Review: The People of Sparks

The People of Sparks by Jeanne DuPrau
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Lina and Doon were joined by the rest of the City of Ember people and they traveled for a long time in a world they did not understand. Thankfully, they stumbled upon a city full of people - just in the nick of time. Many people were sick, some were fainting from dehydration and lack of food, since they went through most of their rations days ago.

The people of Sparks were very shocked when 400+ people arrived at their town. They have never heard of Ember and realized that these people are not knowledgeable in anything important. They even have little knowledge about certain things that should be common sense.

Now Ember and Sparks are living together - at least for a little bit - until Ember can figure out how to survive on their own.

But there is tension rising between the two groups. And resentment. Both cities are not liking the situation they are in, and fights are breaking out over little things that seem to be the most important problems they've ever been through.

Lina went on her own mission to figure out what happened to this world. Doon is at Sparks, trying to figure out what is happening and which side is the right side to be on.

Because one thing is clear: the people in this world do not need to go through another War after what happened hundreds of years ago.

I was so glad to dive into this book because I had to figure out what happened after the ending of City of Embers. There were so many questions I had, and I'm happy to say that The People of Sparks answered almost all of them!

I did shake my head a lot during this book, because the Ember members were so...selfish... They thought that they expected more than they were getting, but the Sparks members were already giving up a lot to help these 400+ people. Granted, they were being petty about their rations and helping the Ember members, but they were still being kind and generous. I mean, they could have kicked them out of their town when they first met them, and Ember members wouldn't have been able to do anything to stop them!

So, yeah, I was a little disappointed in the Ember members. Granted, it was mainly Tick that was destroying their kindness and leading them to anger and punishment. I really hate that kid and didn't care for anything he had to say.

One thing that I have noticed between the two books is that Lina is the braver of the two. She is the smarter of the two. She is the most selfless of the two. Most might think that Doon is because he is always looking for things, but Lina is the one who decided to find the city and made a decision on her own. She is the one who was the first to help the people of Sparks when they needed help. Doon thought about helping, but didn't start helping until after Lina was already in the process of helping.

And that is what happened in Ember. Lina is the one who found the message and wanted to decode it. She is the one who was running around Ember trying to figure out a solution. And she is the one who made the first step to leave Ember.

So I definitely like Lina better. She didn't let the people of Ember or Sparks change her, unlike Doon who was swayed by Tick's group and wanted to fit it. The fact that Doon got mad because Lina left without asking him to go with, and didn't think that his attitude toward her had any reasoning is stupid and juvenile and made him seem much younger than Lina, even though they are the same age.

I found out that #3 in the series is a prequel, and after reading the description, made the decision not to read it. It won't do anything for me, so I'm just going to jump to #4 since it's about Lina and Doon again :)

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