The Testing by Joelle Charbonneau

The Testing (The Testing, #1)

by Joelle Charbonneau

It’s graduation day for sixteen-year-old Malencia Vale, and the entire Five Lakes Colony (the former Great Lakes) is celebrating. All Cia can think about—hope for—is whether she’ll be chosen for The Testing, a United Commonwealth program that selects the best and brightest new graduates to become possible leaders of the slowly revitalizing post-war civilization. When Cia is chosen, her father finally tells her about his own nightmarish half-memories of The Testing. Armed with his dire warnings (”Cia, trust no one”), she bravely heads off to Tosu City, far away from friends and family, perhaps forever. Danger, romance—and sheer terror—await.

Reviewed by readingwithwrin on

3 of 5 stars

Share
"But I am no longer certain I want to be a leader. Not if my country values murder above compassion."

Overall while I did really enjoy this book I also had a lot of problems with it and didn't really get into it until the last 60 pages. I just kept seeing so many similarities to the divergent trilogy that it made me not enjoy this as much as I could have.


When Cia graduates from school at the age of 16 she has no idea what she is going to do with the rest of her life, Until she gets chosen along with four other students to be tested for the University and potential future leaders of the commonwealth. While she is thrilled with this her father (was a part of the testing and went to university and is now a part of revitalizing plants) is not and warns her to trust no one and to only eat the food from the cafeteria. While she does take her fathers advice for the most part she also decides to trust Tomas who, is from her colony.

Once we get to Tosu City, which is the capital and where the testing takes place. We start to learn more about Cia as a person and see what her values are and what she will and won't due to pass the tests to be able to go to University.

I loved Cia as a heroine she showed emotion, was extremely compassionate and wanted to do what was best for the world in her mind. Plus she was able to take charge when needed and realized when she did something wrong and felt bad about it. She also really cared about her best friend back home and made sure she had someone around that we be her friend since Cia was leaving.

As for Tomas while I did enjoy his character I never fully trusted him as much as Cia did (and for good reason) and I found his character at times to be pretty annoying since Cia was the one capable of keeping them alive out in the testing field.
I didn't enjoy their romance at all and it felt a little like well were gonna be partners so we might as well date.

For the rest of the characters in the book they were well thought and enough information was told about them so we knew who they were, but none of them really stuck out to me much.

While I did enjoy the setting of the final test I also found it such a big testing area that at times it was very confusing and slight unbelievable that these teenagers could make it across this devastated land in such a short amount of time with little to no sources of transportation.

I might continue on with this series at a later date, but as of right now it's not on my to read list.

See more like this on my blog

Last modified on

Reading updates

  • Started reading
  • 13 June, 2015: Finished reading
  • 13 June, 2015: Reviewed