Lockdown: Escape from Furnace by Alexander Gordon Smith

Lockdown: Escape from Furnace by Alexander Gordon Smith is about Alex Sawyer, a troubled teen who was at the wrong place at the wrong time. He and his best friend, Toby, broke into a house to rob it, but were attacked by mysterious looking men in black suits and a monstrous "being" who appeared to be stitched together and wearing a gas mask. The blacksuits shot killed and framed Alex. As a result, Alex was sentenced to life imprisonment in Furnace, a new prison built into a deep rocky crevice especially for violent kids. Every night something new and horrifying awakens Alex from his sleep - skinless, vicious dogs terrorizing and eating the inmates, the "wheezers" marking certain cells and taking the inhabitants after stabbing them with a needle, and of course, the taunts and jeers from the resident gangs within the prison. And the day isn't much better - having to perform "hard labor" chipping rock walls, cleaning toilets, doing laundry, or preparing the prison food which is a mush made from rotten and moldy left-overs. Alex contemplates suicide nearly every day until he and his roommate, Donovan, and friend Zee figure out a plan for escape. If they get caught, they will be killed - they may be killed anyway! But they believe it is worth the risk for just the chance to escape the Furnace.

This was a really exciting book. It reminded me of an angrier cross between The Maze Runner and The City of Ember. At first, I didn't really even like Alex. He was a jerk and a bully. But then, as he tried to live through the horrors of Furnace, his character changed and he began standing up for the same kinds of kids he would have tormented in his old life. The book ends on a huge cliff-hanger, which makes me want to read the second book, Solitary, right away - it comes out December 21st, 2010!