The City of Ember: A Rant

Okay, right off the bat, it was a mistake to read this after Revolutionary Road. It was also a mistake to expect it to be a good book. Maybe if I expected it to be bad(like Hunger Games), I would've let myself just enjoy and and adhere to the MST3K Mantra: "It's just a show, I should just relax". Well, in this case it's a book, but it's close enough. I should put a spoiler warning now, and so here it is:

 Read the title, it says Rant, 
How can I rant without spoiling you? 
The answer: I can't.
Complain and I'll bash your head in, you little bag of poo.


 ....Beautiful.
First off The Builders. Okay, they had enough foresight to make a whole city underground just to ensure that humanity won't be completely eradicated, but they didn't know that
 1.) Building a separate supply room isolated from the city pretty much guarantees it to be exploited. Pretty much self-explanatory.
 2.) The whole "keeping this a secret passed on from mayor to mayor so only one person at a time can know about this" is bound to fail. Hey,Builders, were you expecting the mayors to be able to hold off death just in time to appoint a new one and give them instructions to keep a box safe? Unless if you intended the mayors to gain new superpowers that enabled them to do exactly that(RE:lamest power ever), or if you expected every people living there to be a friend of Death already(btw, she's really pretty), there really isn't any excuse for this. At least extend it to a few more people, like the secretary(does a mayor here get a secretary? I don't care) or to the personal guards or something. If that was the case, the events of the book can still happen, and there'll be more "OMGGOVERNMENTCONSPIRACY" Which in itself doesn't make sense. What possible benefits can you get from keeping the secret of how to get the hell out of that place, when 'that place' is literally an underground city that's about to lose it's light, and is running out of supplies? Call me crazy, but that isn't being a mean dictator, that's being a stupid one.
 3.) Paper will fade and is weak. Seriously. You have tons of scientists with you, and you couldn't even get one of them to invent a kind of paper that can weather anything, like, for example, baby teeth and saliva. Come on, this is the survival of the human race, if you can't do that, at least emboss the instructions on a piece of metal or something. Don't be so half-assed about it.

 Related to The Builders: The BELIEVERS. People who believe that The Builders will come back and lead them to safety. May or may not be batshit insane. OMFGTHISISSUCHASUBTLEDIGATCHRISTIANSANDMAYBEOTHERRELIGIONSBUTMOSTLYCHRISTIANS! ! !

 Yep.

 So Chapter 1 is about a picking of jobs. Lottery style. What irks me about this is that the mayor himself says this: "Job you draw today is for three years. Then, Evaluation. Are you good at your job? Fine. You may keep it. Are you unsatisfactory? Is there a greater need elsewhere? You will be re-assigned. It is extremely important for all work of Ember to be done. To be properly done."

 Wait. So if, per se, a kid was to be stuck with the worst job ever(Pipeworks laborer), they can just purposely do extremely bad, and after the three years, they can get a better job, no questions asked? 

Besides, if they wanted the people of Ember to be good at their jobs, shouldn't they let them chose their own? They could have apply for the job, and if they don't have the credentials or if the job is full, the applicants would be directed to the more appropriate/lesser populated jobs. The whole 3 year evaluation thing would still be in effect. In fact, let's amp it up a bit: after the initial 3 years, there will be another evaluation period, the other will take place after 5 years, and the subsequent ones will be after 10 years. The 10 years one will be to check if they should retire or not(based on their health and whatever). The citizen can pick if they want to retire or not, and if they don't, they can pick whether they can stay at their current job or to pick a low key one that isn't much work. See, wouldn't that be better?

 And another thing about the set-up of their world: if they're underground, why are they still wearing coats? They're fucking underground, the closer you are to the fucking core, the hotter it is. Yes, their bodies would be conditioned to the heat by then, but that doesn't mean that their bodies will be okay with the unnecessary heat. No. It won't. And while we're at it, why the big hang up on darkness? Again, conditioning. The longer you're exposed to darkness, the more used to it you get. The more you're used to it, the less you'd grapple your way around like you're blind. Genius idea: exchange the coats with eyepatches. If they use eyepatches they'd be able to get used to the darkness with one eye, so when there's a black out, they can just switch the eyepatch to the other eye, and then they'd be able to see in the dark, no problem. Then there's the bonus of looking like pirates.

  Dear author, Your wordbuilding sucks.

 I could rant about the character's names, but then they might live in a society that has forgotten how to give good names. Because seriously, Orly is not a good name. And yes, I googled it, and yes, it is a legitimate name, but no, it doesn't make it less awful. and another thing, I get that it has this beautiful meaning (Light is mine. Get it? Light because-no, I'm not going to explain it), so why didn't the author give the main characters light themed names? Well, at least their names have some sort of hidden meaning, right? Okay, so Doon Harrow's name means, I guess, Tearing Up This One River In Scotland. River....the river near the Pipeworks? ANd tearing up, riding the boat? But what about Scotland? Are they under Scotland? Are there Scottish people living underneath us? Is everyone actually Scottish? Is the last remaining people on Earth Scottish?Please say no. I can't even look at haggis. Lina Mayfleet's name is less entertaining. The closest thing I could find for Lina that will make sense with her is this: "In Greek it refers to the olive. Crown used for the hero." which I guess references her being the hero or something? And Mayfleet isn't a word. May and fleet is, though. So together I guess it means "May The Hero Ride the Fleet" which references the boat ride again? Oh god,it could also mean that the first names are irrelevant and if you combine both of their family names it'll mean 'Riding a boat here in this Scottish river or something'.

Holy shit.

I'm not going to dive into character analysis and etc, because this shit is long enough as it is. So I'm just going to leave it at that. Unless someone lets me borrow their copy of the sequels. Which isn't likely.