Independent Study

Independent Study by Joelle Charbonneau
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is the second book in the Testing series, and things have gotten political. The obvious comparisons are to Insurgent (Veronica Roth) and Catching Fire (Suzanne Collins), which are both second books in a series. It doesn't really suffer from middle book syndrome. It just takes a familiar direction, laying framework for the last book.

In Independent Study we find Cia and Tomas, who have survived The Testing, beginning their educations at the University. They are again tested and placed on tracks for the jobs they will hold in the future - and these are not necessarily the vocations they would have chosen for themselves. The administration at the University seems to have it in for Cia. And what is termed "induction" and "orientation" is just more life and death testing.

The country has survived the Seven Stages War and is basically a wasteland with a central city and some outlying colonies. And while there is a government in place, the real people running the country are those in charge of the Testing and University. Politics are a big part of this plot. There is mystery as to what's really going on, why it's going on, and just who's in charge. Lines are drawn. Allegiances are in question. There is a lot of tension created by the mystery within the story, and Charbonneau does a great job of creating a world full of questions.

In that respect, the world building here is stellar. We are given a clear picture of the country and its citizens. It was easy to visualize the capital city and some of the colonies, as well as the areas of testing during the orientation. The reasoning behind the politics is revealed slowly and carefully, and there is a plot twist that sets up the final novel quite nicely. There are unanswered questions, but that's ok. The real entertainment is going to be how it all gets resolved in the final book.

Cia is an interesting character. She's so logical. And while it was great to watch her unravel the puzzles of the testing, it also tended to be overly descriptive to the point of info-dumping. Her thought processes, while fascinating, got tedious at times. I wished at some points that the details could have been revealed bit by bit, using the action to explain. Instead, we got inside Cia's brain.

Having said that, being inside Cia's brain lent definition to her character. While I felt somewhat spoon-fed in terms of information, I also appreciated that this was just the way Cia thought things through. It may have gotten slow at points but this felt justified because Cia grew so much.

Tomas and the other secondary characters were interesting. In this installment we got much less Will and lots more Rafe. Tomas was better defined. There was even some class warfare going on among the students. It got downright cutthroat while calling morals into question, which defined Cia's inner conflict. It never really got quite to angsty and the romance was just enough. The ideal of patriotism was balanced by the corruption of power. And again, this set up the last book for the final showdown.

The audiobook was narrated by Elizabeth Morton. While she gave Cia an interesting voice, the rest of the characters were pretty much terrible. All the guys (Tomas, Enzo, Will, Ian, etc) were given voices that sounded childish and even cartoonish. At times I felt like I was listening to an Anime episode. Reading this in print would have been far better.

The plot had a fair amount of action, although tended to be more cerebral than The Testing. Even so, it was an enjoyable book. If Charbonneau can avoid overly complicating the last book, this will prove to be a great series. As it is, Independent Study is a nice combination of thinking and action. Who's really in charge and who's part of the rebellion? These were great questions raised in an interesting way. A great follow-up and second book.



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