|
The story is pretty good, but the little green men at the end is too much it is a really poor effort to tie in the 3rd. book. The book is better if you don't read the last two pages.
Lina and Doon are struggling through winter when they obtain a book meant for the people of Ember. Buy this series for any tween, but most importantly for you. THE DIAMOND OF DARKHOLD is by all means a great read, but lacks the emotional connection that made the first two books so fabulous.
And Sparks is running out of supplies, so Doon and Lina return to Ember to learn and gather what they can. I love the futuristic and realistic settings. Only most of the pages have been torn out, and only eight pages remain, mostly graphs.
The characters are clearly presented as good or bad, missing those shades of grey vital to avoid the players seeming like cardboard cut-outs.I love the Ember books for bringing important worldwide issues to young readers. But there's a new danger in their underground city.I love THE CITY OF EMBER and THE PEOPLE OF SPARKS. I skipped the prequel, THE PROPHET OF YONWOOD, but the only reference to that is in the epilogue here.
I love the affable characters. Many thanks to Jeanne DuPrau for creating and writing this awesomeness.
It did seem like maybe she got stuck and didn't really know how to end it but I again say that the rest of the book is good enough to overlook the last chapter. I would rather have seen the whole last chapter though extended into another book.
However I did order it when I fell in love with the first book and since I had it, and enjoyed the first 3, I decided to read it. I must say I was not as disappointed by this book as the other reviewers here.
If I had read these reviews before I purchased this final book in the series I likely would not have bothered. I will not spoil it with details but I must say that I do recommend adding this book to the collection if you enjoyed the others.
I would add though that the very last chapter was a bit out of sync with the rest of the series. I completely enjoyed this book up until the end where I agree with others there was too much crammed into the wrap up and too many far fetched things added in that were not necessary.
It just seemed that the author did not even write this last chapter because it had a completely different style/tone than the rest. I loved reading these books and highly recommend all 4 to anyone who likes an interesting and captivating adventure story.
I was definately dissapointed in this book. It just seems to me that she wrote this book quickly to end the series.
I felt like the ending of this book should have been extended and essentially served as the second book, eliminating the need for books 2 & 3. Other than Lina and Doon, I felt that many of the secondary characters lacked strong characterization, which made their roles seem slightly flat.
While the return to Ember was much anticipated and a welcome plot element, parts of this book were, as a result, overwhelmingly repetitive of the first book. I think this book must have come to be as a result of the criticisms of books 2 & 3 (no return to Ember, lack of Lina and Doon, etc).
Plotwise, there was a clear single goal, but it wasn't as interesting, nor as desperate, as the goal in the first book, making for a story that was, in turn, less interesting. This worked in some instances, but in others, it felt like a desperate return to the successful elements seen in the first book, in order to gain back disappointed fans.
I did enjoy seeing Lina and Doon again, and the teamwork seen in this book was reminiscent of the first one in a good way. I enjoyed the fact that everything came full circle, although I do wish DuPrau had rearranged things a little bit.
I just think a lot was done wrong in the creation of this series, and maybe The City of Ember would have been best served as a stand-alone.Rating: 3.5/5
|
