THREE STARRED REVIEWS! • The Times Children's Book of the Year • Nominated for the 2025 Governor General's Literary Award — Young People's Literature

From award-winning author Kenneth Oppel comes a startling, can't-wait-to-talk-about-it-with-someone novel that defies genre to create a teen survival thriller unlike any you've read before. For fans of Leave the World Behind, A.S. King, M.T. Anderson, and Margaret Atwood.

Xavier Oaks doesn't particularly want to go to the cabin with his dad and his dad's pregnant new wife, Nia. But family obligations are family obligations, and it's only for a short time. So he leaves his mom, his brother, and his other friends behind for a week in the woods. Only . . . one morning he wakes up and the house isn't where it was before. It's like it's been lifted and placed . . . somewhere else.

When Xavier, his dad, and Nia go explore, they find they are inside a dome, trapped. And there's no one else around . . . 

Until, three years later, another family arrives.

Is there any escape? Is there a reason they are stuck where they are? Different people have different answers — and those different answers inexorably lead to tension, strife, and sacrifice.

In this masterpiece, award-winning author Kenneth Oppel builds a heart-stopping story that feels very much of our moment, where our very human choices collectively lead to humanity's eventual fate.