The Testing- ♥♥♥♥♥

Cia felt very real to me. The way her thoughts are tracked, the choices she makes, the life she lives, it all just comes across so well. At her graduation day it was interesting to see how her town functioned. Seeing so few people graduate was strange for me. It gave a little bit of insight into the state of the world, but not a whole lot.

When she was chosen for the testing and her father told her about what he remembers, I was curious as to how it all played out. Him remembering any of seemed like a fluke and a set up at first. When it is revealed that other University grads have some of their own dreams like that, it no longer felt like a set up. It did make me wonder why more wasn’t done about it. Stopping the testing from accepting students in Five Lakes did help those kids, but not the rest of them.

I expected the discovery of cameras. It would only make sense that they would be watching the whole time. Based on what I understood of the testing, they would want as much information as they could get. It also wasn’t surprising that Michal wanted to help Cia. I have the feeling that he will die soon. Mentors always seem to. It will be sad because I really like him, but that is just always how it seems to work out.

Tomas surprised me. He seemed superficial at first, but it turned out he was pretty smart, resourceful, and caring. What happened when him and Will were left alone still bothers me (I think it is supposed to), and I want to know what Tomas’s involvement was. My head is screaming that he can’t be a good guy because no good guy would kill a friend, lie about it, and keep the whole thing as a secret between himself and someone he doesn’t trust. My heart wants him to be innocent, and to not really know what happened. If he turned his back on Will and didn’t see the actual act I might be able to understand. I still can’t figure out why he would want to keep it a secret from Cia if he did nothing wrong. I have a feeling I wont like him so much in the next book, which makes me sad.

Malachi and Zandri didn’t make that much of an impression on me. They aren’t around through most of the book, but I was sad at their loss nonetheless. They seemed like good enough people, and they meant something to Cia. Watching her grieve was hard.

Will and Gill seemed fantastic. When Gill failed and Will was left alone I felt pretty bad for him. I was also happy when Cia kept an eye on him and stopped him from going to medical. I missed the clues entirely for what an awful person he is. He rigged one of the tests, and they attempted to kill off as many candidates as possible. Seeing Tomas being so cold to him was hard. I couldn’t figure out what he issue was. However, Tomas is now under suspicion from me to. I really don’t know what to think anymore.

Something that Cia said really stuck out to me about the testing. If they are trying to rebuild and make society better than it had been before, why are they killing off some of the brightest people they have? While I can understand only sending those who are good enough off to university due to limited space, but why let them die… They had already proven to be smart. They could help back home or in other colonies that need assistance. It feels like there is something else going on, but I haven’t decided what yet.

The final stage of testing was brutal. This was the part, for me, which really exemplified the interesting aspect of psychology. Instead of just trying to do their best and move forward, some of the candidates decided to try and take out any competition they could. I still don’t know what the testers were looking for, because someone like that would not be the best of people to follow. Sometimes hard decisions have to be made, peace can’t always be kept, but the way some of those candidates behaved was downright immoral. What good is the human race if we toss morality to the wind? Some of this us subjective, but it really made me think about some of the choices Cia had to make. I wonder if I could have made the same ones.

I was really hoping Cia would find a way to keep her memories, she didn’t. It is unclear if Tomas managed to. Nothing was really told about that. He didn’t seem to, but that could’ve been because he couldn’t let anyone else know. The recording she made herself should be enough to push her to find more information. I’m hoping the next book has a lot more information about the world, why the testing is the way it is, and whether or not Tomas is guilty of murdering their friend.

It should be interesting, and I plan to start it soon!