Book Review: Wool

From Goodreads: In a ruined and toxic landscape, a community exists in a giant silo underground, hundreds of stories deep. There, men and women live in a society full of regulations they believe are meant to protect them. Sheriff Holston, who has unwaveringly upheld the silo’s rules for years, unexpectedly breaks the greatest taboo of all: He asks to go outside. His fateful decision unleashes a drastic series of events. An unlikely candidate is appointed to replace him: Juliette, a mechanic with no training in law, whose special knack is fixing machines. Now Juliette is about to be entrusted with fixing her silo, and she will soon learn just how badly her world is broken. The silo is about to confront what its history has only hinted about and its inhabitants have never dared to whisper. Uprising.

Thoughts: This was originally written as 5 novellas/ short stories before being released as an omnibus. If you are buying it on Kindle, make sure you buy the omnibus or you will end up having to buy all 5 separately. 
If you're looking for a well written, original, adult dystopian novel - you've found it. Wool starts with an ember that you can see glowing hotter and hotter until it explodes. But the build up is not slow and torturous - it's engaging and intriguing. You know something is not right, but you're not sure what. Howey builds pressure, feeding the reader bits of information, unsettling them, never letting them get completely comfortable in the world of the silo. And when the explosion happens, the pressure is released, but only temporarily. A whole new pressure starts to build. As in real life, things don't go to plan and the reader is still uncertain as to what the true secrets are. In the end, Wool is a phenomenal book. Apparently there is another two in the series, with the second Shift out now. Again, released in short stories first, I'm looking forward to getting my hands on the Omnibus edition.

Chanllenges: ebook Challenge