The City of Ember

I really, really, really enjoyed this story. It was quite hard to put down and we really enjoyed the narrating with all the different voices for each character. Yes, the mayor was a tad wheezy, but it fit him perfectly. We've enjoyed listening to this story several times all ready!

How do you know what you know? If your entire experience is one context; if your community's entire shared and accumulated knowledge is one unvarying existence; can you be responsible for what you do not know outside your own world? What reasons would you have to look for new knowledge about your world?

Very good opportunities in the book to discuss lessons with the kids and to think about implications for yourself. What would life be like without telephones? What if electricity came on only at certain times? This is how many people in the world live today.

Excellent book to listen to with the family on a road trip. The prologue hooked the kids and the story never let up. The kids are already asking to listen to the sequels.

My 9 year old son and I choose a book every month to listen to when we travel to and from places. He heard great things about City of Ember. We were both at the edge of our seats. Excellent book!! Enjoyable for all ages.

There is nothing really wrong with this book. It's an interesting idea. Humans are placed in an underground city to live for a couple of centuries to avoid some un-named disaster. A culture emerges in that city, where the people lose the instructions their "builders" have left on how and when to leave the city. A couple of precocious kids figure out how to leave the city and eventually lead the people to the surface. The reader is adequate and the production quality is good.

Except there is no soul to the story. We don't care about any of the people, their lives or their troubles. It all comes to a predictable conclusion with a resounding thud.

Sorry... wish I had something better to say...

The story is the only thing that has kept me listening to this audio book. The narrator tries too hard to come up with different voices for characters, and so felt she had to include lip-smacking and other irritating mannerisms to differentiate character voices. Some listeners might consider this a great performance, but I was ready on several occasions to shut off my mp3player and just go get a paper edition from the library. There is also background noises and music occasionally, which was sometimes distracting.

My 12 year old son and I read together. We settle down to read and, often, to listen, as well as to read a good book together nearly every night. We love the time we spend together and the storys we discover together. This story was well written, exciting and very thought provoking. We had fun imagining such a world and way of life.

Living in blackness, depending on the ingenuity of the "builders" electricity to keep the impending darkness at bay is Lina Mayfleet, just graduating from school and looking forward to her new job as "runner". Lina's world is an interesting one and you'll find yourself picturing her landscape and images in your mind. But, what happens when the lights run out? Go with Lina and her friend Dune as they unravel of the puzzle of their world, and the world beyond.

Both my 11 year old daughter and I found this to be a fascinating story. We could hardly wait to get in the car to hear the next installment. The characters are likeable, except for the bad guys, who are despicable. The storyline is fresh and different, except as usual the poor parents have been killed off before the story even begins. We are definitely downloading the sequel.

Maybe

I was told that there was more to the story, but this ended before you found out what happened to all the people of Ember.

Maybe

I wouldn't know because this is not the complete story.

Did I miss a part? There was only one part and eight chapters. Please let me know if there is more to the book.

This was an engaging listen of a story essentially about fear of the dark. I kept expecting it to get violent or dangerous or scary, but it never did. The “G” rated quality of the story was kind of a relief.

The two main characters are children who are curious and intelligent. The setting is unique, and the support characters are well-written.

The author does a good job of creating the world of the story, describing the city and the fear and the darkness. The author also does a good job on the human weakness to want and the dawning realization of what will happen when things run out, but not in a way that will cause children to lose sleep.

A lot of the story revolves around decoding a damaged document, and that was frustrating to have to listen to. Particularly because you have to listen to it over and over. I think this might be a better book to actually read.

It’s not ground-breaking, but it was difficult to put down.