City of Ember: Books 2-4 by Jeanne DuPrau

 

I wrote a few weeks about about how much I enjoyed City of Ember, the first in a quartet of middle grade dystopia novels by Jeanne DuPrau. I liked it so much that I ended up ordering the rest of the books in the series from eBay immediately after finishing it (for the original cover designs). When they arrived, I powered through them over the course of a week or so. I figured that I'd combine my reviews for those three remaining books into one post.

**There will be spoilers for the series throughout these reviews.** 

Book 2 - The People of Sparks

This novel picks up right where the first book left off, with Lina and Doon emerging from Ember into the world above. They manage to help most of the rest of their people escape from the city behind them, and after four days of walking they arrive at a town named Sparks. Sparks is a small community, and the people there are just starting to become successful with their farming and trading. They certainly do not have the resources to absorb all the people of Ember - it would more than double their total population. They don't want to turn them all away though, so the leaders of Sparks vote to take on the people of Ember for six months, during which time they will teach them the basics of how to build a town.

Things start off well enough, but the people of Ember have a lot to learn. As people that have lived underground their whole lives, they have to learn all about the sun, the moon, weather, the seasons, animals, and more. They also have a lot of catching up to do with history. They discover that they have emerged into a world recovering from a series of wars and pandemics known as "The Disaster." The population of the world has been decimated and there is no more electricity or technology to make life easier. In this way, they have both more and less in Sparks than they had in Ember. Making the adjustment is quite difficult for them. Before long, their seeming ignorance, combined with the amount of food and resources they consume, start to rub the Sparks citizens the wrong way. Tensions begin to rise between the groups and soon, a war between them becomes a possibility.

Lina and Doon are caught up in this conflict in different ways. Lina sneaks away with a traveling trader to try and find a new city for the people of Ember to relocate to. Doon becomes friends with Tick, an aggressive young Emberite that tries to lead the group into war with the people of Sparks. They both must make decisions to try and ease the growing tensions and avert another disaster that could bring their second chance to an abrupt end.

This book was also very good, and a worthy sequel to book one. I thought it was interesting to explore how the people of Ember might try to integrate back into society, and I liked learning more details about what happened to the world on the surface. The conflict with the people of Sparks was engaging too, though many elements of that ended up being a little simplistic. The problems between the groups mostly revolved around squabbles over food and accusations of laziness, and I think more complex issues probably would have arisen if these two groups were thrown together in real life. I didn't mind that much though, because this is a middle grades novel, so the problems that came up were appropriate for the novel's intended audience. The eventual resolution to their conflict felt a little too simple as well. Kindness, sharing, and teamwork help settle the final confrontation between the groups in a predictable way. It was still satisfying and sweet to read though. The novel was solid and I liked the final pages, which end on very hopeful note.

Book 3: The Prophet of Yonwood

The Prophet of Yonwood takes a different path from the other books in the series. It is a prequel, set many years before the political and environmental disasters that lead to the construction of Ember. The protagonist is Nickie, a young girl that will eventually grow up to become one of the first citizens of Ember. As the story begins though, she is just a curious kid taking a trip with her aunt to help clean out her grandfather's old house. He's recently passed away, and his old mansion in Yonwood, North Carolina is packed full of old objects from several past generations of family members. Nickie's aunt wants to organize and sell the place, but Nickie has her own, secret agenda. She's tired of living in a big city and is hoping to persuade her family to keep the house and move to Yonwood, away from all the crime and the increasingly tense news reports about terrorist attacks and possible wars brewing.

Once they arrive in town though, Nickie begins to pick up on some very odd events. The entire community has become obsessed with the words of an old woman named Althea, who recently had a fiery vision about the end of the world. She's been sick in bed and rambling strings of random words ever since. Community leaders are taking her ramblings seriously, however, and are interpreting what she says as instructions to protect Yonwood from the terrible vision she saw. Paranoia and fear are running high due to the increasingly likely prospect of war with other nations, so the community clings to this idea as a way to feel in control of their fate. Accordingly, Althea's words have led to a restrictive set of rules about what people can and can't do, and they are encouraged to inform on each other if they see any rule-breaking. Nickie gets swept up in this along with everyone else and starts looking around for any evil she can report.

Her wanderings lead her to make connections with a few others that live in Yonwood. She befriends a boy named Grover who loves studying snakes, an old, eccentric man that performs mysterious experiments, and a little dog named Otis that becomes a faithful companion to her. Throughout the story, she alternates between helping her aunt clean out the house, searching the streets for evil, and trying to convince her family to stay in Yonwood, which is growing more paranoid and tense by the day. Eventually, one of Althea's prophesies puts Otis in danger, and Nickie must reevaluate what it really means to be "good" and learn how to think for herself.

I thought this book definitely was not as good as the previous two. I wasn't as interested in Nickie's story and I thought that there were some pacing issues with the plot. Not a whole lot happens in the story, and the ties to books one and two aren't particularly strong. The last few pages of the book do make a direct connection, as they describe how Nickie eventually is chosen to live in Ember, but nothing in the preceding 280 pages does much to lead up to that. There are also some supernatural and science fiction elements present that felt odd in this universe that are never fully explained. This just felt like a very different book--like it came from a different series almost. 

That being said, it wasn't terrible. The parts involving Otis the dog were very heartfelt and well written. DuPrau must be a big dog lover herself, because the relationship Nickie shares with this little guy was very well developed and felt genuine. The novel also explores important ideas related to the dangers of groupthink and how religion can be used to control people. I was kind of impressed that a book written for kids would come straight out and show people directly using Jesus to justify abuse and manipulation. I thought that was kind of gutsy. Unfortunately, these elements weren't enough for me like this novel the same way that I liked City of Ember and The People of Sparks. This felt like a misstep, and it's definitely the weakest book in the series.

 

Book 4: The Diamond of Darkhold

The Diamond of Darkhold picks back up with Lina and Doon again after the events of The People of Sparks. Everyone is living together peacefully now, and working hard to get ready for the approaching winter. Lina is thankful to have a stable home, but she is starting to feel a bit of wanderlust. She misses her old job of messenger, running around the streets of Ember and getting to see a lot of different people and places everyday. She is antsy for an adventure. The perfect opportunity presents itself when Doon finds a mysterious and incomplete set of instructions in an old book that seem to point to a treasure the people of Ember were meant to discover upon their exit from the city. Lina and Doon decide to team up again and head back towards their old city, hoping to find this mysterious item and maybe pick up some other helpful things that might have been left behind during their initial escape.

They devise a plan to sneak away together and after a short, difficult journey, they find themselves back in Ember again. They quickly discover that they are not alone down there though. Some wandering traders have stumbled onto the city and claimed it as their own. They manage to capture Doon and plan to keep him as a slave, leaving Lina on her own to try and make her way out of the city and bring back help. Finding herself thrown into a much bigger adventure than she asked for, Lina must figure out how to save Doon, and then figure out the whole mysterious treasure thing, if she can.

This final book in the series was great. I was glad to catch back up with Lina and Doon and see how their adventures continued after settling the conflict in Sparks. DuPrau returned to her earlier themes of teamwork and kindness here, and the overall story was engaging and fun to read. There wasn't as much of a sense of complexity here; in previous novels I felt like there were more questions about who was right and who was wrong in many situations. This was more straightforward, but still entertaining. I was glad that the final book focused on Lina and Doon working together again, much like they did in the first book. It was a good full circle moment and a good sendoff to the series. The ending was a little bit weird, but it did tie all of the previous books together, including the prequel, so I ultimately didn't mind it too much.  

Overall Thoughts:

I ended up enjoying this series a whole lot more than I thought I would. The first book is by far the best. The stakes felt higher there and many parts were genuinely chilling--just like a dystopian novel should be. Books two and four were solid reads as well, if a little less engaging. The third book was definitely the weakest, but still readable. Based on the strength of the first book, I would give the series overall a four-star rating. I know that doesn't make mathematical sense looking at my ratings for the other books, but I liked City of Ember so much that it didn't feel right to give the series as a whole less than that. This was a nice surprise for me and a wonderful way to close out my 2021 year of reading.   

Challenge Tally

Clear the Shelves 2021: 32/50 (keep)

Total Books Read in 2021: 57

Series Rating Overall: