It's a few hundred years in the future and mankind is in the process of terraforming Mars into an Earth-like environment. The "Reds" work underground, mining a substance that can make this possible. Although it's very difficult work and their lives are short, they know that it's for mankind and that they'll be rewarded with eventually living on the surface. Darrow is a worker with one of the more dangerous jobs. He's happily married-until his wife breaks one of the rules and she's executed, horribly, by the ruling class, "The Golds", in front of the whole underground village. This shatters Darrow's world-and he's seemingly executed as well after a show of defiance, only to find out that his death was staged by a revolutionary group. This group reveals the truth to Darrow by taking him to the surface-and showing him that Mars has been terraformed for a long time and that The Reds are being deceived into being slaves. The revolutionaries convince him he can help-and get revenge-but he has to be willing to do the near impossible. Their plan is having him physically and genetically transformed into one of the hated Golds so that he can assume a position of power in the following years and head a revolution from the inside. He manages to pass as one and gets accepted into the school for potential commanders, those who are in charge of spaceships and fleets that have conquered the solar system and beyond. But this school is different-he's pitted against others his own age (he's not even 18 years old) and they have to fight amongst themselves in the wilderness of Mars.
I've never read THE HUNGER GAMES books, only have seen the movies-and this book (the first of a trilogy) is far better than those. If I had to compare this book to something I'd say it's a cross between the movies GATTACA and BATTLE ROYALE. Highly recommended. I just bought the second book before I was finished reading this one...