Usually, I try not to read the book version of a movie *after* I’ve seen the movie.
After seeing the film City of Ember, though, I had to read the book by Jeanne DuPrau The movie was…well…fairly spectacular. I would go so far as to say it is probably the most underrated and underviewed movie of 2008.
This review will focus primarily on the book, but I will point out some significant differences between the book and the movie.
SPOILER ALERT! There will be spoilers (important plot lines, character decisions, and the ending) in this review. If that stuff bothers you, stop reading now.
The premise of Ember is fascinating: An underground city, built specifically to ensure the continuation of the human race after The End. Meant to house the future of humanity for 200 years, the key to leaving the underground city is lost midway through their quarantine, and somewhere around year 250, with Ember crumbling around them and food running scarce, a couple of kids stumble on the secret that can save them all.
The first half of the book is your normal youth book fare. The adults are either self-serving or stupid, the kids are smart and knowledgeable, and most of the characters are pretty 1-dimensional. The first half of the book is where the major deviations from the book take place. The Ember in the movie is quite different than the Ember in the book, and I admit to liking the movie version of Ember much more than the book version. The characters of Clary, Loris, and Lina’s parents are also much different: In the movie, they actually play parts, and are part of the overall mystery of Ember. In the book? Little more than “adults are stupid” background noise.
But once you get to unraveling the mystery that is Ember, the book gets good. There are many, many differences between the book and the movie in the interpretation of the Instructions left by the Builders, and again I must admit to liking the movie version better. In the book, the way out of Ember was fairly hidden. In the movie, it was under the noses of the citizens of Ember the whole time, which made the discovery payoff that much more gratifying.
Where the book shines, though, is when Lina and Doon (and Poppy, of course) finally make it to the surface. DuPrau becomes more than eloquent, she becomes absolutely nostalgic in her revelation of the surface world. The rising of the sun–something that is supposed to be the high point of the movie but which happens far, far too quickly–is an emotional high that carries through to the devlishly abrupt end of the book.
All in all, City of Ember is a pretty good book. It’s not A Wizard of Earthsea or A Wrinkle in Time, but I’d recommend it. It’s a good afternoon read.
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