The Diamond of Darkhold by Jeanne DuPrau, 2008

It’s been several months since Lina and Doon escaped the dying city of Ember and, along with the rest of their people, joined the town of Sparks. Now, struggling through the harsh winter aboveground, they find an unusual book. Torn up and missing most of its pages, it alludes to a mysterious device from before the Disaster, which they believe is still in Ember. Together, Lina and Doon must go back underground to retrieve what was lost and bring light to a dark world.
In the fourth Book of Ember, bestselling author Jeanne DuPrau juxtaposes yet another action-packed adventure with powerful themes about hope, learning, and the search for truth.
(293 pages)

Was Diamond of Darkhold as good as the first two books (here and here)? No. But I was surprised how much better Diamond was than that dreadful prequel, Prophet of Yonwood (my review here) - in fact, it was only slightly less compelling than The People of Sparks was. And when you're writing the third book set around the same post-apocalyptic community, things are bound to get a little redundant. DuPrau does her best to combat this, taking old settings and recasting them in a whole new light.

The personification is wonderful: everyone, even minor characters, have their own personalities that are unique enough that you can differentiate between them, but they don't fall into stereotypes. Besides the main characters Lina and Doon there are many minor characters both old and new who play important roles in the story, all of whom have various backstories that meld into the larger story. Sometimes those backstories are short, but then again sometimes real-life backstories are short, too.

I love Lina and Doon, and I really enjoyed seeing them again. Their character development hasn't come very far from the first book, but it's definitely noticeable that they are both braver, stronger, and confident than they were in Ember. Their friendship has grown so that they are not just allies, but best friends as well. I appreciated that DuPrau didn't take their relationship to the next level during the bulk of the book, and left information about their future for the last chapter. The romantic in me hates that we didn't get to see Lina and Doon as a couple, but the realist in me appreciates that. For one thing, they're only like fourteen in this book. For another, they were busy! It's so annoying in most dystopian books how the main characters focus more on their love interests than they do on their missions. In the Ember books, romance is the last thing from everyone's mind and that makes my realist side extremely happy.

If you loved the first two Ember books, and then I highly recommend you read this as well. It brings the story full circle, tying everything off with a great mixture of realism and optimism throughout. Please don;t begin the series here, though - the first two books are both outsanding, and set the stage for this final book in the series.

The Last Present by Wendy Mass

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Amanda and Leo have a history with birthdays. Now their friend's little sister, Grace, has fallen into a strange frozen state on her birthday, and Amanda and Leo must travel in time in order to fix whatever's wrong. As they journey back to each of Grace's birthdays, they start seeing all sorts of patterns . . . which raise all sorts of questions.
Amanda and Leo are going to have to unravel the threads of the past and present - and travel much further than they ever imagined - if they're going to save Grace. Luckily, a little birthday magic always helps in the charming and funny Willow Falls series by Wendy Mass, where everything is possible and there are no coincidences.
(256 pages)


This is the fourth book in the Willow Falls series by Wendy Mass. I am reviewing all of them, so click the links if you haven't read my reviews of the first, second, and third books. Also, read ahead at your own risk: there are some unavoidable spoilers from the previous books in the series.

This is a fun book because it circles back to Amanda and Leo! We get to see inside Amanda's head for the first time in three books, and it's kinda awesome. In The Last Present, David's best friend Connor's little sister Grace (whew, that's a mouthful) goes into a sudden coma. Leo  and Amanda are given an assignment from Angelina: they have to go back in time to each of Grace's birthdays and make sure Angelina's protection over Grace is established. Something has been preventing Angelina from placing the usual blessing on Grace for the last ten years, and Amanda and Leo have a second chance to fix it.

I have to say, I was a bit disappointed that time didn't repeat itself the same way it did in the first book, where the same events happened over and over again. Granted, that would have made the book a little too similar to 11 Birthdays, and it would have shut out virtually any character developement/storylines involving the other main characters we've come to love, and all-in-all would have been a bad way to do this. But still, it does seem a bit out-of-sync with what we already knew about the Ellerby-Fitzpatrick curse.

Anyway, complaints about plot decisions aside I really like this book. It's basically everything readers were waiting for, wrapped up in one big package that literally had a bow on the front. In fact, if I had to make one (more) complaint about the book it would be that it's so happy it's cloying. I suppose that's what happens when you have a series focusing on three different characters, all of which have some sort of love interest at the end of the so-called series closer (due to popular demand, Mass is now writing a fifth book entitled Graceful that might be really good, or might . . . not be).

Honestly, this is a wonderful series closer. It reminds me of the last Septimus Heap book, Fyre - not because of plot similarities (because there are, like, none) but because both books wrap up the series with a bang, tying off all the threads I care about and even throwing in some extra plot points to make it extra special.

If you haven't read the other books in the series, don't read this one! Please, I beg of you, don't read this one. If you've read the other books, then I beg of you: read this book. But, of course, if you've read the other books I don't need to beg you to read this one. If you've made it this far, wild horses probably couldn't keep you away from this one. I know they couldn't have kept me away.

This concludes my four-week review of the Willow Falls series! Thank you so much for reading these. Now I'd appreciate a little bit of feedback: have my reviews made you more likely to read the series? Did you like the way I reviewed the entire series, or would you prefer that I stick to reviewing unrelated books?