My overall opinion of this series so far can be summed by one word; confusing. It just makes so very little sense. I cannot comprehend why a testing and education system would ever be developed that results in such a massive loss of life, taken primarily from a nation's best and brightest. It just seems so illogical to me, so unnecessarily brutal. What is the goal to this system? What is the aim and reasoning? Why on earth would you sacrifice so many people? What for? I literally do not understand the purpose to creating such a system except to place the main character in these do or die situations. 
 I mean, in all honesty, I'm only partway through the final book, so this may yet be resolved, but at this point I just do not understand and it is frustrating me. It feels like this series is just trying to copy that typical brutal dystopian/Hunger Games vibe, but where in those books it makes sense (for instance, where violence is being utilised as a social control mechanism), it really really doesn't in this series. And no, I do not buy that it is being used as a method to find and refine the best minds... whoever thinks that is a legitimately useful system for education and testing is an idiot (especially because by removing a persons memories of such events you potentially remove part of the person that you were hoping to find... we are, after all formed in part by our experiences and memories of those experiences). 
 I also don't understand the polarised opinions in reviews for this book. It feels pretty much on par with the first one to me, so I don't really understand how you could love the first but dislike the sequel. I actually thought this book was an improvement over the first with more intrigue and action. Yeah, the main character is too flawlessly perfectly intelligent, but we already knew that in the first book so it's nothing new. 
 I'm still on the fence with this series, it's not amazing but I'm intrigued enough to continue.