This is not a Test by Courtney Summers

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?

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A zombie apocalypse novel that isn’t interested in survival so much as it is in asking whether survival is even the point.

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Pre-Reading Thoughts

I went in knowing this had a reputation: bleak, unrelenting, and very much not a comfort read. I also knew this was a reprint, and since I haven’t read the original edition, I’m approaching it as a standalone experience rather than a comparison exercise. I expected zombies. I did not expect the emotional claustrophobia.

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Post-Reading

As I thought…
This is grim. Even by zombie standards, the tone is relentlessly heavy, with very little relief. The setting - six teens barricaded inside a high school while the world collapses - creates a pressure-cooker atmosphere where hope is fragile and often feels misplaced. The horror doesn’t come from jump scares or gore so much as inevitability.

It surprised me by…
How thoughtfully it handles mental health. This isn’t just a story about the end of the world; it’s a story about depression, trauma, fear, and the wildly different ways people respond to crisis. Sloane’s perspective is especially striking - not because it’s sensationalised, but because it’s disturbingly calm. The apocalypse doesn’t cause her despair; it simply removes the last social obligation to pretend she wants to survive.

What really lingers is how the threat inside the building begins to outweigh the zombies outside. The novel is far more interested in the violence of desperation, control, and fear than in the undead themselves - and that makes it far more unsettling.

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Vibe Check

• Colour palette: Grey concrete, sickly fluorescent lights, dried blood brown

• Soundtrack: Low, droning tension - songs that feel like they’re holding their breath

• Season: Late autumn, when everything is already dying

• Mood: Hopeless, tense, emotionally raw

• Scent: Dust, sweat, metal, and something faintly burned

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Music Pairing

• 🎵 Featured Song: “Control” – Halsey

• 🎶 Vibe Album: Badlands – Halsey

• 🎧 Artist Recommendation: Daughter

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Tarot Pull

5 of Pentacles (Dark Grimoire Tarot)
This card speaks to isolation and abandonment - not just being alone, but being left behind while others continue on. In This Is Not a Test, the greatest threat isn’t the zombies outside, but the quiet conviction that you no longer belong among the living. Survival is happening all around Sloane, but she’s emotionally locked out of it, watching from the margins as others move forward.

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For fans of

• The Girl with All the Gifts by M.R. Carey (for zombies that are really about humanity)

• Yellowjackets (TV) for group dynamics under extreme psychological pressure

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Final Thoughts

This Is Not a Test pretends to be a zombie novel, but it’s really an exploration of mental health at the end of the world. It’s not an easy read, and it’s not trying to be. If you’re looking for hope or catharsis, this may not be your book - but if you’re interested in horror that interrogates despair rather than decorating it, this one will stick with you.