Inside Out, by Maria V. Snyder (Insider #1)

Keep Your Head Down.
Don't Get Noticed.
Or Else.

I'm Trella. I'm a scrub. A nobody. One of thousands who work the lower levels, keeping Inside clean for the Uppers. I've got one friend, do my job and try to avoid the Pop Cops. So what if I occasionally use the pipes to sneak around the Upper levels? The only neck at risk is my own…until I accidentally start a rebellion and become the go-to girl to lead a revolution.

Trella is a scrub, one of thousands of nobodies who keep her world, the Inside, running. Trella keeps to herself and prefers to spend her time in the many pipes and vents in the giant building that houses everything she knows. Then she accidentally starts a rebellion (I thought this line sounded fishy, but it's totally true) and the scrubs turn to her to release them from their pointless lives of servitude and give them the chance to actually live. During her crusade Trella is surprised to learn that the Uppers (the ones who live on the upper floors and aren't scrubs) aren't all leading the great lives the scrubs assume they have and are facing oppression of their own. She particularly becomes close with Riley, an Upper who is more than willing to break the rules he grew up with.

I read this book because of how much I enjoyed the Poison Study books and was both disappointed and satisfied upon realizing that Inside Out is a tamer, more sci-fi, young adult version of Poison Study. Trella, like Yelena, is the quiet heroine who unintentionally sets out to make a better life for herself and those like her. Riley, like Valek, is at first viewed to be the heroine's enemy, or at least not her friend. He isn't as tough as Valek but he is tougher than you realize when you first meet him. He's kind of what Valek would be like if he hadn't had his tragic past.

Also similar to Poison Study, Inside Out takes place in a world that is absolutely ingenious and becomes even more so when you find out what is really Outside. I savored every detail of information about everything, though the technological stuff went right over my head and at some point I stopped keeping track of locations that didn't have names (a map would have been convenient but it's impossible to put a 3D map in a paperback book so I'll forgive the author and her publishers).

4.9 stars. Something about Trella bugged me, but I can't put a finger on it. 

To read my review of Poison Study click here.