Actual Rating: 3.5 
 This book has been sitting on my shelf for five months now, and I haven't ever gotten around to reading it. And now, finally, I have. This book...this book. It was a bit hard to get into the world after abandoning it for so long, but now I have loved this book all over again. I'm anticipating The Diamond of Darkhold, though I'm probably going to skip out on The Prophet of Yonwood. 
 The plot was rather good. I feel like, after the first book of a series, the second book seems to have less plot twists and more or less settles into the world that the characters have been given. It always seems to happen and I feel that it's the reason why the sequels are (generally) worse than the first book. Just a statement. 
 Anyway, the plot of this book was a bit slow at first. It was just getting to know the people of Sparks. But then it kicked up, and I really liked the alternating perspectives of Lina and Doon: Lina to tell what was going on in her little adventures, and Doon to tell what was going on back in the village of Sparks. I also enjoyed the last final pages of the book. The books in this series always seem to resolve what happened in each, and I feel that's something I really like about them. 
 The characters were pretty good, as well. I really liked the character development of the recurring characters, such as Lina and Doon. We got to know Lina's character more, and she's as carefree as always, and we also get to know Doon more as he experiences this new world. But an issue I had was that Lizzie, Lina's friend, always seems to be close to the boy who has secret information or whatever. In the first book, it was Looper. And in this book, it's Tick. I just feel like we could get to know her so much better and something could be explained about it. But whatever. I don't care about that. 
 I also enjoyed the new characters as well. They were different and quirky. I especially liked Maddy, Caspar's roaming partner. I'm sure we'll get to know at least a bit more of them later on. 
 The writing was great as well. It was descriptive and really painted a picture for what was happening. The pacing seemed to be a bit slow at first and then kick up later on, but that was fine. As for the humor, there wasn't TOO much. Not that I expected it. It's a dystopian novel, really; you don't see quite too much humor in a somber place. 
 Overall, I liked this book a lot. It was a good read and I'm excited to finally finish up the Book of Ember series. I'm not going to be reading The Diamond of Darkhold in November. I'm reading it in July. 
 4/5.