Sixteen year old Willow Stanton lives in a city under glass. There are no animals, no trees or plants, and very little food. People survive on nutrition pills and a substance called sustain. Within Nuovo, they believe that separating themselves from nature is the only way to protect the earth from the thing that damages it the most. People. As Nuovo prepares to celebrate its fifteenth year sealed beneath the dome, Willow is caught in an everyday struggle. Her best friend, and son of the Governor of Nuovo, has fallen in love with her. A feeling which she doesn't return. While caught up in this dilemma, Willow finds herself dangling from a rope, destined to be abandoned on the wrong side of the glass. Once outside the city boundaries, she comes face to face with Mudders. People who choose to live on the outside rather than within the city walls. She is faced with a different way of life, a different belief system, and revelations that her life is not what she has been led to believe. When the two worlds collide, she is forced to choose between the life she has always known and believed to be right, and this new life, filled with people and places she had no idea existed.