Wool by Hugh Howey

Imagine this: In a quasi-post-apocalyptic world, you live with fellow descendants of survivors of the apocalypse in an underground silo. A silo that is stratified into three sections roughly corresponding to socioeconomic status. A silo where everything--from the color of your coveralls to your ability to breed--is carefully controlled by the people in charge. A silo where nothing ever changes, except for every once in a while when an "uprising" occurs. A silo that's so afraid of self-destruction that no one quests for truth. Until one day…

The sheriff's wife uncovers knowledge she was never meant to have and commits the most heinous crime in the silo--she expresses a desire to go outside. Three years after her ejection, known as a "cleaning," and her attempted journey away from the silo, her husband commits the same act, sure that there's something better out there--be it life or death.

This initiates a chain of events that will forever change the silo and have far-reaching consequences!

This book was awesome! And yet freakishly, horrifically not-terribly-unlikely. You probably won't feel that way in the beginning, but near the end it becomes clearer that the possibility of this happening isn't completely far-fetched. I'm definitely not a conspiracy theorist and I don't think anything like this WOULD happen, but Howey's excellent story crafting definitely makes it feel like there's a remote possibility that it might. (A very remote possibility.)

This book was super easy to breeze through because I was so engrossed in wanting to know what would happen next. And I don't usually go for end-of-the-world sci-fi stuff. I was pretty surprised I wasn't even tempted to take a break and I finished it easily in an afternoon. So if you're looking for a solidly written, engaging, action-packed read, this is it!

~8/10~