I’m going to be honest, it’s been really hard to stay on top of reading lately. I get into the third trimester next week, and I’m napping pretty much all the time. So for my first review this week, I wanted something quick to read – and a certain book crossed my mind.

When I was in fifth grade, my teacher started reading a book to us toward the end of the school year. I remember getting really hooked on it, and the part I remembered most was… how annoying it was that we never actually finished the book.

But I always remembered the cover and figured I’d make my way back to it someday, which I finally did this week!

It was Jeanne DuPrau’s 2003 post-apocalyptic novel The City of Ember. I’d heard it was made into a movie, I think around the same time I was reading it (and Google says the movie came out in 2008, which checks out because that would’ve been the year I turned 10). But I always like reading the book first, so I never watched it. I just never got around to actually finding a copy and reading it until now, nearly two decades later.

Ember is an underground city where, for generations, its citizens have been completely cut off from the outside world, so much so that they don’t even remember it exists. We as readers can pretty clearly tell what’s going on, but the main character, 12-year-old Lina Mayfleet, has no idea there’s a world beyond her city – although she dreams of a place where it isn’t so dark and there’s a bright blue sky. She has no idea that such a place truly exists, or that several generations ago, it’s where her people came from.

One day, Lina’s toddler sister finds (and accidentally partially destroys) a long-lost note from the Builders who created the city. Lina enlists the help of her brightest classmate, Doon Harrow, to decode the message and fill in its missing words.

And they need to figure it out quickly – Ember is clearly running out of resources, its infrastructure is failing, and now it may be up to Lina and Doon to save their civilization.

This book has the feel of a modern classic and gives off the same vibes as Lois Lowry’s The Giver. If you’re looking for a quick dystopian read that will have you bingeing your way through its chapters, this is a really good option!

I’d say it’s probably best for middle schoolers and up, but the plot has enough substance to keep adults interested too (especially those of who really wanted to finish it as children, but whose teachers just didn’t get through it quickly enough).