The Compound by S. A. Bodeen

The Compound by S. A. Bodeen is about the Yanakakis family. Rex, the father, is as rich as they come and terrified of a nuclear war between the U.S. and Middle East. When his twins, Eddy and Eli, were born, he secretly began working on an underground compound to house his family in case of an emergency. On Eddy and Eli's 9th birthday, the family was out camping near the compound when they got word of an attack. In their hurry to reach safety, they left Eddy and Gram (their mother, Clea's mother) on the outside. The rest of the family, Rex, Clea, Eli, Eli's older sister Lexie, and his younger sister Terese, spend years living in the compound, believing that the world above has been destroyed by nuclear war and that everyone they knew and loved had died. Their father's plan was to spend 15 years in the compound before the automatic locks would allow the hatch to open. Unfortunately, things start going wrong about 6 years into their isolation. The food supplies start dwindling, the livestock they had was accidentally poisoned, the hydroponics lamps started dying, and Eli started to suspect that his father was hiding something.

I absolutely loved this book. I read the first half the day I checked it out from the library, and woke up at 5:00am on a Saturday to finish it! I couldn't stop thinking about it all night long, and just HAD to find out what happened. There were some shocking ideas in this story with twists and turns I never suspected. Even the very end held a surprise!