The City of Ember
By Jeanne DuPrau
5 stars
I found this book in my house and I didn’t think much of it, I decided to read it on a whim and I ended up reading one of the best books of the year. The City of Ember is a beautifully written, dystopian, mystery story about a city that lives in total darkness.
The city of Ember was built as a last refuge for the human race. Two hundred years later, the great lamps that light the city are beginning to flicker. When Lina finds part of an ancient message, she’s sure it holds a secret that will save the city. She and her friend Doon must decipher the message before the lights go out on Ember forever.
Like I said, I absolutely adored this book, it is fun, witty, filled with intrigued and very easy to read. I know this book was written for a much younger audience but I don’t care, I loved this book and I had the best time reading it. Like I mentioned this book is very easy to read, the writing style is fantastic, it allows you to perfectly picture what the city looks like and I think the author did a fantastic job in creating a young POV that was very easy to believe. The setting is described to perfection, the characters are well developed and you get a very clear character growth, and overall the whole tone of the story worked magnificently.
Talking about the characters, the main two characters are Lina and Doon. First talking about Lina I have to say I really liked her, I loved how excited she was about discovering new things, I loved how she took care of her family and made time to be with the people she cared about. We then have Doon, I really appreciated the fact that Doon was a flawed character, he had some anger issues to were talked about throughout the story and I liked how these issues were handled. The secondary characters aren’t as developed as the main were however they added depth to the story, I especially liked Clary.
You can tell this book is written for a younger audience based on the themes and lessons it portrays. The City of Ember talks about many themes that I believe are crucial for young kids to learn about such as the power of friendship, the danger of greed, the importance of family and mostly how crucial it is to be grateful of what we have.
Overall The City of Ember was a fantastic story about friendship and being grateful for what we have, it is told in a beautiful manner with the best characters ever and I honestly can’t wait to get my hands on the next books in the series. This was absolutely outstanding, 100% would recommend.
