Thank you so much for your patience with this post going up this month! This was the only post that I wasn’t able to finish before going on vacation and I didn’t want to bring my computer/was encouraged not to bring my computer. I was told I’m “too attached,” as if there is such a thing. 😉 But I’m back home and ready to discuss the book!
I hope you all enjoyed/are enjoying The City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau! I really enjoyed it and am excited to see what everyone else thought!
First, it’s time to announce what book we’ll read in April. The winning book is…
It looks like a good one, so I’m looking forward to reading it! The next post for book nominations will go up on April 12th and book voting for the book will start on Thursday, April 23rd, so that voting can run for a full week before the announcement on May 1st.
And now, for the book discussion.
If you haven’t read the book yet, there will be spoilers in this post and the comments.
I really enjoyed this book and it’s definitely one that I’d love to pass onto my niece, because I think she would like it too.
I loved the world building in this novel and how different life in Ember is. It didn’t sound like a place that I’d ever want to be; but I didn’t mind spending some time there while following Lina and her family/friends.
I appreciated that the novel started to touch on some serious topics–like Lina’s grandmother’s forgetfulness. I think it’s something that all ages can identify with and I like seeing elements like this show up in stories.
That being said, I was a little disappointed but how Lina’s grandmother’s death was handled. The book seemed very detached from it. I kept reminding myself that the people in Ember lead a very different life and this is how they handle and process death, but it still didn’t ring true to me, partly because of the emotion and fear that Lina had about her grandmother’s forgetfulness. I expected a little bit more from her about the death.
Although I did like when Lina told Doon about it and what they were doing just stopped for a minute.
Another thing that confused me was the story for the first people to go to Ember. I don’t know why, but I couldn’t clearly picture what had happened based on the descriptions in the journal, but I was interrupted a lot as I was finishing the novel, so it could be that I just wasn’t fully focused on the text.
And it could be that it’ll be explained in book two, which I would like to read at some point in the near future.
I loved the description of the world when Lina, Doon and Poppy made it out of Ember. It was so cool to see the world through their eyes; the grass and the color of the sky and all of their descriptions were just so cool! Loved that.
Comments lost during switch from Blogger to WordPress:
MIA
content to just sit idly by while the city was falling apart and the
Mayor was being a slimeball. But I definitely agree with you – the
reason for Ember being created wasn’t quite clear to me. Was there some
sort of disaster or disease? It wasn’t very clear. I also wondered why
no one came to Ember to see why the people hadn’t left after the “box”
opened up.
I liked how Lina and Doon seemed to be on the same
wavelength. They immediately trusted each other and were there for each
other.
Have you seen the movie? I just saw it the other day. It was equal parts cheesy and sweet. 🙂
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