This review was originally posted on http://www.rubysreads.com. 
 I no longer stay up late to read very often. Probably because I'm getting old. I didn't stay up late to finish Article 5, I actually woke up at 3:00 one Saturday night and reached for it. And I didn't fall asleep with the book open on my face. I read it to the bitter end. Or, not so bitter, as things turned out. Article 5 was compelling like that. It was the right book that came along at the right moment, and I gobbled it right down. 
 Article 5 straddles the line between a Dystopian and a Post-Apocalyptic. It takes place after a fate-changing War has crippled the United States. We get a quick look into the way things work in Ember's post-War US before the action begins. Ember's mother is arrested and Ember is carted away to a reform school, far away from everyone and everything she knows. After that, it's a race to escape the increasing horror that Federal Bureau of Reformation is wrecking on the United States. It also effects a reunion with the boy she'd loved and lost to the Moral Militia, the Federal Bureau of Reformation's enforcement group. 
 Simmons paints a picture of a truly horrifying future for anyone to live in, much less a teenage girl on her own. Ember's escalating understanding of how awful things have become, and how the changes have gotten to the very root of human kindness, is painful to read about. It's an interesting, if depressing (and Hobbesian) perspective on human nature. Ember's grueling ordeal is interspersed with flashes from her past with Chase, and with her trying understand the man he has now become. Despite everything--and there's a lot between these two--their connection remains undeniable. 
 Ember is, at times, a heroine that is hard to like. She makes stupid decisions that put her in considerable jeopardy, and refuses to listen to Chase when he tells her how different the world has become. She skates close to TSTL territory, but I forgive her because, over all, the story made up for her lapses. Well, her story, and Chase, who combines, mystery, tortured, alpha hero and extremely capable into one delicious package. 
 My main complaint about this book was that there wasn't enough world-building. I still don't know what the "War" was about, or who bombed the country's cities into oblivion. I also don't buy that, given the desperate times, people wouldn't have ransacked the abandoned cities and sold the goods on some kind of black market. But that's a nitpick. 
 My biggest frustration was that the reason for the Moral Statutes was never explained. I get that the country had faced catastrophe, but what made the country turn to "conservative" values? My guess would be that, when people feel threatened, they'll cling to any kind of order. But, again, I'm guessing. Simmons didn't give me much to work with, so I developed the theory on my own. Since this is the first in the series, I'm hoping that this is an aspect Simmons will explore in further books. 
 4 1/2 Points: 
 I'd go on a second date with this book.