New York, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C., have been abandoned.

The Bill of Rights has been revoked, and replaced with the Moral Statutes.

There are no more police—instead, there are soldiers. There are no more fines for bad behavior—instead, there are arrests, trials, and maybe worse. People who get arrested usually don't come back.

Seventeen-year-old Ember Miller is old enough to remember that things weren't always this way. Living with her rebellious single mother, it's hard for her to forget that people weren't always arrested for reading the wrong books or staying out after dark. It's hard to forget that life in the United States used to be different.

Ember has perfected the art of keeping a low profile. She knows how to get the things she needs, like food stamps and hand-me-down clothes, and how to pass the random home inspections by the military. Her life is as close to peaceful as circumstances allow.

That is, until her mother is arrested for noncompliance with Article 5 of the Moral Statutes. And one of the arresting officers is none other than Chase Jennings—the only boy Ember has ever loved.


Review:
Needless to say, this novel got some serious hype online. I hesitated to pick it up though because of reluctance to be disappointed after everyone else loved it. I read it and found myself to quite like it, but maybe not to the extent that many others did. Starting on the positives of the book, the characters were great. I quite enjoyed Ember because she didn't just accept her fate, she took it into her own hands to make a better life for herself, showing her to be a strong young woman. Chase was even more intriguing to read about because he starts off as Ember's memory of the boy next door, changes into a military drone, not showing emotion to finally becoming a mix of his previous two egos. He was much more serious than the first, but much more loving than the second. There weren't too many secondary characters that were featured the entire way through, they came in and out as Chase and Ember continued to run away.

Another thing I loved about this book was the writing. It used the gritty style that often makes dystopians what they are, but it also worked well for the romantic scenes within. The one part of this book I didn't enjoy as much was certain parts of the plot. Most of the time I read it, I was hooked into the story, not wanting to put it down, but then there were also a few times that it took a very strange turn that I didn't really enjoy. The end was a redeeming factor, making me really want the next book now. Altogether, I would definitely recommend that fans of YA and dystopian books read this one. I give Article 5 and 4/5.