DuPrau makes a typical first-time novelist mistake throughout this book: she doesn’t trust her reader to infer. In other words, she often over-explains, following up dialogue and action sequences with redundant descriptions of a character’s take on what just happened. Another disappointment is that the mystery of Ember unfolds in an entirely predictable manner. There are no great surprises.

Flaherty, Mike (October 13, 2008). " 'Ember' glows in N.Y.". New York. New York: New York Media, LLC. The City of Ember exists inside the darkness, where it's always night. Darkness is held at bay twelve hours a day by artifical light, though the electricity is becoming sporadic and the city is running out of replacement bulbs. Founded many years before, there was some instructions on how to leave the darkness left behind but lost by one of the city's mayors. The city is facing shortages of supplies and the residents live in a sense of paranoia that the lights will go out forver, plunging them into enternal darkness. The books are set in a post-apocalyptic world. The world is healing; things start to get better, but the world is still almost empty of civilization, and destroyed, abandoned cities loom everywhere. This is the world to which the citizens of Ember emerge from the deep, and how many astonishing things are waiting for them! Things they haven't known, such as the sun, trees, stars, the changing seasons... and war.They’ve already done this a few times, and they’ll be doing it a quite a few times more. That’s what you spend the other ten percent of your time doing on a film set. In between Gil comes out to give them notes. Video village is nestled behind a wall somewhere else – there just isn’t enough room on the set proper – so he tends to stand behind the camera and give notes personally. Unlike the actors though, he gets to be on the set with a parka on. Despite the cold it actually does look like a great deal of fun. Saoirse and Harry both seem to think so as they told us later [which you can read here].

It’s a mystery with a race against time. As a children’s story, it’s pretty straightforward, but it’s creative and done well. As a plot-driven story, the characters are not complex. Doon is always irritated. Lina is always trying to be cheerful and barely bats an eye at relatives’ death. I think I saw the movie first; it follows the book quite well but makes the ending more dramatic. Sutton, Roger (May–June 2003). "Jeanne DuPrau The City of Ember". Horn Book Magazine. 79 (3): 343. ISSN 0018-5078. Lina and Doon are returning to the city of Ember, but what awaits them in the dark? This highly acclaimed adventure series is a modern-day classic—with over 4 MILLION copies sold! This gives her courage, because she finds writing very hard. So many words to choose from! So many different things that could happen in a story at any moment! Writing is one tough decision after another. Just when the future looks bright for the people of Ember, a new darkness lurks. This highly acclaimed adventure series is a modern-day classic—with over 4 MILLION copies sold!This book did a really good job of capturing the tensions involved in a refugee situation, especially one where there aren't enough resources to go around -- a better job, I think, than most adult books on the topic. The tensions were clearly presented, and the emotions were well shaded and realistic. While the book did slide a bit towards having people turn out to be "good guys" and "bad guys," I think it's not any more so than any political discussion; I'm sure most readers hate certain actual political figures more than they would hate any person in this book. And this book is, in its sneaky way, about the difficulty and rewards of politics. Doon once or twice lets his anger get control of him and yells at someone only to regret it because it makes things worse.

I wish this didn't preach quite so much, but I will read the last book in the trilogy because I want to see where it goes.The main new dynamic in the book acted as a commentary on the interactions between people in strained situations and the passions which lead to prejudice, anger, and eventually to war. The plot separated for a time the two main characters from Ember, Lina and Doon. I really enjoyed this book! The world, and the characters were interesting, and the story was pretty great overall. This book is meant for a younger audience, and the writing reflected that. However, I think kids and adults would both find this story interesting. The only reason it wasn’t a five star rating, was because it wasn’t quite as suspenseful, and exciting as the first book.