Reviews

Please Remain Calm by Courtney Summers

Only show reviews with written explanations

phronk's review

5.0

Reading a Courtney Summers story is like having your heart dragged behind a truck after it's already been stomped on. This bite-sized sequel to This Is Not a Test focuses purely on the horror aspects of its predecessor, but subverts genre expectations in subtle and heartbreaking ways. In a world overrun with zombie stories, Please Remain Calm manages to stand out.

shaunnah511's review

Go to review page

3.0

What the heck am I supposed to do with that?!

trudilibrarian's review

Go to review page

4.0

First I would like to start out with a warning -- please remain calm: this *is not* a full length sequel. It is a *short story*. It is a *chapter* of what we can only hope will become part of a much larger series that Courtney Summers will -- she better! -- continue to write.

My ebook edition displayed as 65 pages and I didn't even get that many since those 65 pages also included a sample of Summer's new novel [b:All the Rage|21853636|All the Rage|Courtney Summers|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1410879862s/21853636.jpg|18982890] (which has no zombies, but I still want to read anyway because Summers is a great writer no matter what story she's telling).

So Please Remain Calm is a short, sweet taste of something terrifying and grueling. I remember This Is Not a Test as an epic, emotional The Breakfast Club meets Dawn of The Dead -- a bunch of high school archetypes, including the jock, the brain and the basket case -- are trapped in a high school with each other while outside the world is being ripped apart at the seams by flesh-hungry reanimates. Our narrator, Sloane, is the basket case. She was on the verge of suicide before the zombies came and now has to run for her life rather than commit to taking it. I remember Sloane as strong and sad and sympathetic.

Please Remain Calm is not her story -- this time it's Rhys who's speaking (the jock) and I barely remembered anything about him other than he is the one Sloane escapes with at the end of the first book. And that's exactly where this short story picks up. No time has passed at all. The two teenagers are on the run from the high school. To where, to what, we don't know because they don't know. They are moving panicked, blind. And then they get separated.

This is much more your traditional zombie story of unrelenting fear, fatigue, hunger, trying to find a safe place to close your eyes for more than ten minutes. I *loved* it. It's pulse-pounding and page-turning with great writing and for so few pages, great characterization. Summers can write a zombie chase/attack scene like nobody's business. Her zombies are fucking terrifying and I don't even care that they move fast. Usually that would bug me. But Summers makes it work. Boy does she ever.

Don't let the YA label fool you with this one; it's raw and violent and dark. It's going to take a bite out of you and leave you shaken and stirred. That I guarantee. Merle knows what I'm talking about, don't you Merle?

ginnikin's review

Go to review page

2.0

What I loved about [b: This is not a Test|12043771|This is Not a Test (This is Not a Test #1)|Courtney Summers|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1314375864s/12043771.jpg|17010494] was Sloane and her internal struggle. With Rhys as the narrator and Sloane off screen for most of the story, it just wasn't going to work as well for me. It's another zombie story. I don't love that

Spoiler

every new character introduced ends up dead. It makes Rhys and Sloane seem cursed and kinda makes their survival guaranteed; I can't explain why on that last bit, but that's how it feels to me.

threeseagrass's review

Go to review page

3.0

3.5 stars.

That was heartbreaking. As usual. Courtney Summers doesn't hold anything back. She tears out your heart, puts it back again, mends it, only to tear it out again and again, over and over.

The book probably would have had a higher rating from me if it had been from Sloan's point of view, because honestly not being in her head makes me not like her as much. From the outside, without her thought processes, she seemed a little useless at times and bitchy. But I understand why it had to be from Rhys's p.o.v. It wouldn't have been half as devastating if not.

Can't wait for the next one!