Book Review: "Examination Day"

“Examination Day” is a short story written by Henry Slesar, which is very interesting. I highly recommend this short story because the story takes an unexpected turn at the end. In addition, people who like dystopian stories would enjoy this one, and the writing style the author uses is unique compared to others of the same genre or length.

In “Examination Day”, we are introduced to Dicky Jordan. On the day of his 12th birthday, Dicky is required to take a government intelligence test. However, he hadn’t been told about the examination prior to the date. 

This is an unexpected turn for Dicky, but, later in the story, the reader will be surprised by a sudden and unexpected end to the story that takes place in the last few lines. Since the ending is unexpected, people are more likely to remember it because it wasn’t expected or intended. 

However, the reader would expect this story to be dystopian due to the fact that the government wants to uncover intelligence of their citizens, and it’s also realistic because there is this strange liquid that Dicky has to drink that makes him tell the truth during the examination. This is beyond modern technology, so it must be set in the future, like most dystopian stories.

What isn’t beyond human comprehension is the writing style that the author incorporated into this short story. They use short sentences to build up tension and medium or long sentences to give context, explain or describe things. The author uses this format throughout the entire story, making it easy to follow.

In conclusion, “Examination Day” is an impeccably told story that I recommend for most people. However, this story may be too scary or inappropriate for children under 10, so I would not recommend this short story to them. For other readers, the incredibly unexpected surprise at the end of this story is truly shocking and not what they would predict. Finally, “Examination Day” is one the first dystopian stories I’ve read, so it has really affected my outlook of what this genre is about, and I am looking forward to exploring more dystopian literature.