Extraction by Stephanie Diaz

Clementine has spent her whole life preparing for her sixteenth birthday, when she’ll be tested for Extraction in the hopes of being sent from the planet Kiel’s toxic Surface to the much safer Core, where people live without fear or starvation. When she proves promising enough to be “Extracted,” she must leave without Logan, the boy she loves. Torn apart from her only sense of family, Clem promises to come back and save him from brutal Surface life.

What she finds initially in the Core is a utopia compared to the Surface—it’s free of hard labor, gun-wielding officials, and the moon's lethal acid. But life is anything but safe, and Clementine learns that the planet's leaders are planning to exterminate Surface dwellers—and that means Logan, too.
Trapped by the steel walls of the underground and the lies that keep her safe, Clementine must find a way to escape and rescue Logan and the rest of the planet. But the planet leaders don't want her running—they want her subdued.

This book started out very slow. I couldn't seem to get into it and was constantly bored. Eventually it sped up and I'm really glad I stuck with it. I really enjoyed the rest of the series, especially Evolution, the final book.

When I first started reading this, I just thought it was a copy of Divergent since there are many similarities between the two. When it comes down to it though, it had better world building than Divergent and the things that I thought were so similar between the two really were quite different. Sure, there were simulations, very similar characters, a brave, selfless character... but when it really comes down to it a lot of books are really similar to other ones and most of the time its just because its impossible to write a book that is unlike any other one in all ways. For that reason, the similarities between Extraction and Divergent can be overlooked.

The main idea behind the book, the poisonous moon, was completely original. At first it seemed really weird and random, but it does really make sense once you figure out why its poisonous. The writing was also really good and I loved how it made me feel like I was really watching in on the story take place. There was a lot of showing instead of telling and that was good.

All in all, this was a great read for me. Stay tuned for my reviews of Rebellion and Evolution!!!

Thanks for reading!
~Bri