Synopsis:
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 race to figure out the clues before the lights go out on Ember forever!
Review:
This book was a nice, quick, light read that still brings the reader deep into another world underground. The City of Ember continues with the ever popular middle school dystopian series that have been gaining in popularity/been required reading since before I was in middle school. This book is both meant for a younger audience and also very easy to empathize and get into. Amazon recommendations are for 5th to 7th graders, but given that this doesn’t use a lot of higher level vocabulary and the concepts are rather simple, I’d likely say 9 years and up. While this book was rather fast paced and had a great variety of depth, it very much ends on a cliffhanger of uncertainty.
For the age it was intended for, I’d give this book a 5/5. For me personally, I’d give it a probably a 4/5. A book for the same age group as this would be The Giver by Lois Lowry, with an older and more obvious dystopian series being The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. A really neat standalone Dystopian style futuristic novel for teenagers I would recommend would be Feed by M. T. Anderson.
Star rating: ✯✯✯✯
Amy S. Brown 