Independent Study by Joelle Charbonneau

In The Testing, sixteen-year-old Cia Vale was chosen by the United Commonwealth government as one of the best and brightest graduates of all the colonies . . . a promising leader in the effort to revitalize postwar civilization. In Independent Study, Cia is a freshman at the University in Tosu City with her hometown sweetheart, Tomas—and though the government has tried to erase her memory of the brutal horrors of The Testing, Cia remembers. Her attempts to expose the ugly truth behind the government’s murderous programs put her—and her loved ones—in a world of danger. But the future of the Commonwealth depends on her.

The basic premise behind this series is compelling, and the writing is quick and vivid. It's easy to pick these books up and not set them down until the end because they are full of non-stop action. Cia is interesting, too. It's refreshing to read about a super smart girl, especially in math and science, who is also brave and can look at things from a 'big picture' perspective.

With the first book, I had issues believing in the basic world-building. Unfortunately, I had the same issue with this book. There are still too many holes in why someone would want a society to function this way. The kind of people who would graduate from a program like this would be more of a threat to the leaders, simply because it rewards selfishness and greed, *and* the only people accepted are super smart. So they will come up with creative ways to get themselves more power, which threatens those currently in power. Therefore, I still couldn't buy into the world.

That said, I thought this book was better than the first...until I got to the end. Cia is too smart to do something so stupid. Because of that, I figured out the plot twist well before it was revealed, which really bummed me out. I was hoping to be surprised. Endings are important to me, so this one impacted my enjoyment of the rest of the story quite a bit.

I'll probably read the last book just to see how it ends, but I'll wait until I can check it out from the library.