Article 5, by Kristen Simmons, tells the story of Ember Miller, a 17-year-old girl who fights to save her mother when she is arrested for violating a section of the Moral Statutes that now govern the United States. She receives unexpected help from Chase Jennings, her former boyfriend who now is a member of the hated military, and along the way she learns about the factors that have caused such a drastic change in him.

The book opens with Ember Miller trying to blend in and avoid attracting attention to herself, as she has done since the war ended and the country was overtaken by an ultra-conservative government. The Bill of Rights has been replaced by the Moral Statutes, a strict code that governs everything from what people are allowed to read to sexual practices. Ember tries to help her free-spirited single mother fly under the radar too, but she is devastated when her mother is arrested for violating Article 5 of the statutes, which stipulates that children can only be conceived by a legally married man and woman. Making matters worse, one of the arresting officers is Chase Jennings, the boy who used to live next door and with whom Ember was in love, but who now appears to be a hardened soldier.

Ember is taken to a reformatory in West Virginia, where girls like herself are sent for rehabilitation. When she catches her roommate, Rebecca, in a forbidden relationship with one of the guards, she blackmails them into helping her escape, but the plan backfires and everyone is caught. As Ember awaits what is certain to be a severe punishment, Chase arrives with an order to take her to Chicago to testify at her mother's trial, but after they leave, she learns that the order is fake and Chase has gone AWOL to help her and her mother reach a safe house in South Carolina.

As they travel toward the carrier who will help them reach the safe house, Ember learns more about what has happened to Chase in the past year and her anger toward him gradually begins to dissolve. However, she becomes enraged when he eventually tells her that her mother was executed in his presence, although he refused an order to kill her himself. In her anger, Ember leaves and is captured and taken to a detention center, where she formulates a plan to escape as she realizes that Chase is not to blame for her mother's death and has always tried to protect her. Chase turns himself in so he can help Ember escape, even though he realizes he will be executed, but they manage to escape together and prepare to use their knowledge of the detention facility to help the growing resistance movement that is attempting to take back the country.