Review: Graduation Day by Joelle Charbonneau

Graduation Day by Joelle Charbonneau is the conclusion to her Testing Trilogy featuring Malencia Vale, a 16 year old University student. That age is not unusual for students to be attending University in this dystopian world.

First, a word. These books are best read in order. Otherwise the horror of the Testing isn't at all clear until later in this book.

Graduation Day pretty much picks up where the last one left off. Cia aka Malencia also has an internship with the President's office. In the beginning of this book, she rides to tell the President that one of her employees has been killed by the rebel leader Symon. In return, the President gives Cia a list of people that need to be killed in order for there to be an end to the Testing and a code to get resources from a room on the fifth floor.

Cia realizes that she can 't accomplish this all on her own, but she agonizes over who to trust and how she will know they are trustworthy. The only one she knows for sure is Tomas, her love.

Will she be able to go through with killing the people on the list? Who can she trust to help her if she does? Will this really end the nightmare of the Testing? And what really happens to all of those that fail in some way?

This book ties up loose ends from the other 2 books. That's good. A lot of the what happens this time was internal. Not so good. Definitely important to the plot, but it makes for a slower read. The other 2 books had more action in them. Also, a lot of the action in this book was Cia and her friends discussing the issues of who could be trusted and how would they accomplish the deaths needed on the list. Since Cia isn't a fan of killing, it was a little surprising that she agreed to take on the task.

The action in the book was good and fast paced once it gets started. The ending seemed a little strange to me, but you need to read it yourself to judge.

In spite of tying up a lot of the loose ends from the other books, it still left open the possibility to further exploration in this world.

You can read an excerpt from this book at the website for the book.

I gave this book 3 stars because even though I enjoyed it, I didn't think it was quite as good as the first 2 in the trilogy. The writing is still good, but a lot of it was passive thoughts. The action was good, but there was a lot less of it than in the first 2 books. There were definitely enough twists to go around though.

If you enjoyed the first 2 books, you should read it to finish off the trilogy. It is not a standalone.

I borrowed my copy from my local library.