Man my hair Does not like to go straight when it's wet. All right, so by this point It is no secret that there are a lot of Hunger Games clones out there like just just just a lot of them Okay, and I've done videos on this before so I'm not gonna go into a lot of detail about this If you're really curious check out my Hunger Games clones and how they work video But after the Hunger Games came out and got super big There were a bunch of things that tried to catch in on that popularity So there were a bunch of stories that came out about a teenage girl There's was an evil government in there somewhere and there was some sort of rebellion and so on and so forth like there were a lot of stories that were just doing that exact same formula and Most of them attempted to do something at least a little bit different You know it may not have been something big But it may have been something a little different like the legend trilogy for instance, which is an okay series of books in my Opinion that had two main characters and it told the story from each of their Perspectives and at first one of them is already a criminal who is on the run from the evil government But the other one is working for the evil governments And so that's a little bit different even if the story is pretty much the same thing though You've seen a bunch of times before the testing Which I have the first book right here The testing is such a close copy of the Hunger Games. It is Just borderline trademark infringement like I have the other books here too. Don't worry.  It's it's kind of fascinating and I'll say right now This is an awful series But at the same time it was kind of nice to go back to something that was just a regular level of awful, you know After the way of the shadow wolves that Steven Seagal trainwreck that I talked about a few months ago This is like a palette cleanser. You know, it's certainly bad, but it does feel somewhat competent in some areas and we'll get into that as it goes on in the series like there are a few bits where Okay, this isn't too awful And also quite frankly, it's not full of all the bigoted shit that Steven Seagal's book had, you know There's not there's no anti-semitism There's no blaming the destruction of the world on the Catholics or anything like that. It's just it. It's just a bad book series so It was kind of nice to just go back to something like that If you want something to happen, you just need to pray and not be a Muslim or Jewish Anyways, I don't think there's a whole lot more I can say in the intro here. This book series is pretty bad Do I really recommend it to anyone? No, like if you're looking for Something that's hilariously awful You might get a few laughs out of this It might be worth it to check it out from the library or something But I wouldn't recommend buying it and I know this has like the sticker like it's from the library But I did buy this it's just bought used and I was afraid if I tore that off it would Tear off half the cover along with it. So I just left it. But yeah, if you're looking for something hilariously bad Maybe borrow it rather than buy it. I don't think it'd be worth the price And if you're if you're someone who is Genuinely into young adult dystopias and you want to read one of those There's better ones out there like you could read legend or Enclave maybe or I actually just about finished reading the configured trilogy which I Have criticisms of it, but I think it's an alright series overall I might do a video on that we'll see and I don't know if you're looking for something like that Check out those as for this we're getting into spoilers and everything So if you if you don't want to hear that then leave now, this is the introduction song It's not very good, but it's not too long. So first we have book one Which is just called the testing and I'll say that the cover or at least this version of the cover I have here is not half bad like we can see half of a little medallion with a sigil on it and The title is just there just as the testing There's a bunch of blank space and then it just says your time is almost up your time is almost up your time is and it gets cut off almost like it's a repeating message and That kind of adds a little sense of urgency to things. So I thought I thought that was kind of cool You know nothing really special, but I thought it was neat. I know That some people might get annoyed by me constantly comparing this to the Hunger Games But I'm going to have to do it a lot especially at this beginning part You'll see what I mean as we go on but like I said earlier. It is just beat for beat Exactly the same story a lot of the time. So Here we go. Let's this is the testing graduation day I can hardly stand still as my mother straightens my celebratory red tunic And tucks a strand of light brown hair behind my ear Finally, she turns me and I look in the reflector on our living area wall red. I'm wearing red. No more pink I am an adult seeing evidence of that tickles my stomach Are you ready? See ya my mother asks she too is wearing red Although her dress is made of a gossamer fabric that drapes to the floor and soft swirls Next to her my sleeveless dress and leather boots look childish, but that's okay. I have time to grow into my adult status I'm young for it at 16 the youngest by far in my class, okay? So we have the boringest way that you can possibly start a story It is the main character getting ready for school or in this case technically getting ready for graduation But you know close enough that is just the most mundane thing imaginable, okay? It's not engaging in the slightest like we don't know this person So usually when you want to start off a story you want to start it with something extreme like that doesn't mean an action Seem necessarily, but you know something interesting has to be happening if you want to grab somebody's attention and staring in a mirror Getting ready for school is not Interesting or extreme or anything like that, you know, it's just it didn't it doesn't get you into the story It's boring. It's mundane and then we also have the fact that they're calling a mirror a reflector And that sounds like super high-tech like they're trying to say oh they live in this crazy Technological society and I was thinking about that because I didn't really know jack shit about this series before going into it I just heard it was laughably bad and They really aren't You know like they don't live in that sort of world They in fact the town they live in is pretty rural and not exactly poor But they don't have a lot of technology that we don't have today In fact a lot of the time their technology is less than what we have today So I'm not sure why they would bother using like fancy sci-fi terms like that just say mirror You know, it's a it's a weird little moment Which just took me out of it and we're gonna see more of those going ahead and so anyways The main character her name is Sia. That's CIA is 16 years old and she's graduating from School, you know, I don't think they ever specify what type of school like they say primary school or high school or anything like that But it's just you know graduating from school and the whole colony Attends graduation even though there's only 14 kids graduating and again They mentioned that the town they live in is pretty small. There's only less than a thousand people there So it makes sense that there'd be that few kids at graduation, but why would everyone want to go? You know, I is that do they really have nothing else going on? I I suppose so zine and my other brothers are definitely not slobs In fact girls practically throw themselves at them But while my brothers aren't immune to flirting none of them seems interesting and settling down They're more interested in creating the next hybrid tomato plant than starting a family zine most of all He's tall blonde and smart very very smart and yet he never got chosen for the testing The testing is capitalized by the way because you know why come up with an actual name for things when you can just Turn a noun into a proper noun. It's also nice of them to just come right out and say things about the characters you know like my brothers are super smart and Attractive and people like them and they make new types of plants and stuff like Okay, I See at this stage, we should be learning about the protagonist that is Psea and we aren't like we're two pages in we're learning about her brothers more than her and I feel like if you're gonna give some sort of just straight-up explanation of somebody's personality At least have it be someone important like the main character, but we don't get that yet and It's also very important to mention that the main character has a strong relationship with one of her siblings and they also Later mentioned one of her friends named Dyleen who she has a super strong relationship with apparently, but we never actually see it And it's very important for us to see this because that's exactly what the Hunger Games did at this stage it made sure to Show us some time that she spent with Gale so that she So that we saw that how good friends they were and it also made sure to show her taking care of her younger sister Prim and Well, again with that it showed us, you know, we learned about Katniss and her backstory and it also showed her Well, not quite this early on but later on we saw her volunteering to take Primrose's place in the Hunger Games So even if we hadn't up until that point seen her actually taking care of her sister like helping her get dressed and ready That sort of thing even if we hadn't seen that we would know okay. She does really love her sister She's willing to die to protect her Sia We just hear like yes. I I love my brothers. I guess and that's I Guess we just have to take her word for it So it's doing the same thing that the Hunger Games did at the beginning, but it's doing it really crappily, you know, like a Sia's friend Dyleen is like mentioned a few point times in this beginning section of the book And I don't believe she's ever even brought up again the rest of the series like It with Katniss and Gale we saw them go out into the woods and hunt together So they spent some time together at least, you know, I at least bought that they were friends So we learn over the course of the next couple of pages that they live in the five lakes colony which is part of the United Commonwealth and that Every year at graduation some of the students which have done the best in school are chosen for something called the testing Which is pretty mysterious, but Basically, it's something sort of Testing process that you have to go through and if you pass then you get to be chosen for to attend the University Which is in the United Commonwealth's capital, which is Tosu City. I don't know why they call it that either but you go to the University and then you can become like a doctor or an engineer and You know help rebuild the world after it was destroyed now I'm the thing that the five lakes name It says that it was named after the five great lakes like in the book She said that so I was thinking it could be anywhere in the great lakes region And so I was thinking like okay, that doesn't really narrow it down. Why would you give us that broad of an area? But apparently there's also a really tiny Unincorporated town in Michigan called five lakes, so it might just be there. I'm not totally sure But I feel the need to bring that up so that everyone else can argue about it in the comments And I will also say that their country being called the United Commonwealth is a dumb name Like the United Commonwealth of what? Like and also United Commonwealth just it sounds weird because it's singular And I know people are gonna say the United Kingdom ha ha ha well It's full name is the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland like and it was separate kingdoms before that All came together into one that's why it is named that and then there's also the United States well That's not its full fucking name. It's the United States of America. This is just called the United Commonwealth That's a stupid name and we also have a moment where Sia mentions that she's mechanically inclined The option seems bleak at best since my thumb is anything but green the last time I helped my father I almost destroyed the sunflower seed link he'd spent months creating Mechanical things I fix plants I kill so We don't see her doing anything To show us that she's good at mechanical stuff again I have to keep mentioning the Hunger Games because this is beat for beat very similar with Katniss We saw her be a hunter, you know, we saw her out in the woods Laying traps tracking animals shooting her bow and arrow and so from that We know later on when she's stuck in the arena that those are the sorts of skills she's going to use which will help her survive and Just based off of okay now that we know Something see is apparently good at a better opening would be Sia is working on an engine or something and then her mom comes in she goes. Hey, you're gonna be late for graduation You gotta get ready. She goes. Oh, yeah, I lost track of time and then they go and get ready for graduation like Just that little bit of opening would already tell us so much more about Sia about her character about the world She lives in and if she was working on the engine like with her father or her brother or something Then that would tell us more about their relationship like that's just a much better Opening, you know and much more interesting and I don't know the rest of the opening chapter is pretty standard, you know the That Sia and the other kids all graduate in a normal ceremony.  You're adults. Yeah Sia hopes that she gets chosen for the testing and then nothing interesting happens there The only funny bit is that we learned her full name is Melencia Vale What that's What and and then there's other dumb names too like Dylene and I mentioned her brother's name zine Just What why are these characters all have such dumb names? Oh, that's right because the Hunger Games did it You know the Hunger Games had people that were named things like Katniss Everdeen and Effie Trinket and Peter Malark and Plutarch Heavensby so for a while every YA dystopia book without really thinking about why everyone had weird names They just decided to also give characters weird names so then Sia gets called to the mayor's office and there's three other kids there and There's also a representative from Tosu City named Michael and he just tells the kids Oh, by the way, Michael is spelled weird. I assume it's still pronounced Michael, but I don't know it could be like McCall or Mitchell Mitchell something like I don't know but the point is He tells all the four kids that are there that they've been selected for the testing and they're all happy about it and apparently Not going to the testing when you're called as treason Which is weird like I I I can understand it being illegal to not come when you're called But calling it treason is an odd choice So, yeah, we also have the main character being chosen for some sort of dangerous competition against her will because Well, that's exactly what Katniss Everdeen did the main difference here is that Sia as well as the others that are chosen including the only two that are important really are this boy named Tomas and this girl named Zandri and we'll get more to them later, but The only real difference Here is that Sia actually wants to go to the testing because she doesn't know it's dangerous I mean, I'll give it that that is at least a little bit different that that is that has potential to be interesting like The characters go through this and then they realize oh shit Our government is evil and then they have to deal with that as opposed to Katniss Knowing right from the beginning that her government is evil because well every year They take a bunch of kids and murder them on television where she has to watch and they also keep everybody in extreme poverty So that they can live in luxury over in the capital, you know like That is at least a little bit different, but at the same time We don't know Sia and we don't really respect her either, you know, like I said Katniss volunteered To save her sister's life to go to the Hunger Games like she was not expecting to come home Like she was expecting to die when she left and so that's why when she said goodbye to everybody it was so tearful and Sad and shit like that but Sia is just like oh cool.  Yes would be excited about that but not everybody also we're only 24 pages in and Brief thing I have to mention is that this is also written in first-person present tense. Why? Because the Hunger Games was written in first-person present tense, you know, it's not it's not like that was the first book to ever do it, but at the same time it really took off and became popular in this genre and The only reason it was popular in the genre is because they did it, you know And everyone else was just copying without really thinking about why they did it or how it worked But yeah, the bit the biggest issue here is we just we don't know much about Sia Like I know it sounds like I'm glossing over things, but I'm really not like Katniss We knew was brave. We knew she loved her sister. We knew she was a hunter We knew she hated the government in the Hunger Games Etc. And whether or not you find her to be a likable character or a super interesting character is obviously subjective But at least we knew some things about her as a person Sia We know she's apparently good with mechanics. We know she's apparently smart like she was good at school and stuff And that's that's about it. Like, you know, why why should we care about her? You know, we also know that she's not poor so she doesn't really have any reason to dislike the government or anything So Okay, it's just it's just they're not giving me a reason to care so far. It's just yep There is this person who is a blank slate and she's about to do some stuff So Sia's dad tells her about his experience during the testing and how he apparently doesn't really remember Much of anything that happened during it. All he knows is that there were some people who went there with him and they Just disappeared afterwards. He never saw them or heard from them again He heard they apparently went to work in another colony But that's all he knows and he remembers being in like a ruined city and seeing dead bodies around that's that's all he remembers just a few snippets of violence and So Sia gets a little bit nervous, but she's still Not thinking that hard about it. She's like, well, I'm sure I'll be fine So to prepare for this Sia takes her brother's communicator like remember her brother's zine he has this communicator which is Kind of like a phone, you know, it has like a calculator and stuff on it which can make it useful and she just she just steals it without asking or anything like your Kind of a bitch for doing that Sia, but alright, and I also feel the need to bring up She has several other siblings which are barely ever mentioned like Okay, at first I was thinking alright.  She has two younger brothers who are twins like, you know She has a decent sized family and at first I saw that and I was like, okay, that that makes sense in these circumstances But the only one who really gets any sort of screen time or any even like mentioned by Sia is zine and Well, I mean if you're only going to Focus on that relationship, even if they don't actually focus on it that much then Why wouldn't you just have her be have him be her only sibling, you know it would feel a little bit less like these others are just there to take up space and This is a brief aside, but I Have mentioned this once or twice before I also have multiple siblings and it's very rare to see that done in Anything, you know whether we're talking books or movies or anything usually when somebody has siblings. It's just one so it's just a Relationship with between those two people as opposed to a relationship between four or five or six different people who all have their own unique ways of feeling about one another and they don't always get along and you know it's just more interesting to See those multifaceted relationships and it's difficult to write certainly, but you can do it In fact, the only series I can think of that really did this well was maximum ride And I just got a little bit excited for a minute thinking. Oh, maybe they'll do that and they didn't so I was I was let down So the next day Sia and Tomas and the others Go with the testing official who again his name is Michael and he takes them away on some sort of futuristic vehicle In this case it's what's going to know as a skimmer and it's basically just a hovercraft, you know the Tech the actual technology behind it seems a little weird because it can only hover about 15 feet above the ground and Apparently if you go over like a chasm or something, it'll just stop working and fall That's a little weird. I don't know how that works, but whatever and you know just like just like in the Hunger Games the Katniss and pita got taken off in a futuristic train off to the capital city And so while this is going on Sia also meets with Tomas who is her love interest by the way Why is he her love interest? I don't know. He he just is like they they meet they've met before obviously because they grew up in a small town together, but She just decides she can trust him and she tells him about her dad having visions that maybe the testing is dangerous and Then I guess they're in love from this point forward I know it sounds like I'm skipping over things, but that really is what it feels like And also the her love interest is going to have to compete against her when they get into the testing because Katniss and pita the the difference here is that one They aren't going to have to kill each other at least as far as we know at this point They aren't going to have to kill each other. So there's no real Sense of urgency or tragedy or danger or anything the way there was with Katniss and pita like they're starting to like each other a bit but it we know that before the book is over one of them is gonna have to die so There's a there's an element of tragedy there, which isn't there with Sia and Tomas There's also a small difference that another girl who comes with them whose name is Zandri She flirts with Tomas and he does not seem to reciprocate or anything That that's about it really like see I just doesn't like her that much and Yeah, also like I said Sia tells Tomas for concerns and not not only does she trust him instantly, but he trusts her instantly so Cool, and then I see it what the others are watching with shining eyes and open mouths up ahead beyond the water Silver buildings lights bright enough to be seen from miles and miles. These can only mean one thing Tosu City, we're here in school We've been taught that 99 years ago Tosu City was created as the first tangible sign that we as a people had survived the Seven stages of war the four stages of destruction that humans run on one another and then the following three stages in which the earth Fought back this spot was chosen because its predecessor was deemed an unimportant military target by the wagers of war Well, it could not escape the corruption of the earth or the earthquakes Tornadoes and floods much of the city still stood when the earth quieted and those alive left alive began to rebuild Okay, so now we're checking off the part where the main characters arrive in the Technologically advanced capital city. The only difference here is that they're actually happy to be there. So again, no tension or anything I will say it is a bit nice to get more information on the apocalypse You know, we didn't we didn't get that in the Hunger Games and in this They go into more detail as the story goes on But it's mentioned a bunch of like chemical and biological weapons as well as nuclear weapons We're sent out all over the world And so that actually just destroyed the environment and makes a lot of the land poisonous and stuff So it is nice to get something a little bit different. That's just genuinely a nice part of the series Like no qualifications or anything And so they arrive they begin to meet the other candidates for this dangerous competition I might just have to start putting up like a counter for the number of times that this is just Directly ripping off the Hunger Games not even similar. Just like beat for beat the exact same thing So Siam meets her roommate a girl named Rhyme Why are these names so weird? I don't get it And they also meet this fellow named dr. Barnes who is just in charge of the testing and He becomes more important later, but you know for now He's just he's the guy who's in charge and so for starters Sia takes a regular written test like that's the first round is she just takes a regular test and there's like math and science and stuff like that and Okay for starters we're like 80 pages into the book at this point and It's simultaneously too short and way too long Like we don't really know any of the characters at this point We know barely very little about Sia because keep in mind around 80 pages into the Hunger Games we were I believe also just getting ready to To go into the Hunger Games, you know, they were training and stuff But we spent a lot more time before the reaping happened So we actually got to know Katniss and them whereas this You know that they've been trying to build up to this testing But we haven't really gotten that much about it just little sniff. It's like oh, it might be dangerous Ooh, but most of the characters aren't really all that freaked out about it So it's difficult for us to be freaked out about it So it's simultaneously too short and too long. It's really really obnoxious if I'm being honest They're they also take the opportunity for Sia to take a history exam And she just answers questions about the history of the world and that's a convenient excuse for some exposition And the only dumb bit about that is how all continents apparently merged into single countries Like there's the South American coalition and the Asian coalition and stuff like that which is just really lazy But it's not a huge deal. I'm not I'm not too upset about it And plus she meets other candidates who are named Will and Gill like there's twin brothers named Will and Gill And they meet a couple other candidates But I'm just bringing up Will and Gill because they're gonna be important later Like this series actually has a lot of characters who get mentioned once or twice and then never show up again It's It makes it a little difficult to know who you should pay attention to as you're reading I like to this bit though rimes eyes narrow. She bites her bottom lip and studies me for several moments I guess she's trying to determine whether I'm telling the truth.  I've ever read by a long shot, but it's still pretty bad But you know, it's I want to point out the good when I see it and a little while after this rhyme hangs herself Now You might be hearing that and thinking like oh, okay Is it like murder or something because Sia just comes in the room and sees her hanging. She's like, oh my god What happened and so reading that I thought like okay, it's murder. Maybe it's part of a bigger story Maybe rhyme came across some information. She shouldn't have and they had to cover it up But no apparently she was just super stressed about the testing and killed herself Okay, I Don't want to try and sound like I'm making light of it because that sort of thing does happen in real life Like you know teenagers do get super stressed out and commit suicide and it's obviously very bad but it is weird that they just brought it up and That was that was it like it never leads to anything so later Sia Tomas and Zandri hang out and they eat lunch and they fix a water pump that's on the testing grounds Because like see at this point. We're actually seeing Sia be Mechanically inclined, which is nice. It's just I wish that they had introduced it earlier and it hadn't just been her saying Yeah, I'm really good with engines and stuff Like if we had seen her do this like near the beginning of the book It would have been much more a much better and much more interesting way to introduce this thing because as far as I'm concerned Characters are a lot more interesting, especially protagonists are a lot more interesting if they're really really good at one or two things And then really really bad at one or two other things and then about average at things in the middle So if Sia was say really really good at mechanical stuff And she was also just a really good shot with a handgun because she does fire Handgun later on in this book. We'll get to that. Don't worry. And but she was also like not in great shape And she was not good with knowing about plants and stuff Which it is mentioned at the beginning that she's bad with plants, but the series does not follow through on that And so if that was the case then I think I'd be much more interested in her by this stage And we'd also be thinking like oh, okay So some of those are gonna give her trouble when the testing like really gets started So she's gonna have to rely on other people for help, but at the same time She's not gonna be useless. She's gonna be good at some other stuff and that would just be I don't know. They'd just be much more interesting. But anyways, they're just sort of hanging out eating lunch and then they fix a pump and Again the Hunger Games at this stage like before the Hunger Games really got started before they were thrown in the arena was much more stressful because You knew that not only were you likely going to die But you were going to have to kill some of these other people and some of them were going to be very difficult to kill like so it was stressful there was a sense of urgency here and This just this just feels like a college tour You know, there's there's no tension.  We have jobs for them there like who who would buy this? Like my immediate thought would be okay. They're being killed or disappeared or something Like who would believe the government when they just tell them this you people are so stupid so anyways, we go to the second round of testing which is There's actually a few smaller bits basically they put them in this room and they give them a box of a bunch of different samples of plants and They have to determine which ones are safe and which ones are poisonous which is I Mean that's neat enough You know because especially because they make you put them in two different piles and the pile that's poisonous You have to actually eat a sample of them so if you've got it wrong you could very well die and That is actually kind of a neat Test, I think it's a little bit more stressful than certainly than just regular written ones But Sia should be bad at it But she just passes without any real issue So that's what I mean earlier on it said she was bad with plants Even though her dad and her brother worked with them, but we don't really see that You know and this goes on for the rest of the series as well like she Apparently just knows what plants are safe to eat and she knows which ones are poisonous and just Character flaws don't actually count as character flaws If they don't cause them any trouble now my suggestion to make this a bit more interesting And this could go for the earlier written exam as well would be to Rather than just making a test on the characters knowledge make it a test on them trying to cheat without getting caught Now if any of you have ever seen Naruto, there is an actual story arc where they had the characters Take a written exam, but they actually made it interesting because The questions on the test were like way too difficult for them. And so the point wasn't could they Find the correct answers the point was could they cheat and find out the correct answers without getting caught You know like it was really a test not about their knowledge But about their ability to gather information without getting caught gathering information, you know because they're trying to be ninjas you know and so what I'm saying is that that just them taking regular exams is really boring to read about but you could still make it interesting and They this series just does nothing with that. It's just yep. Yep. Here's the test and anyways, like I said they eat the plants that they deem safe and Sia turns out fine But then one or two others start looking like they're sick or hallucinating or something and then next they bring them a box with a radio which is broken and they have to fix it and Okay, Sia being able to fix that is fine. Like I said, she's clearly mechanically inclined. She knows how to Fix things like I don't know a better term for me for it than mechanically inclined She just go with machines and electronics and stuff.    I'm telling you it's just this is my favorite thing I've ever read But anyways, it's basically just a test of teamwork. Sia is there with will and a couple of others and Look without going into too much detail Will kind of betrays the team and tries to get them all eliminated But Sia figures it out at the last minute and then they all pass anyways Okay, I don't really feel like getting into more detail on that but then we arrive at round four of the testing which is the final test which actually takes up a pretty substantial chunk of the book and basically What they're going to do here is they're going to drop the kids into the ruins of Chicago a Insert divergent reference here. I guess like I don't know that divergence a terrible series But it is definitely the most successful on their games clone But anyways, they drop the kids off in the ruins of Chicago And then the kids have to find their way to Tosu City, which Tosu City at this point We don't know exactly where it is But it is mentioned later that it's built on the ruins of Wichita, Kansas Which if you're unfamiliar is here and so basically they have to go about 700 miles from there to Tosu City and basically they just have to survive the trek which is about let a little over 1,100 kilometers if you were not American and This is actually a decent idea because the environment is poisoned It's just a dangerous area in general like there's mutated animals and things like that a lot of stuff that could kill them and Not even counting the other candidates who could also kill them. We'll get to that in a minute or two It is a decent idea and I will honestly say that this chunk which is About a third of the book or maybe a little over a third of the book in total is the best part It's not really doing anything great, but it's not doing anything phenomenally bad either it is a Decent enough story. We're just watching Sia go on this long dangerous trek and Has to work with some other people and then there's some trails and stuff and like it's it could be a lot worse Now we also learn around this time that there are apparently some people who are alive in this area, but they live outside of the United Commonwealth's control because We need the district 13 rebels to be there The only real difference is that the people living outside the United Commonwealth's control Don't really come back like it'll seem like they come back for a while but then there's a twist about that and turns out they weren't actually there and so It was kind of pointless to bring it up in the first place and plus I think it'd be more interesting if Sia didn't know there was anybody out there and then she saw somebody was out there like sure it'd be a cliche But at least it would feel like they were trying now Here's the thing this is obviously similar to the Hunger Games because they're taking a bunch of teenagers putting them into a dangerous Situation and giving them permission to kill each other, but in the Hunger Games. There was one winner one so Even if you teamed up with someone it was going to be temporary and you never knew if you could trust it Excuse me You never knew if you could trust anybody and so on and so forth Whereas this there is apparently no limit on the candidates who can pass like the people running the testing are just going to be watching them the whole time and then They're going to see like oh, okay. They did a good job here. They did a bad job there And so at the end they're going to evaluate them and then they decide if they pass or not There's no limit on the number of people who can make it through so there's no There's nothing stopping team ups is the thing like it not a big spoiler Sia and Tomas meet up and team up together pretty early on here and That unlike with Katniss and Peter there's no sense of like oh, they're going to have to kill each other at some point like no They're just they're gonna work together and hopefully they'll make it to the end like There's no real sense of urgency or danger there and likewise all the other kids That are there have no real reason to be killing each other like Like I get that people can be ultra competitive and maybe you could get one or two people once in a while Who'd be willing to kill others to pass? but Like you're not going to get your average person to just start hacking others up For no for very little reason like this the average person just isn't that much of a psycho You know like if you push them hard enough then sure that they can kill people in self-defense or if they just feel it's necessary, but They're not going to start doing that for no reason like if you told them Hey, if you fail you die then sure maybe you could expect more of this, but As they go into this and people start attacking one another it just feels really stupid like it feels as though the author of this was like Okay, hunger games had something where the kids are all forced together and start killing each other So I'm gonna do the same thing Except she's forgot to think of a reason why they would do that So as they're preparing to go Sia takes a water cleanser, which makes sense. You know she's gonna need that to Cleanse water like the water's not safe Like I said she takes a medical kit again makes perfect sense If you get injured you want gonna want to be able to deal with it and she takes a handgun The stash of crossbows guns and explosives catches my attention if an animal attacks I do not want to be caught unprepared I've never fired a crossbow and immediately scratched that off my list The explosives are unfamiliar and scare the crap out of me I have fired my father's shotgun and Dyleen's dad taught us to fire his pistol Dyleen is a much better shot But I can hit the center of a target at least seventy five percent of the time I finger the shotgun which I am more comfortable with but it only comes with a box of ten shells My fingers shift and close over a small black handgun that comes with two boxes of ammunition Lightweight easy to carry enough bullets that I can take a few practice shots without worrying about running out Okay, this is a bit of a pet peeve and honestly a very small issue in the grand scheme of things But handguns are dumb like where I in her position I probably would have gone with the crossbow just because you know, it's quiet has a lot of range It's not that hard to use like crossbows are really really easy to fire. Just you literally just point and shoot But my second choice would probably been the shotgun because you know if there's gonna be wild animals or something you're gonna want something with stopping power and Despite what video games and stuff would have you believe shotguns do have decent range and accuracy more so than a handgun because Handguns have very little range and very little accuracy.   I see understanding caring and pride You did the right thing it takes courage to defend yourself and I'm glad you did I can't imagine what I would do if something happened to you Yeah, it's nice of you to just spend some time really just sucking Sia's metaphorical cock Because we need to be told that we're supposed to love her like Defending yourself is really not that brave Like okay, it's that or die, you know most people in that situation will do something similar They they might panic and freeze up, but that's not really a bravery thing like I don't know again We just know very little about see at this point She's just such a blank slate that we have to be told to love her and so from there they begin their journey They walk for a while then later They find bikes and they manage to fix them up and they go cool We can go much faster now and so they start riding their bikes through the rest of the testing grounds and They hear some people off in the distance like fighting and possibly dying like they're gunshots and stuff again kind of dumb when you consider that The average person isn't that psycho, but we already went over that and so they're a little nervous and then later They come across some random explosion, which almost kills Tomas And again, I think that was supposed to be like a landmine or something that was set by the people who set up the testing I Think it also may have been a trap by one of the other testing candidates. It's not It's not very clear what it is and I Don't know it bothers me that we never really find it out But you know nothing too crazy at this point like I said this stage of the book is Kind of okay. I don't really have a lot to talk about here. And yes I did make notes while I was reading but a Big part of the reason why I write my notes by hand, which you can see here I I write this out by hand is because it really forces me to think about What's important and what is not important and honestly the small little bits like that Just don't bother me that much, you know, like unless they tie into some bigger problem, which in this case They don't they also come across the dead body that was apparently killed by whoever at the crossbow because Apparently whoever fired it just has an infinite number of Quarrels or skinny bolts and they just don't need to go and retrieve it for whatever reason but Okay, whatever and then there's this Tomas is more than willing to stop especially when he checks Zine's device and sees we've traveled just over 45 miles in a single day We are now a 7th of the way to Tosu city while it's still far the bicycles and the road We traveled give us a more optimistic view of this test the river like all untreated water sources is tainted But one look into the swirling waters tells us that at least some species of fish have adapted to the contaminants While the contaminants make it dangerous to eat the fish raw a pan and fire will make them more than edible I don't think that's how dangerous chemicals work like I'm pretty sure Well for starters, I think the dangerous chemicals after a hundred years would have begun to dissipate even if they weren't completely gone And for another it's gonna stay in the fish like just because you fry it up doesn't mean it goes away Like it's still dangerous to you and then the fact that they went 45 miles in a single day is like Really really fast like I can understand going that far on bikes if they're like on a road Which is just going straight and doesn't have any Major hills or bumps or detours that they have to take but it's made pretty clear that they all of that happens There are hills. There are traps and stuff. They have to take a lot of detours They should not be going 45 miles in a day. First we do this geographic montage to show we've traveled a long way from your house There that should be enough and here's a stupid line They look pretty tired to me if I didn't know about our crossbow friend I'd say flag them down and see if we can help they won't expect us to travel with them since they're on foot and we're on bicycles Still I can finish his thoughts. There are candidates out there willing to shoot to kill to get a passing grade on this test No matter the cost You know, I already I already explain why that was stupid like it's not as though there's a limited number of slots They don't need to kill each other but just that line was kind of funny to me so Yeah, people just aren't this psycho They only did a death game because that's what the hunger games did and the author didn't feel like coming up with good reasons to justify it now We also learned that there are some super mutated animals out there, which still exists, which is a little weird I don't think that's how radiation and chemicals work, but yeah, whatever not a big deal It's it's science fiction.  It's really wide up near where they start and it slowly narrows and narrows by the time they get closer to Tosu city so that they don't get too far off track, which Okay, sure makes makes sense and see a sees a man outside the fence and He the first time she sees him. She tries going up to talk to him but he just throws a bag over the fence and it has food in it and she eats it and it's fine and Basically, she actually meets him several times and Rather than just going oh some other stuff happens and then she sees the man in the fence and then some other stuff happens Then she sees him. I'm just gonna give you the the whole thing with her and the man Basically, his name is Simon Again spelled weird because why not and he wants to end the testing So not long after this Sia meets some other mutants, but these aren't mutated animals These are humanoid and she's pretty sure they used to be humans because they seem slightly intelligent And they're also super dangerous and she kills one of them, but and they attack her, but she thinks that oh, yes These even if they're not human anymore. They used to be so she's a little freaked out by that which is a little weird like Okay, why would you put the kids here for the testing? There's a difference between Testing them on their like survival capabilities and their intelligence and all that and just putting them in a death trap Like it made sense for this sort of thing to happen in the Hunger Games because not only was it more of a punishment for the government To try and prevent people from rebelling again, but it was also Entertainment, you know, it was a commentary on like reality TV and shit and Americans obsession with violent media But you know, it was entertainment for the people of the Capitol Whereas this is just what like why would they do that? It doesn't make any sense So Sia leaves for a little while to briefly talk to Simon and that's when he mentions That he wants to end the testing and then when she comes back Will and Tomas are a little bit bruised up and she asked him what's going on Tomas looks away as will says the two of us shouted a lot after you left We might have even thrown a punch or two then we decided to put our differences aside and get moving about lunchtime We ran out of water. We also ran into another testing candidate Who I ask looking down the road my heart quickens Anyone we know will shakes his head a guy from Colorado Springs Colony Look guys, I've mentioned before Colorado barely ever gets mentioned ever and Usually it's just Denver stealing our thunder like let me have this please plus There's a bit of dried blood on Tomas's knife. So Sia already thinks like oh, okay They're not telling us everything and they just tell her that oh, yes We met this dude from Colorado Springs and then he talked to us for a while and then he left and Sia's like well, they're definitely lying, but I'm not sure what to believe and the evasiveness is only there for drama Like we find out what happened later, but it's just It's only there for drama so that Sia can wonder oh, maybe I shouldn't trust Tomas and will like you already shouldn't trust will But maybe I shouldn't trust Tomas. I don't know So they go through a ruined town and they run into a bunch more mutants that are there and at first They try to be peaceful this time like Sia just says okay Let's keep our weapons down like have our hands in the air and the mutants seem okay with it at first Like seems like they're gonna let him just pass through without any issue But then another candidate shoots at them from a Rooftop with a heavy machine gun Okay, for those of you unaware, I I'm not saying he shoots at them with like an automatic rifle I mean a heavy machine gun like If you've ever it's not explained in a lot of detail in the book but a heavy machine gun is something from like World War two if you ever see a movie or something and it's like Put up in a set up in a bunker or something and it's like really big It's not easy to just carry around and usually need two or three people to fire them depending on the type. I Have so many questions for starters The other candidate's name is brick by the way like Sia helped him out during the teamwork test so he feels like he owes her and She how did he get into this town and go up to the top of a three-story building? Without getting caught by the mutants one two why would they offer a heavy machine gun to testing candidates?  You know if he's looking for weapons again, just take the shotgun or something man There's so many There's so many questions. I have here that I know I'm never gonna get the answer to I don't know Plus the mutants are just nice I guess and Later Sia notices that the scratch she got earlier is looking infected So she has to treat it and like she actually pulls metal out of it I don't know how that works because they literally just scratched her with their claws Like how would metal get in there, but okay, whatever. So anyways, they fight a few more people I don't know where these kids learn to sword fight, but they Like Tomas and will and some other guys like sword fight. It's Okay, I'll just I'll just go with it and Also, how did these other kids get ahead on foot like that? That's what I'm wondering you know like if they Found other vehicles, then I guess I can understand it and like will does find a small skimmer at one point Remember like those little hover cars except his is more like a bike So it makes sense that he could go fast, but did they put a bunch of other skimmers out there? It's vague and I don't know how these other kids could get ahead of them to set traps and I also don't know why they would bother setting traps to try and kill the others because I Mean wouldn't it be better to just cross the finish line first at this point?  It annoys me but Anyways, they fight some more people right before they get across the finish line will shoots Tomas and we also learned that he was the guy with the crossbow from earlier and We also learned that Zandri that other girl that was flirting with Tomas earlier and who came from Five Lakes with them she was apparently the one they ran into while Sia was off by herself and they got into a fight with Will and them like she freaked out because will apparently she saw him kill somebody else with crossbow And then she tried attacking him and Tomas accidentally stabbed her. Here's the thing If you're going to have the main characters love interest be like oh He might be a bad boy. He might be someone dangerous. I don't know if I can trust him Like at least have the balls to actually make his actions a bit morally gray Like not only was what he did totally an accident But it was also totally justified because Zandri was not explaining herself very well And she was straight up trying to kill this other dude. So it would be defense if Tomas did that me I guess not technically self-defense because he's defending somebody else But you know, it's not he's protecting somebody from somebody else trying to kill them So like at least have the balls for it to be like he thought she was the crossbow man But later found out he was mistaken and so that's why he felt so ashamed of it and didn't say anything like that That would be kind of interesting and it would do a lot for Tomas as a character But instead we just again get generic love interest who feels bad about something bad He did that wasn't actually that bad, which I've seen so many times like I didn't really see it in the Hunger Games I don't think but I Saw it a lot in like Twilight clones and and some of you might be wondering if I'm ever going to read more of Those angel young adult books and yes, I will that's some point just not now.  No, I Be very annoyed if that were case plus plus What now that we're got getting to this point?   Why are you doing this? I don't understand So while CEO was talking to Simon He actually gave her this little vial then he tells her if she drinks it it'll allow her to avoid a truth serum because during the interview they're gonna ask her questions and they make her take a truth serum beforehand and She takes it and avoids doing that, but then she still gets her memory erased Okay, but but but but Before she got her memory erased she recorded a message for herself on the communicator that she stole from her brother Yeah, remember that she stole from her brother. Yeah, anyways, um, she Recorded that and then at the very end of the book she listens to it So what was the point of having her lose her memory if she just instantly re-learns everything? You know like why not just have it so that Simon gave her a drug that made her immune to the memory loss Wouldn't that would like wouldn't that make more sense and waste slightly less time like it's just It's just a pointless diversion at that point You know like if she actually lost her memory and then she didn't have it in the second book And she had to re-learn some stuff that would I mean that would be lame certainly But at least it would be different. You know at that point it would be like hush hush Which if you ever saw my review of it The main character does lose her memory of the events of the first couple of books And she has to spend almost 200 pages getting them back, which is really obnoxious But at least it's something and so we also end this one with the future being very uncertain and the characters kind of Shaken by everything that happened because that's how the Hunger Games ended and that is that is the end of book one So as I said a lot of parts of it are just copying Hunger Games Beat for beat like if you were to go into the smaller details It becomes even more obvious, but I think you get the picture when I just point out the bigger offenders that would be okay if they Did something a little bit different with it Or if they even just understood what made the Hunger Games work so that they were able to copy it effectively But they don't understand what made it work They're just following the checklist and so all that foundation that the Hunger Games had to lay in order for the checklist To work is not there and everything just falls through. It's like the cargo Colts at least I think that's what the cargo Colts is called basically there was this island which was Mostly uncontacted up until World War two and then the natives there Ran into a bunch of I believe they were American soldiers who were you know calling in supply drops and stuff And doing marches and everything and sometimes they would share their supplies with the natives and then after the war ended They left and so the natives thought okay, well we want some of those supplies again So they tried like doing marches and drills the way the soldiers did and they also tried making like radio headsets out coconuts and stuff to summon more supplies But it didn't do anything like they were just going through the motions without understanding what made it work and This series reminds me of the cargo Colts in a weird way like they're just copying what came before but they don't understand What came before so it doesn't work and Without a purpose this dystopia just feels nonsensical like the thing about dystopia I've said this before but if you really want a dystopia to work It has to be commenting on something about society like and It's not to say a story is always going to be bad if you're not putting social commentary in there far from it like there's plenty of them that don't do that and still work out pretty well, but Like it's a dystopia and so it feels very nonsensical like the Hunger Games was talking about American obsession with violent media. It's talking about how reality TV is really shitty and it's talking about how The differences in classes is Economic classes I should say Caused a lot of issues in society and how it's really just not fair to leave people in poverty So a couple of them can have all these luxuries What is the testing about I? guess the author just really hated taking exams when she was in school, but That like the exams in this are blown so out of proportion that it doesn't really work as any sort of metaphor or anything so it's just a nonsensical and when the world is nonsensical the story feels nonsensical too and I think that maybe this could have been saved if the characters were a lot better But we kind of went over that already, you know see as a blank slate to moss is just her love interest Who is her love interest because see a needs a love interest? The only one that really had any personality was will and he was an asshole So it's not like he was saving anything like the only way I can think of this sort of premise working without it just being a straight-up ripoff of the Hunger Games because you know Obviously the author wanted to do a bunch of teenagers in a death game without it seeming exactly like the Hunger Games Which was already pretty similar to battle royale, but She wanted to do something like that But she couldn't think of a good reason to have it that wasn't just the exact same thing And so the only way I can think of that this might have worked would be if this is like some sort of barbaric society where they don't even really have technology or democracy or anything like that and the way you become leader is just by Killing the people who are already in charge like that that wouldn't be a very effective society But things like that have kind of existed in the past So like if the testing in this was just some sort of competition to see who would become the leader And so that's why they were killing each other and scheming all the time. I could maybe see it working But that's about it. So now we're at book two independent study, which I Mean I liked in the first book when it had your time is almost up written across the bottom But in this one it just has that again like come on It's the second book at least do something a little bit different with it but In the first book that one felt a bit stretched out in a lot of places Particularly with like all the regular exams, you know, like we're just taking written history exams And we have to read about that for like an entire chapter. It's really stretched out But then in other places, it's too short like the beginning as I mentioned We needed more time to really get to notice to get to know Sia and to get to know five lakes Before they really went off on their adventure because we didn't really get to care about them And plus I didn't really point this out, but there are a lot of parts where see as narration is Just like an abridged version for whatever reason like Rather than having a conversation play out. It'll just be a couple of sentences of Sia going I explained to him this he was a little concerned But after a minute he started to see things from my point of view like it'll just be that rather than having the conversation play out which is a Little unsatisfying like I understand doing it once in a while, but you know, they do it a lot so it's kind of annoying and But despite the first book having some issues with pacing the second and third books combined could genuinely have been like less than a hundred pages Like these copies combined are about six hundred they they could have been less than a hundred I am not joking when I say that like this entire series Has enough material for one decent length book I think like if you wanted to make a trilogy because that's what the Hunger Games did That's the only reason they did it But if you wanted to make a trilogy You could have expanded on some other stuff, but Like there's just not enough here for that there just isn't now I will say that the second and third books from this point forward are Less of a rip off of the Hunger Games like you know, you might think that oh, okay It's just gonna follow the same thing of like oh, they're After the testing they're all kind of freaked out and see is looking for a way to undermine the government And then the rebellion kicks off and then the third books about that and Not not really it is at least a little bit different than the Hunger Games from this point forward That's not to say there aren't a lot of similarities because there are but It also doesn't replace any of the different the it doesn't replace it with anything good, you know they remove all the fun parts from the Hunger Games and then just Leave all the shitty parts. So we start things off Exactly the same as we started the first book off Examination day I slide the cool material of my shirt over the five long jagged scars on my arm and examined myself in the reflector We started the last book with her just staring in the mirror and getting ready for school And now we're starting this book with her staring in the mirror and getting ready for school Why do you hate me? Joelle Charbonneau like I don't know anything about Joelle Charbonneau She might be a perfectly nice lady for all I know But I feel like she hates me why why and despite having two books in a row start off with the main character Examining themselves in a mirror. We still don't actually know what see it looks like like she gets very little description throughout all of this Like she has light brown hair and we learn what kind of clothes she has and at one point She mentions that she's kind of short and that's pretty much all we learn about what she looks like like If you're going to use the cliche at least use it properly so we know what she looks like like geez man Like she this is a first-person Perspective book so it is admittedly difficult to come up with ways for the character to describe themselves that don't sound a little bit stupid But it the opportunity was there you gave yourself the opportunity take advantage of it so anyways this one starts off months after the first book because that's what catching fire did and Sia has gone through Preparation school and she's about to start at the university and she wants to Join the mechanical engineering program. She's afraid of the biology program because she mentions that Being assigned to biological engineering scares her because her father and brothers are geniuses at coaxing plants to thrive in the warsguard earth but She also says she kills every plant. She touches like I mentioned this already, but she said she's bad and Then she's perfectly fine at Finding all the good plants that you can eat and knowing which ones are poison and all that and then she's saying that she's bad again Look at least stay consistent with this sort of thing either have her be good and stay good all the way Have her be bad and stay bad all the way unless she like learns more and or something but just You're you're contradicting yourself. Jesus man. Come on And again, it's just a flaw that she was given that never actually affects her and Apparently the only fields of study that are at the university are education Biological engineering mechanical engineering medicine and government That's it. Those are the only things you can study at this school Like there that's it. There's no other knowledge needed they don't need to know about psychology or history or sociology or technology development or computer engineering software engineering anything like that like that that's not important I guess and The thing is they mention at a few points that they do Really want to keep knowledge from the past like in fact, whenever they find any books anywhere out there, which are In good repair they bring them to the library in Tosu city because it's so important for them to hold on to knowledge and If it's in bad repair Then they send it somewhere else to be recycled because paper is very valuable because most of the trees were destroyed during the seven stages war now I actually kind of like that detail that detail it is a nice world-building detail, but At the same time, it just doesn't match up with what we're seeing here. So they take Another written exam now open your books and turn the page whatever now. We're cicada better check the girl's locker room I'm so riveted. I'm so riveted.  It seems like they do a very bad job in that case, but Whatever whatever man. I'm not gonna not getting into that and then CSE's another Student whose name is Obadiah who apparently failed. I'm not sure what I think Obadiah isn't a friend In fact, I don't think he could claim that standing with anyone here a few have tried to engage him in conversation Including me a week after arriving on campus. I saw him sitting by a tree looking off into the distance While his powerful build fierce expression and exotic looking braided hair would normally intimidate me into keeping my distance The sadness I saw in his eyes had me walking toward him the moment. I said his name his expression change Sadness was replaced by anger. He demanded. I leave I did the experience was enough to keep me from repeating the overture Now I wish I had so not only not only Are we getting a really unnecessary amount of detail about this character who? We've never heard from before and will very quickly disappear from the story But we're actually getting more detail about his appearance than we are about Sia's or even Tomas Jesus man, come on. Okay, so basically CSE's Dr. Barnes who again is the head of the testing remember he takes Obadiah away unconscious and he's with somebody else as well and they mentioned that Obadiah is going to be redirected and Based on the way everyone seems to disappear after the testing like whether they pass or fail I Would us immediately assume that he's just being killed like I don't know why they'd be doing this But I would just assume like okay. Yeah, everyone everyone dies. Okay, that that's bad. Dr. Barnes is evil But and again like nobody notices this it's mentioned that there's not a lot of people left in the world at this point like Tosu City has about a hundred thousand people and the colonies Five lakes only has less than a thousand people and all the others are supposed to be a lot bigger I would say there's like less than two hundred thousand people in the entire United Commonwealth and Like they don't notice all their kids just disappearing every year like Yeah, that's weird. Okay, whatever. So Dr. Barnes and his assistant talk about their evil plans I'm not sure why because Like they should already know their evil plans and this is really just here so that the main character can eavesdrop and find out what's going on and apparently they mentioned that the president of the UC is Very concerned about the testing and how so many people keep disappearing But apparently the president also can't do anything about it like the president has no power apparently and This makes even less sense later Believe me. I'm going through this pretty quick because like I said a lot of this is unnecessary So Sia runs into Michael who remember is the guy who came and got her for her testing and he apparently knows about all the evil stuff that's going on and he knows that she met Simon during the final test and apparently Simon is with the rebels drink for rebels because you know the Hunger Games had that and Everyone else needs to have that now. Okay, the thing is in this case. Why are there rebels? Like the testing is bad. Yes, I I will grant you that but it's only a small part of the government and from what we see The rest of the government doesn't seem like draconian or tyrannical or anything It seems like things are working out fine other than this one thing and so Literally all they would have to the rebels would have to do in order to end the testing would either Release evidence to the world that shows everyone what's going on about it And then it would get shut down pretty quick or just attack the leaders of the testing Like you know assassinate a couple of them and then problem solved like the economy seems fine the like even Five Lakes is a bit poor but Like they have enough to eat and there aren't like diseases or anything. They aren't getting all of their resources siphoned off to enriched hosu city Like the government as I said doesn't seem authoritarian I think it's democratic because the president later mentions that she was elected, but it's not really Gone in so much detail about like Rebellions are built now a lot of people in first world countries don't seem to quite grasp this but rebellions are built on a Really nasty combination of anger and desperation That's why civil wars are sometimes so nasty or pretty much always so nasties because it's a combination of anger and desperation Just hating if just hating your government killing some of your kids caused people to rebel Then a lot of countries would would have rebellions like the United States government would have an open rebellion going on right now So the long and short here is that Michael tells her the rebels are actually trying to find a way to end the testing without a war because a civil war would be very devastating which Okay, I actually kind of like that. It's Not completely original. I have seen it a couple of times but it is at least different than the Hunger Games and So okay sure we're doing something a little bit different and for now Sia just has to blend in like that's all fine The only issue is that this conversation takes more than 20 pages Like Jesus guys get to the point So Sia goes to meet the other students that are in the government's studies section The important ones are will who we know but he's also nice now. I guess like He's we find out later He's mostly just pissed off at the government because his brother gets killed like you remember I mentioned it was will and gill were in the test and Gil just failed one of them. So he's he's gone now and will is Pissed off about that.  Like those are the only ones that are important besides Sia. So Sia goes through a sort of hazing they call it an induction, but that's what it is. It's a hazing and Basically, they lock her in her room. They shut off all the electricity So it's dark and she has to escape by using a screwdriver to take the hinges off of her door and I Mean it seems like a lot of effort for a hazing But like whatever these people are extremely weird and then there's some time where everyone see a Included is just like getting to know each other and it's uh, I mean this part's not awful Like like I keep saying there's parts of this these books that are really not as bad as they could be But then later they have a phase two for the induction like Why? Well, why I don't understand why are you going to this much effort like I wasn't in a frat in college But my understanding is that usually when you go through a hazing they just like shave your head and throw you into the lake or something Like what what why all this effort? And especially because phase two of the hazing is Like huge. It's basically just a scavenger hunt on the outskirts of Tosu City Like they they have to get a skimmer and they go like literal miles between every thing that they find and that all the puzzles and stuff that are set up would have taken a long-ass time to do like Who puts this much effort in? Has the author of this book ever met university students? They're they're not the type of people that would do this But you know, this is a really long section of the book I think this is like a quarter to a third of the entire page count So I'm just gonna go through the highlights. At one point Sia gets locked in a box and one of the other students wants to just leave her there to die Because everyone's a psycho for some reason in this series But will actually helps her out like without will she would have been left there and she would have died Sia gets trapped with a python in a cage Which apparently pythons are just like really common in her hometown because all the chemicals that mutated other animals were like That they helped reptiles for some reason so there's a lot of snakes up in Michigan I guess like that's a little weird, but I've seen dumber. So I'm not gonna focus on it too much they literally interrupt a meeting of the legislature and Sia briefly meets the president Okay, that that happens Another kid from a different group follows into a chasm and dies and eventually Sia and her group pass by accepting defeat like they they are supposed to cross a chasm without a bridge And they just decide you know what we can't do this So they all sit down and then the people extend the bridge and they go congratulations. You passed like Okay, that's a little stupid, but whatever And like I said, they they do meet the president her name is president colandar colandar something like that and That she just meets Sia and at the beginning there's nothing too strange about it But I would think they'd be more annoyed by having their business interrupted by these teenagers However, I will say that the legislature is just called the debate chamber and that's kind of stupid Like you think hearing the name debate chamber that that's like the room where they meet but no, that's actually what it's called You don't have to use a lot of imagination to come up with a name for the legislature You don't even have to come up with a name for it at all if you don't have to but at least give it a name that makes sense Like you could call it Congress or the Senate or the Parliament or you know something like that If you wanted to be a little more original with it You could call it the House of Representatives the House of Delegates the workers council the council of elders the people's assembly you know like that there's a lot of names like that and That have been used both in real life and in fiction before like just spend a minute or two coming up with one but basically this whole section is doing a speedrun of the test from the last book because That's what the Hunger Games did you know and catching fire They all had to go back to the arena and do something that was similar but also very different But at the very least that came in the latter part of the book And it had a very cool ending which led into the rebellion in the final book and this just Yeah, you you passed your test like Jesus guys at least try so anyways, there's some more school stuff and Sia starts searching for proof of The testing officials killing kids so that the rebels can release it like I said They're looking for evidence and so she's trying to find like recordings or something that they can release to the public I feel like it would be a lot like they would have been able to find it before this point, but Whatever, it's it's fine and after a while at school. They get internships assigned like okay That's fine and Sia gets an internship with the president.  I don't care anymore So the president hints at disliking the testing but she doesn't come right out and say it so Sia's thinking Oh, she might be a valuable ally and later she talks with Michael and he confirms it like he confirms Yeah, but president Colindar wants it to end. She doesn't like it anymore, but For for whatever reason the testing is like a mostly independent part of the government And so the president can't interfere with it Who designed this governmental system who did Yeah, we got four branches of government. We got the executive the legislative the judicial branch and the testing But who designed this I?  Oh my god And anyways long story short Dr. Barnes while he doesn't officially have power over the rest of government He does have a lot of influence because he knows a lot of the people in like the legislature and stuff And the president wants to actually reform the government so that she does have power over the testing so that she can Stop killing kids like she can stop the kids from dying which Okay, that makes sense and at the same time dr. Barnes wants her removed from office Like they don't use the word impeached they refer to it as a vote of no confidence I actually they refer to it as a vote of confidence, which is Not what it's called and that's also usually from parliamentary systems, which don't have a president, but I'm overthinking this I will admit the point is This is all trying to add danger and it doesn't like it's basically saying hey Dr. Barnes is gonna become president if we don't hurry up and get this done within a couple of weeks and like it Okay, it The thing is dr. Barnes is already in this position of power like him being president doesn't make much of difference He's already killing all these kids It doesn't really add anything so anyways Raph who remembers one of the kids from CS school who his dad works with dr. Barnes He joins up with Sia and the rebels because his sister Emily also was in the testing and she also disappeared she was redirected and at this point they're still wondering what redirected means and Basically, he manages to grab a recording of dr. Barnes just saying some evil stuff and saying yes, haha children die Which is way too easy like way too easy for them to get it Like they should have had to go through some like oceans 11 heist or something to get a hold of that but Whatever whatever so they go to bring it to the rebels and While they're doing this another kid tries to stop them and then Sia kills him and she's like so sad and upset and full of PTSD and okay, and So they go to the rebel camp, which is right outside of town Like yeah, that makes perfect sense, you know when I'm trying to hide from my enemy I go right next to them where they could find me at any moment and She also notices her brother's zine is there and she doesn't get to talk to him But he's apparently hanging out with the rebels now and she's like what the fuck is going on Which this might hit a little harder if One we actually had an idea of what Sia's relationship with zine was like other than he's my brother And I love him like that. There's not much to it beyond that or two We actually knew who zine was as a person or three some combination of those and we don't so it's just kind of like oh Really now, you know, it's not that surprising or anything, but anyways they Give the recording to Michael and then Michael brings it over to Simon and then Simon kills him because oh There's a big twist. It turns out dr. Barnes controls the rebels Because he knew people would be upset with him So he wanted to gather them all in one place so that he could make sure they didn't actually do anything All right. Yeah, I'm just all right not gonna Not talking about that and the thing is this happens like five pages from the end of the book, too So that we don't even really have time to absorb this this supposedly shocking event like Sia just runs off and she Get brings out her communicator the witch again She stole I'm gonna keep bringing that up because it's really a shady thing to do Sia And she gets a message from Z and then that's where the book ends.  Whereas this it's just like oh, okay Our plan to end the testing didn't work. Let's try a new one So it's it's trying again to be like the Hunger Games, but it's just failing at every turn so Yeah, that's uh This one is much more obviously bad than the first one like the first one is bad. Don't get me wrong, but Sometimes it's bad in more complex ways, which you need to go into a little bit of detail about to really understand like oh Okay, it's trying to be the Hunger Games, but it doesn't lay the foundation that it needs to be blah blah blah Whereas this one It seems the author just had no idea where to go after the first book You know it feels like she said okay I want to write a book about it's basically the Hunger Games But I have to change it up a little bit so I don't get called a rip-off artist and It'll be all about this testing and okay, then what happens after the testing is over There's there's some stuff. I don't want to just do a rebellion. So there's some stuff happens and like you know, they There's very little to it You know, there's just there's very little to moss as well Like you might have noticed I barely brought him up in here and that's cuz he's barely in there like if you're going to have the main character have a romance like that at least At least have it take up some time, you know this they just decided and we'll separate them because I don't know. I just don't feel like writing it and Basically the only bits of to moss we get are apparently he never lost his memory of the testing Which just again why didn't Sia just have that happen? Like it's it's a very small detail detour But it was a detour that she had to send herself a message and all that and Tomas also just wants to go home and that's about all we learned so Yeah, again, what's the point of having the romance there if we're barely gonna talk about it, but anyways Yeah, that that whole thing could have been less than 50 pages and now we are at Graduation day, which is the final book the final test is the deadliest. Oh So this is several days later despite the urgency that they were trying to build at the end of the second book And Sia is apparently still really sad about things I think about the hurt I felt when zine disappeared before I left for the testing of all of us He is the most passionate the easiest to upset the quickest to react when his emotions are stirred and hardest hit when those He loves are wounded or taken away. Okay. I am just a broken record at this point like show don't tell You know if they had actually shown zine being Super emotional and all that then it would have been a bit easier to buy into but like we don't get shown that We're just told about it apparently after the fact to justify his actions post-hoc basically Sia mopes around for a little bit and then she explains the situation to some others including Tomas and She just decides. Okay. You know what? Let's get some more Recordings let's let's find more evidence and then we can release it without going to the rebels because the rebels are just Evil dudes pretending not to be evil and as a brief aside It is mentioned that safety officials who which are basically their name for police officers which patrol tosu city They just call them safety officials apparently they carry weapons But it doesn't say anything beyond that like what kind of weapons it just says they're silver weapons rather That could mean a lot of things it could be handguns. They could be nun chucks. They could be swords They could be spears. They could be assault rifles like that But then the thing is the thing is that's that's a little bit of a mis-detail Which is not like the end of the world But then right after that they have a page-long explanation for why the safety officials are the only ones allowed to carry weapons in government buildings Like that they have this whole thing saying like oh, yes Well debates used to get really heated sometimes they wanted to make sure nobody else could start a fight like you don't need to go into detail Okay, it's government building only the cops are allowed to have guns that it's understandable why that rule is in place Like even if you don't necessarily agree with it like it's understandable why that rule is in place Why would you give us a page-long explanation of that if you're not even going to tell us what kind of weapons these guys have it's It's such a strange thing to me So Sia talks to the president some more and the president just straight up says look I'm about to be removed from office like Dr. Barnes has all the votes he needs to do so and so Sia She tells Sia like you're gonna have to kill Dr. Barnes and some of the other high-up testing officials Otherwise, they're just gonna remove me from office and he's gonna be president What okay Okay, um the thing is President Kolandar Should not be president Because she has allowed herself To be put into a position where she will no longer be president Unless she can convince this 16 year old girl to assassinate some of her political rivals That this woman is demonstrably really fucking bad at being in charge of things so eventually Sia tells her friends and She says like look just getting recordings isn't gonna be enough anymore for some reason we're going to have to kill Dr. Barnes and some of the others and then that'll bring the testing to an end and eventually they all agree to it and then This happens can they be trusted to learn the answer Tomas and I have only one choice We will need to stage our own testing just This is the same thing over and over and over again. I just can't I just can't I just can't do this right now This author just like ran out of ideas like I said This could have been one decent length book and held by cutting out a bunch of the extra stuff And maybe tweaking some of the details that were there. It may have been a fine enough book, but This is just laughably bad So they start by testing this girl named Stacia and I'm not going into detail But she passes they decide she's trustworthy and Apparently at this university.  Yeah, I'm just gonna skip a lot of this because I honestly don't care like she gets Stacia on her side She goes to an abandoned building to set up for another test. I might just take a little recess over to the old school house He's right. Of course. We have to go there every episode. She gets attacked by some Quaternary characters whose names I'm not even going to mention because they're so unimportant And then she kills them and it's like super sad and intense and stuff And then she tests another guy named Enzo with a radio bomb yeah, basically she sets up a radio and It's done in a way where if you push the on button It'll explode and kill you and she gives it to Enzo and she tells him like hey There's some sensitive info on here. So don't don't turn it on She's basically testing his curiosity to see if he'll actually do it and if he turns it on then, you know He's no longer a problem That there are so many ways that this could go wrong Like for starters, how to see and know how to make bombs Like it's not it's actually not that simple guys. It's this is surprisingly complex process But also what if somebody else comes across it and pushes it and turns it on that would kill some innocent person and guess what? That's exactly what happens later Literally exactly that happens later. So a little while later. Sia makes a symbol of rebellion It is a two-crossed lightning bolts, which is the symbol we have on the on the front of the book here and why does she make a symbol of rebellion because the mocking-jay was a symbol of rebellion in the Hunger Games and The thing is in the Hunger Games, it just came about naturally You know like that there they had the whole history behind the mocking-jays and how they were not supposed to survive but they just did anyways and how Katniss had just a pin of it and so it became kind of a symbol for her and for Her and later she became the symbol of the rebellion. So, you know, it just it was justified at least whereas this Sia just decided it looked cool, I guess and the author had to put it in because that's what the Hunger Games does So then as they said another student snoops up on Sia and he tries to figure out like oh, she's up to something What what's she gonna do and they turns the radio on and blows himself up and he dies and then see is like Oh people are gonna realize I had a bomb in my room and they're gonna start asking questions We should run now. So her and Tomas run off and they hide in an abandoned house And then Tomas is able to make like a bunch of magical futuristic medicine using a couple of roots He found nearby and he says like yeah, this is this will help you and this is a pain Killer, but it will make you sleepy and you might think that they'll be using this at some point but they don't and eventually some of the others arrive including will and Enzo and Raph and Stacia and They just decide okay We're back to do a corner now, and we have very little time so we're just gonna have to kill dr. Barnes and the others now and Basically their plan Excuse me is to set off some explosions as a distraction again. Sia just knows how to make bombs I don't know it and it's not even just knowing how to make it the materials are usually hard to get for very good reason, but Okay, whatever they set off explosions as distractions, and then they're going to just I Don't know walk up and kill their targets I guess like it they're not very well thought-out plans even though they spend like 40 pages coming up with it It's just not all that will thought out or that will put together And that's like the last third of the book really so Sia and Raph go together to Raph's father's house and They question him a little bit about the testing and about how Raph's sister was killed and then or Redirected and then this happens it doesn't matter where she is what matters is that dr. Barnes has allowed these students to contribute to our society In a meaningful way they weren't strong enough to become leaders But they are still able to assist our top scientists in understanding the worst corruptions that were inflicted upon our world and our race It's because of her and the other students that we've been able to make such great strides in reversing some of the minor human mutations Emily isn't a scientist. She's not working in some secret lab conducting experiments that will fix everything caused by the war Of course, she's not running experiments. My chest tightens as I understand what Raph's father is saying Then what is she? Raph's voice trails off has he come to the same terrible conclusion I have if the failed testing in University candidates are not in charge of the experiments Then the only thing left for them is to take part in them. Yeah, so Apparently the mutated humanoids that they ran into in the first book and which have not been mentioned up until now are All the previous testing candidates who were redirected Like they just did experiments on them to figure out what causes the mutations so that they can reverse it which Like okay that part makes sense, but why would you do this on your? Your brightest minds your best and brightest Who are supposed to help you go to the future like? Even saying the morality of it aside. This is just an inefficient way to do it like Wouldn't it make more sense to do this on like the dregs of society?  You're not wasting all this talent. So after hearing this after hearing that his dad basically killed his sister Raph shoots his dad and kills him and I Do kind of like that moment it makes perfect sense for him to do so, but at the same time It's really telling that this secondary character gets this moment. He gets this Defining moments where he gets to do something and Sia and Tomas and most of the other major characters don't get anything like this Like you know Sia never has to make like a crazy decision like that In order to survive or in order to save the day or anything like that.  It's actually kind of is a little bit depressing because I see little bits of promise poking out through this through the cracks in the series and None of that promise has ever realized so they run off and they find dr. Barnes in the testing facility and Sia's about to shoot him, but then somebody else shows up and she's disarmed and This is about 50 pages from the end and most of the last 50 pages is just a long drawn-out conversation between her and dr. Barnes so The clip notes is that actually the president wants the testing to continue and she wants to expand it But dr. Barnes thinks it's stupid for good reason which I've already explained and he wants it to end but apparently he doesn't have the power to reform it or end it even though earlier They were saying he has the power to reform and end it. Oh look, there's a plot hole there, okay, and Basically They came to an agreement that the president will end things if Sia kills dr. Barnes through some Logic which is not actually that logical. I'm not even gonna bother with that Basically, it's like oh, we don't actually need the testing to prove that people can do this My camera's battery keeps dying. I should buy a new one now I'm not sure why dr. Barnes would be willing to trust a politician in this scenario because I just why in general would you trust a politician but Whatever apparently if Sia kills dr. Barnes, then the president has given her word. She will end the testing so Okay, that's that's the plot now, I guess anyway, some soldiers break in try to stop her from killing dr. Barnes and then Some rebels just appear out of nowhere and then there's a gunfight and dr. Barnes is killed in the crossfire and so is zine because zine showed up there at the end and Like I know it sounds like I'm just trying to make this sound very unengaging But that's exactly what it's like when you're reading it like it just sort of it just happens like that and then the president arrives and She says all right. See it. You passed the test. So I guess the testing is over now I Like she didn't even check to see if Sia killed dr. Barnes. Like does this even count? Did Dr. Barnes just have to die? somehow Because I feel like there'd be cameras or something And there's he was killing the gunfight. He wasn't even killed by This isn't the deal you came to the agreement you came So there is a very brief epilogue where Sia is back at five lakes and she varies her brother zine And then she tells tomas that hey, I'm gonna go back to tosu city because there's still work to be done Because that's how the hunger games ended, you know, it couldn't just it didn't want to have a happy ending So it's like hey the world is still kind of fucked and That that's it. It's kind of unsatisfying And really if I could describe this whole series in a word, it would just be unsatisfying you know, it's not the worst thing ever but There's not much build up to things and then once those things happen The payoff isn't very good either like there's no effort in fleshing out the world or the characters or in trying to make the story make sense and Honestly, a lot of the individual plot points that happen just aren't that interesting And there's a lot of time wasted as I said there's a lot of time where things are just stretched out and we go over similar things over and over and over again like the The scavenger hunt in the second book is probably the worst example of this because I kept expecting something to happen like they ran into the rebels or they uh It found some information about the government's Conspiracy or something but no I I seriously Was just it was a waste of time like even going back over it while I was writing my notes for this I was like, oh, yeah, I kind of forgot about a lot of this stuff because you know normally When you reread through a book that you like you get to a certain point You're like, oh, yeah This is the part where they find the the dead body under the woods and then later they bring in tanner And he's like that's my sister and everybody's like what like you remember those big moments But the scavenger hunt even though it takes up a huge chunk of the book doesn't really have any of those so there's just so much time wasted but And a lot of what happens is obviously really dumb But it's just so hard to get mad at this you know like As I said some parts are decent you know Uh, not a lot of them and they aren't really that great, but there are some parts that are decent So I can't get too mad for that reason, but I also I can't get mad because it doesn't feel like the author tried Yeah, you know And maybe that seems paradoxical because I'm honestly usually very annoyed when authors don't try but For whatever reason this one just feels like She just really scribbled it out and tossed it out the door I like again, I don't know her but that's just what it feels like and This this is just trend chasing in its purest form. You know The Hunger Games was popular at this time and I believe the first book came out in 2013, which is The year after the movie came out. So it was like that was the peak of this genre It was like yes get she was just trying to write it as quick as she could and Get it out the door so that she could grab herself a slice of that pie and While that is not very artistically uh Good, I don't I don't know a good term for it, but like it's not admirable Let's say it is just trend chasing in its purest form and I kind of knew that it would be stupid like that when I Came into this so like Who's whose fault is it really and hell? Maybe as I said before this is just a palette cleanser after reading the way of the shadow wolf. So it's hard to Get upset because I know how bad things really can get And uh, there are a few other dumb bits that I didn't really have Time to bring up before but there's like other countries apparently do exist But they've just had no contact with the united commonwealth until now Like it just in their final conversation dr. Barnes mentions Yeah, other countries are starting to reach out to us, but they don't like the fact that we're doing the testing So we we got we kind of got to stop that which Okay, that makes sense.  That's really crazy though.   I I don't have anything else to say this the testing series was a phenomenal waste of my time certainly and I'd be interested in hearing if anyone actually enjoyed it when they were younger. I'm sure some of you did I think the only real lesson to be learned here is that Just because you're following the formula for something which in this case was the hunger games Does not mean you will instantly be as good as the hunger games because you still have to understand what made that thing work and I don't have anything else to add beyond that that is uh, This was a pretty big waste of my time, but Hopefully some of you were entertained. Uh, that's all. 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