Made of Gold-- or perhaps Amber

NOTE: I'll try to spoiler guard ending details from now on, and keep them to one paragraph. I can't avoid talking about them, it seems. Any other spoilers that squeeze their way into the rest of the review will be minor.

I've been incredibly lucky with the quality of the stories I've picked up recently, and The City of Ember by Jeanne DePrau is only the crowning jewel of the bunch. I'm biased-- I had high hopes for this book, and liked it from the beginning. It's essentially another dome story: the City of Ember, isolated from the world, is rapidly running out of supplies and power, and two kids hurry to find a solution. What's interesting is the ignorance everyone has of a world that came before Ember was founded over two hundred years ago. Because there was another world, as quickly becomes obvious when such widely-used modern supplies as pineapple and corn are mentioned.

The story begins in earnest when two kids (Doon and Lina) unearth Instructions for... something. Probably to save the city, or else escape it. Predictably for a children's book, the adults are essentially useless, providing room and board with a breakfast of beets and then stepping out of the picture to let the kids take the spotlight. This is done much more organically than other books, but it's still pretty obvious. The kids are the ones who explore the city, and it's easy to relate with them. They're flawed, but their intention is to explore the city and figure out what's what, which (as a reader in a new world) is exactly what I would want to do. The City of Ember is a pretty epic sprawling place, developed as fully as Philip Pullman's Arctic locales in The Golden Compass or Ray Bradbury's censored future in Fahrenheit 451.

SPOILERS
I had minor issues with the ending. First, like The Golden Compass, it is obviously set up with the assumption for more sequels. It stands alone -- barely -- but the characters essentially walk off into the sunrise to see what they can find. The origin of Ember is not as interesting as the city itself, but it makes a little sense. What disturbed me was the sense of remove these characters had from their parents or parental figures. Lina is an orphan and Doon doesn't get on with his dad, but both Doon's father and Lina's foster mother (and grandma, for that matter) are sympathetic figures who play important roles in the story. In real life, I find it hard to believe that the children would abandon their parents and friends in the city so readily, no matter how into exploring they might be.
END SPOILERS

These are minor qualms, however. The City of Ember, I thought, dealt with the concept of an isolated city better than Stephen King's Under the Dome. While the reduction of supplies became a minor factor in King's story, here they are treated as a crucial means of plot motivation. Some of the same story beats are here -- a government conspiracy, a city visited by infrequent disasters. Altogether, though, it's an enjoyable book which created a compelling vision, somewhere I'd definitely like to return.