The City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau begins in an underground city. This city is simply named Ember. There, all light in the city is supplied by lightbulbs. The citizens in the city live quiet but busy lives. They do not dare to venture beyond the city for fear of the endless darkness. So life in Ember is uneventful for generations. Until the lights begin to fail. At first it’s just short blackouts, but it continues to get worse as the citizens grow desperate. Our hero and heroine, Doon and Lina, may be able to find the solution. To do so, they travel deep within the heart of Ember to find long buried secrets and discover more light to fill Ember’s growing darkness. This book was recommended to me by a close friend. They’ve read the entire series and they enjoyed all the books except the prequel: The Prophet of Yonwood. When I looked it up on the internet, the City of Ember was described as “a post-apocalyptic underground city threatened by aging infrastructure and corruption.” Although I was skeptical, I decided to give it a try. All in all, I’m glad that I did. Despite what the internet led me to believe, the book did not focus on a dystopian, world ending apocalypse. The reader doesn’t actually learn that there was an “apocalypse” until the very end of the story. This creates intrigue and mystery throughout the story, leaving the reader to wonder what happens next. The City of Ember is a very original story. The plot definitely exceeded my expectations. I have never read a story quite like this. It was mysterious and creative, but it was still relatable. I admire the layers that the author has added to the plot. Everytime a character uncovers a secret, it peels back a layer of the mystery leaving you with some answers and even more questions. Each time a secret was uncovered, it made me feel intrigued and encouraged me to go deeper into the story. While the concept and plot are great, I was still a little disappointed with the writing. The book lacked descriptive language. Writers are often told to “show not tell” with their writing, describe emotion or characters instead of saying it outright. This creates more interesting writing. I found this book a lot of telling and not a lot of showing. This made it harder to remain invested and interested in the story. Even so, it was still a pretty good book. I will warn you though, that the story does end in a bit of a cliffhanger (like many good stories). The character’s uncover part of the mystery, but not the whole thing. Certain things are left unresolved. Still, the ending left me feeling somewhat satisfied. I appreciate how far the characters came from the start of the book to the end. The character development is fairly evident, and each character definitely grew. They also made progress on their journey, uncovering many secrets, but still leaving more to be discovered. I hope that the story and characters will continue to grow in the book's sequel, The People of Sparks.

Check out City of Ember from the Newport Beach Public Library.