The City of Ember

by Jeanne DuPrau

Doon didn’t like being laughed at; Lina didn’t like being shouted at.

And that right there is men & women, folks.

“The citizens of Ember may not have luxuries, but the foresight of the Builders, who filled the storerooms at the beginning of time, has ensured that they will always have enough, and enough is all that a person of wisdom needs.”

This explicit mention of LACK (i.e., luxuries) seems weird to me -- if you don't have them, AND the city is "all there is" then why mention luxuries at all?

a person of much knowledge but few words.

“Maybe. The trouble with anger is, it gets hold of you. And then you aren’t the master of yourself anymore. Anger is.”

Maybe. But maybe anger is a beacon toward your passion?

The captain’s face lit up. “I know what you must do, dear—come to one of our meetings. It would lift your heart. We sing.”

Wherein -- during these pandemic times -- the idea of a bunch of religious zealots (???) SINGING in a CONFINED SPACE in a city UNDERGROUND is just about the worst thing I can imagine.

“I draw, too,” said Doon. “But I draw other kinds of things.”

Are we doing this kind of dichotomy? Male, female. Fact, fiction. Logical, fanciful. &c.

On the table was a basket, and in the basket were three turnips, each of them lavender on one end and white on the other.

What a pleasant image!

What difference would it make if she had the colored paper, or the shoes? She suddenly wanted those things so badly she felt weak.

SCARCITY

But that wasn’t the unfairness Lina was thinking of. It was that just two people were getting things that everyone would have wanted. She couldn’t think how it should have been done. You couldn’t divide a can of applesauce evenly among all the people in the city. Still, something was wrong with grabbing the good things just because you could.

gorging on peaches and asparagus

Sorry but that is a GROSS-ASS combination.