Description: "Take Michael Grant's Gone (2008) and Veronica Roth's Divergent (2011), rattle them in a cage until they're ready to fight to the death, and you'll have something like this nightmarish debut. It's an apocalypse writ small: a sick teen infects a Colorado high school with a disease so deadly that half the building is blown up by the military and the rest is sealed inside a giant dome. Every two weeks the ceiling is split for an air drop of food and supplies, and it's during these drops that the 1,000 surviving kids--split into warring cliques with names like the Nerds, the Sluts, and the Freaks--fight, steal, and even kill to make good. Due to a pre-contagion feud with Sam, the leader of Varsity (the jocks' gang), David is forced to eke out a loner's existence. But while protecting his younger brother, Will, from the horrors of the darkened hallways, David becomes an underground hero--which begins to infuriate Will, who also longs for the spotlight. Though not totally implausible, this is for fans of gritty sf dystopia, and Thomas' whirlwind pace, painful details ('old socks in a zip-lock freezer bag' serve as one character's pillow), simmering sexual content, and moments of truly shocking ultra-violence thrust this movie-ready high-school thriller to the head of the class." --starred, Booklist

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