 pp.

The Testing by Joelle Charbonneau

The Testing by Joelle Charbonneau is a Hunger Games read-alike, which will definitely appeal to fans of Suzanne Collins' famous trilogy. As with Hunger Games, The Testing is a dystopian story about a group of teens selected to undergo a series of tests, some of which are deadly. The tests are designed to select those most qualified to lead in the reconstruction of a devastated country. Set in post-apocalyptic America, The Testing deals with themes of trust, loyalty and self-survival.

The novel opens with Malencia (Cia) Vale and her classmates preparing for their graduation. Cia lives in Five Lakes Colony, one of the smaller colonies containing only about one thousand inhabitants. Cia lives with her father, mother and four brothers, Zeen, Hart, Win and Hamin. Her father's job it to genetically alter plants so they can thrive in the devastated areas of the Five Lakes Colony. Their colony is one of eighteen spread throughout the continental United States, now known as the United Commonwealth. A world war, known as the Seven Stages War has completely destroyed society.

Cia hopes to be chosen for the Testing, which if she passes, will allow her to study at the United Commonwealth's University. Cia's father is a University graduate who was chosen and passed The Testing. So when no Tosu City official shows up at the graduation, Cia is very disappointed. However, the next day Cia and four other young graduates learn from Tosu City official, Michal Gallen, that they indeed will be part of this year's Testing. Included are fellow colonists, Tomas Endress, Malachi Rourke, and Zandri Hicks.

Before she leaves for Tosu City, however, Cia's father warns her that the Testing is not what she thinks it is. She learns that her father has no memories of  the Testing, that somehow his memory was wiped clean. He found University challenging and when he was assigned to a new colony he began to have nightmares. He never knew what happened to the people who did not pass the Testing, nor his roommate. Cia's father warns her to question everything she sees and to trust no one.

Each candidate is given a bracelet which has a unique symbol on it. Cia's symbol is an eight-pointed star with a lightning bolt in the center. The first test is a series of written exams which test for knowledge of science, mathematics, history, and reading. The second set of tests is a series of hands-on problems which prove to have brutal consequences for some of the candidates. The third test involves a series of problems to be worked out within the framework of a team. This too is not as innocuous as it appears. Through each level, Cia comes to the realization that a wrong choice could mean death.

After passing the first three levels of the testing, Cia and the remaining candidates are told about the fourth and final test; they are to be dropped off in the poisoned wilderness and must make their way back to Tosu City. Those who do so will have passed the test. Cia and her close friend, Tomas make a pact to find each other and do the final test together. Cia has known Tomas from childhood and she is gradually falling for him. But can Cia trust Tomas in what will likely be the most deadly test yet?

Discussion

The Testing is a fast-paced novel that bears many similarities to Hunger Games; a group of teens facing a deadly test, a love triangle hinted at in the first novel, a government with sinister motives, and a group of rebels willing to help one special candidate outwit the authorities.

The novel's protagonist, Cia Vale is a resourceful, strong character, in fact, sometimes overly so. She seems to be incredibly adept at detecting traps and outwitting the challenges of The Testing, so much so that it sometimes stretches the credibility of the character. Cia discovers almost immediately just how sinister the Testing will be with the discovery of cameras in the skimmer. Like Katniss in Hunger Games, Cia works with a boy from her own colony/district to survive against enormous odds, buries a dead candidate, and manages not to kill anyone, preserving her moral integrity in the story. Like Katniss, Cia doesn't think about the horrors of what is happening to her, nor the ethics of her choices; she is too busy simply trying to survive. That will come for later.

This novel works because Charbonneau is able to create and maintain suspense through much of the second half of the book which tells the story of the fourth test- Cia and Tomas's journey though the wilderness back to Tosu City. What at first seems to simply be a race to return to Tosu City evolves into brutal contest of survival in which candidates are permitted to injure or kill fellow candidates in order to prevent them from getting a passing grade. Not only does Cia struggle with how she will deal with the other candidates as she meets them but she also remains uncertain about Tomas, especially after she leaves him and another candidate, Will, alone for a day and returns to find them unwilling to explain what has happened during her absence.

Overall, The Testing is a great start to this new dystopian series. It's unfortunate that it is so similar to Hunger Games; the lack of originality and the many similarities are quite obvious. Nevertheless, it is an exciting novel with a worthy heroine.

Author Joelle Charbonneau studied vocal performance and was involved in opera before becoming a writer. The Testing Series will see two more books, Independent Study and Graduation published in 2014.

Book Details:
The Testing by Joelle Charbonneau
New York: Houghton Mifflin 2013
325 pp. 

Rise by Anna Carey

This novel is the third and final installment in the Eve series, picking up where Once left off. Caleb is dead and Genevieve has been married off to Charles, her father's right hand man. Genevieve's (Eve) father continues his draconian control of the City. Moss, a rebel who goes by the name of Reginald in the City, seeks out Eve as the plans for the attack by the rebels on the City move forward. He brings her a substance to poison and kill her father, so rebels can gain control of the City. They were unable to procure ricin, a deadly poison and instead Eve is given oleander extract to use. Moss instructs Eve to place the poison in her father's medication and that this will signal the start of the attack on the City. Once the attack begins, Eve is to leave and remain in a safe place for several months until order is restored.

Shortly after, Eve learns that she is pregnant. Her father believes this is Charles baby, however he is unaware of the true nature of Eve and Charles' "marriage". When Charles is told of the pregnancy, he does not reveal the truth that the baby is not his but tells the King that he is very happy.

Eve manages to place the poison in her father's medication and he becomes ill immediately afterwards. At this time the attack on the City by the Outlander rebels commences but does not appear to be succeeding. When Eve witnesses the execution of several rebel leaders and her father begins to suspect that she has played a part in both the attack and his illness, Eve knows she is in great danger and must leave. She barely manages to escape the City, taking with her Clara and many girls from the hospital. Originally, Eve had wanted to take Charles and his mother with her when she left, but that was not possible.

The group led by Eve travel west, hoping to reach Califia and safety. When they finally reach the colony of Califia, Eve is told by Quinn what has been happening in the City since her escape. Her father, in an attempt to discover her whereabouts, continues to arrest and interrogate Palace staff. Those who are interrogated do not return. The bodies of those executed remain hanging in front of the Palace. Eve realizes that unless she kills her father, she will never be safe, that he will continue to hunt her. She also knows that young girls will continue to be abused under her father's government. With this in mind, and despite being more than 3 months pregnant, Eve decides to travel back to the City with the expressed intent of confronting her father. Can Eve save what is left of her life and prevent other young women from meeting the same fate as Ruby and Pip?

Rise was a somewhat disappointing anti-climatic ending to the Eve trilogy. Readers will find themselves somewhat disappointed with the ending of the novel which is somewhat subdued, despite Carey tying up some of the lose ends. Readers are left with many questions; what happens in the City after its collapse, what happens to Eve, who were the fathers of all the babies, and is New America reunited? And what about Eve's a heart-stopping discovery? What comes of that?

Rise focuses more on action rather than the relationships between the characters, mainly because most of the important characters are absent in this third novel. Caleb is already dead, Moss is killed, and Charles and Eve's father remain in the city when Eve escapes. Carey removes all of these important characters from her story, thus taking away most of the emotional impact, the suspense and more importantly, the conflict and the romance. Eve spends most of her time traveling in Rise, as the novel focuses on her attempt to get nine girls to the safety of Califia. Focusing on the main character traveling from point A to point B and back to point A slows the pace of the novel, weakening the interest of the reader. There's almost no conflict and very little danger as a group of nine girls, one seriously injured and one pregnant, traipse through the wilds of post-apocalyptic America.

The death of Caleb in Once, turns out to be the emotional climax of the series, and yet is treated only superficially in that book. But Eve's discovery at the end of Rise should have been the emotional climax of the trilogy. Instead, it got a few bland paragraphs at the very end of the novel, leaving the reader disappointed. The same thing happens with Moss' death and also the death of another significant character in the novel. They are treated superficially, with almost no emotional investment by the main character, Eve. Overall, Carey had a good story but didn't take full advantage of opportunities to make her story really crunch.

Rise is not a bad effort, but it is a disappointment to those who truly enjoyed and were pleasantly surprised by the first two books of the trilogy.

Anna Carey is working on another set of books to be published in 2014 and 2015 called Blackbirds. You can learn more at her website, Anna Carey Books.

Book Details:
Rise by Anna Carey
New York: HarperCollins Children's Books 2013
310 pp.

The Lives We Lost by Megan Crewe

The Lives We Lost is the second book in the post-apocalyptic Fallen Worlds trilogy by Canadian author, Megan Crewe. Kaelyn's friend, Leo, arrives unexpectedly on the island ferry with news about the mainland. To the shock of everyone, Leo tells those on the island that the virus had infected nearly everyone in both Canada, the United States, and most likely the world. Everyone is just as badly off as those on the island and help will not be forthcoming.

As the pandemic continues to rage, Kaelyn is now sharing a house with her boyfriend, Gav, her cousin Meredith, and Tessa and the recently returned Leo. When Kaelyn finds the keys to her father's research center, she decides to investigate to see if he had made any progress in developing a treatment for the virus. She finds the lab intact, her father's notes on his research into a cure, and several vials of vaccine. Apparently her father injected himself with vaccine three weeks before he was murdered, so Kaelyn feels certain that he must have found an antidote for the illness.

Kaelyn approaches Nell at the hospital, telling her about the find and asking her if she can make more. But Nell tells Kaelyn that she doesn't have the expertise. So Kaelyn decides that she must travel to the mainland to find someone who can replicate her father's work and produce more vaccine.

Initially Kaelyn and Gav decide they will make the journey to Ottawa in the hopes of locating scientists. But when the island is attacked by a military helicopter, they along with Leo, Meredith, and Tessa flee, with the help of a mainlander who came to warn them. This man, Tobias Rawls, is a young soldier from a nearby, secret military base on mainland Nova Scotia. Tobias has an armoured vehicle and he is asked to join them on their trek to Ottawa. After scavenging supplies from nearby stores, the group sets out.

As expected, things do not go as planned. Just as they enter New Brunswick, they run out of gas. When the group goes to look for fuel, their truck is vandalized and they must now walk on foot to Ottawa. Packing as much supplies as possible onto sleds they continue their journey on foot by following a major highway. However, those who vandalized them are not so eager to see them leave. Kaelyn's group narrowly escapes these people who are armed and driving a green van, by hiding in the forest by the highway. They continue onward traveling in the woods adjacent to the highway until they arrive at a hidden colony run by Hilary Cloutier. The colony was once an artist's colony for painters, writers, and composers to spend some time working on their craft. At the colony they meet a woman from Ottawa who tells them that traveling to the capital will be pointless because the government and scientists have abandoned the city.

So Kaelyn and her friends, Gav, Leo, and Tobias decide to travel to Toronto because of its numerous hospitals and the higher probability of locating researchers who might be able to make vaccine. Kaelyn decides to leave Meredith with Tessa who has opted to stay behind at the colony. But before they can set out, the unknown people in the van search the colony. Everyone hides, the vigilantes leave and the group manages to flee safely, although they have now unwittingly picked up Hilary's son, Justin, an unpredictable teenager who doesn't fully understand the dangers involved.

Kaelyn's goal now is to try to arrive safely in Toronto with the vaccine. But Kaelyn has an unknown group pursuing her and they seem to know that she has a vaccine. When they arrive in Toronto, Gav falls ill with the virus. Leo and Kaelyn learn that a man from British Columbia, Michael, has risen to take control of every area he passes through by offering food and medicine to those who will side with him. Known as Michael's Wardens, they are now in pursuit of Kaelyn. Can she outwit her pursuers and keep the vaccine from falling into the wrong hands?Can Kaelyn save both Gav and Tobias?

Crewe's novel is a decent second installment in the Fallen World series. Kaelyn and her group must deal with the winter weather, a lack of food, the ever present danger of contracting the virus, and the knowledge that they are being pursued by hostile survivors. However, for the most part, any hardships the group encounters seem to be easily remedied and any suspense created by their pursuers is not sustained. Instead the focus is on the main characters having to accept the fact that the lives they once had are gone forever - a point Kaelyn returns to again and again. They are hopeful that a vaccine might make their lives what they once were.

" 'I don't want our lives to stay like this, ' he said. 'I don't know if this vaccine is going to make a difference, but it could. It's the best chance we've got. I want to fight for that....' "

Kaelyn is presented as a strong female character who, although having doubts, generally seems completely determined to find someone who can replicate her father's vaccine even though she's not certain that the vaccine works. (There is a hint that it does because both Gav and Tobias were not innoculated and by the end of the novel, they are now sick. Tessa and Leo were and remain healthy.) Even when she witnesses the unintended murder of the three people tailing them, she seems to quickly recover. Even when Gav becomes desperately ill, Kaelyn still remains focused on her goal - to get the vaccines to someone who can make more of the same.

The basic storyline is somewhat predictable - we knew that both Gav and Tobias would likely sicken after Gav refuses the vaccine and Kaelyn doesn't offer Tobias an inoculation. And we know it's predictable that they would be pursued by someone wanting what they have. Having an army man who just happens to be a crack shot,  along for the adventure turns out to come in quite handy too. There's the hint of a love triangle, with Kaelyn loving Gav, but unable to admit to herself that she is attracted to her best friend, Leo who is put out when his girlfriend, Tessa, seems more interested in gardening than being with him. But it all makes for an enjoyable read and a suspenseful but hanging ending to the second novel.

Book Details:
The Lives We Lost by Megan Crewe
New York: Hyperion    2013
276 pp.

Partials by Dan Wells

Partials tells the story of a post-apocalyptic society in what was the eastern seaboard of the United States in the year 2076. 

Mankind has been destroyed by the Partials who are genetically "engineered organic beings identical to humans". The Partials were built by a company called ParaGen to fight in the Isolation War, which they won handily. Five years later, they turned on humans. Faster and stronger than ordinary humans, linked to one another and highly efficient, they easily wiped them out. 

The Partials released the RM virus, a specially designed virus that quickly killed virtually every human being on the planet. Only a small percentage of humans were immune and survived the pandemic, but any children born afterwards, continued to die.

The survivors of the war and the virus, retreated to Long Island where they found food and shelter. There they organized a government consisting of twenty senators and built a Defense Grid to protect themselves. Meanwhile, the Partials disappeared, retreating inland. No one has seen a Partial in eleven years.

Since the Break, every human baby born has died from the RM virus. The youngest child, Saladin, is now fourteen years old. To try to counter deaths caused by the RM virus, the government enacted the Hope Act which required women of a certain age to have babies in the hope that some might survive. Instead, all babies have continued to sicken at birth and to die hours later. It seems that there is no hope left for the remnants of humanity.

When sixteen year old medic, Kira, learns that her friends, Madison and Haru, are expecting their first child, she is determined that she will find a cure for RM. Up until now, researchers have been studying only the babies and she feels that there is something they are missing. Kira discovers that the virus has been studied from all possible angles, except the source - the Partials who are immune. In order to do this, Kira realizes that they need to find a Partial and take samples or bring one back to study. She believes that somehow there is a connection between the two. When she approaches a senior researcher with her idea, she is told this is impossible. Undeterred Kira, organizes a group to go out to the mainland - to Manhattan, with the intent of capturing a Partial.

The sortie is successful and Kira manages to capture a male Partial. Although furious with her for doing so, the government gives Kira permission to study the Partial, named Samm, with the stipulation that after five days he will be destroyed. She begins her studies on him, but when the government attempts to use the captured Partial to gain total control over the society, Kira realizes she must free Samm and take him back to the mainland. Samm reveals to Kira and the Senators, that the Partials are dying off. ParaGen designed Partials with an expiration date. At twenty years of age, the process that halts their aging begins reversing and the Partials literally rot alive. Because of this Samm claims that he and his company were on their way to the human settlement to offer a truce, when they were attacked.

However, when the Senator's learn of the Partials predicament, they want no part of helping them. Instead they decide to publicly execute Samm and let everyone know that the Partials which were created twenty-one years ago will all be dead within three years. In an attempt to bring a group of rebels known as The  Voice back under government control, the Senators want to use Samm as the scapegoat for a bomb attack on Kira's lab.

As expected, things don't go according to plan and Kira is captured by a group of Partials intent on experimenting on her to try to find a solution to their expiration problem.  During her capture, Kira not only manages to piece together the information she needs, but encounters a shocking revelation that directly affects her future.

Discussion

Partials is an exciting novel, packed with action, suspense and multiple twists in the plotline. The main attraction of this novel is the human-like organic beings, the Partials, who are essentially engineered weapons. Despite having human DNA, they are considered non-human and treated with fear and disgust by society. But when Kira finally meets a Partial, Samm, she begins to understand that in many ways he is very much like humans. As she begins to understand him and know him better, her views on Partials change.

The novel has a strong female protagonist in Kira Walker, a courageous, take-charge young woman who is willing to make the ultimate sacrifice to save humanity. Kira is supported by a large cache of unique characters; Marcus her boyfriend, Jayden who is the brother of Madison her best friend, and Partials, Samm and Heron. While Kira and Samm are well rounded characters, many of the secondary characters are not.

Partials has a well described post-apocalyptic world. Wells portrays a world ravaged by war fought only too effectively by genetically engineered soldiers and a ruined humanity. The reader is presented with a harrowing view of life where every single baby dies. It is a society without hope and no future.

There are several weak points in the novel. The idea of the RM virus is incredibly complex and because it is gradually revealed throughout the story, it was difficult to follow Kira's eventual deciphering of how it works. The division of the  novel into disparate time chunks is also confusing. The first part is the present, followed by Part 2 which takes place three months later, followed by Part 3 which is titled Four Hours Later.

Despite these minor flaws, Partials is one of the better dystopian young adult novels. It touches on the issue genetic engineering and the difficult and unexpected problems that might arise from engineering new human-like life. The dramatic conclusion of this novel suggests an exciting second novel in the series.

Book Details:
Partials by Dan Wells
New York: Balzer & Bray 2012
470pp.