When Reed is sent to a secret reeducation center for teens in the middle of the Dirt, he doesn't expect friendship - not with Xoey, the fragile girl who arrives with him. Not with Adam, the brooding boy who has been here longer than anyone. But especially not with Riley, a girl he knew in the Sand who has every reason to hate him.But then Reed and his friends stumble across a stash of hidden books in tunnels under the school. They learn a different perspective about the last days of America and the second civil war that ended with the formation of the United Democratic Republic.Starved, enslaved, and tortured by their sadistic school director, the group of friends find hope in each other, and risk everything in a desperate plot to steal back their liberty before it's too late.