The Test(ing Trilogy) is Over…it’s Graduation Day!

graduationday

Charbonneau, Joelle.  Graduation Day (Book 3, The Testing trilogy).  New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2014. 9780547959214.  304 p.  $17.99.  Gr. 7 and up.

Graduation Day, the third and final book in The Testing trilogy, picks up where Independent Study left off.  The book follows Cia Vale, survivor of the brutal Testing and one of the University’s brightest and most promising students, as she seeks to uncover more information about the corrupt government, the Testing, and the imminent rebellion that threatens to ravage the United Commonwealth.  When she expresses her concerns about the Testing and the rebellion to the President, she is charged with eliminating several high-ranking officials in order to squash the rebellion and end the Testing itself.  While she knows she will not be able to execute the plan on her own, she questions which of her peers she can and cannot trust.  The future of the United Commonwealth lies on her shoulders, and Cia is forced to take chances on her classmates and risk lives as she struggles to succeed at this final test.  The strong female protagonist, dystopian society, plots turns, and questionable loyalties in this story are all reminiscent of The Hunger Games and Divergent trilogies, and fans of those series will devour this one as well.

Dystopian                  Julie Ritter, Montoursville Area High School

This series was actually recommended to me by a student while we were discussing The Hunger Games series.  As a fan of that series, she felt that I would enjoy this one as well.  She was not wrong.  Overall, I thought this was an excellent series with a lot of action and constant plot twists that kept me on the edge of my seat.  Cia was an extremely likable character, and the themes of loyalty and corruptness could spark some excellent classroom discussions.  Like the other books in the series, Graduation Day did not disappoint.  As an ending to the trilogy, however, it did leave a lot to the imagination in the form of unanswered questions.  Therefore, this may not be the series for those who enjoy tidy endings without loose strings.​

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *