Book about teenagers living underground after an apocalypse/nuclear war. Dystopian setting.
Hi yall. I read this book in high school so probably three years ago.
Characters: there’s a chubby orange haired kid with glasses, two girls I’m pretty sure who later get into a queer relationship? There’s a Russian ballet teacher who teaches the (I think) Asian girl. They all have their families and live in a bunker/shelter under a huge old mansion infested with monsters(but most of the people don’t know that, minus the kids.) The antagonist is a female doctor who practically acts like a dictator, making them all live in a communist work style environment.
Plot: the kids are trying to escape or at the least see the outside world. They were told the world was a wasteland because of a bombing, but in reality they were just taken out into a rural middle of nowhere for the doctor lady to experiment on.
details: they have to grow their own food, they have to do drills for if the sun comes because it can hurt you? I remember they have to like go into a vent at some point, the one boy trys to repair a radio to contact the outside world. When the kids go up into the mansion after learning how to escape from the bunker/basement, they encounter these weird humanoid dog creatures that the doctor keeps as pets. The kids learn that the doctor actually used to live in the mansion and read through her diary.
Ending: a huge hole in the floor of the mansion forms somehow, and it’s all on fire. The pets are climbing ontop and ripping eachother to shreds so they can kill the doctor, and I think the police/military come to rescue them and that’s how they learn the doctor was just experimenting?
I’m really hoping someone knows what I’m talking about. I loved this book. I think the title is something like “under the ground” or something. I don’t really remember. TYIA