Messenger

By Lois Lowry

The third book in Lois Lowry's Giver Quartet, which began with the bestselling and Newbery Medal-winning The Giver.

Trouble is brewing in Village. Once a utopian community that prided itself on welcoming strangers, Village will soon be cut off to all outsiders.

As one of the few able to traverse the forbidding Forest, Matty must deliver the message of Village’s closing and try to convince Seer’s daughter Kira to return with him before it’s too late. But Forest is now hostile to Matty as well. Now he must risk everything to fight his way through it, armed only with an emerging power he cannot yet explain or understand.

"Told in simple, evocative prose, this companion to The Giver and Gathering Blue can stand on its own as a powerful tale of great beauty." —Kirkus (starred review)

Messenger is the masterful third novel in Lois Lowry’s Giver Quartet, which includes The Giver, Gathering Blue, and Son.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Release date: Apr 26, 2004
• ISBN: 9780547345895

Lois Lowry

Lois Lowry is the author of more than forty books for children and young adults, including the New York Times bestselling Giver Quartet and the popular Anastasia Krupnik series. She has received countless honors, among them the Boston Globe–Horn Book Award, the Dorothy Canfield Fisher Award, the California Young Reader Medal, and the Mark Twain Award. She received Newbery Medals for two of her novels, Number the Stars and The Giver.

Book preview

One

---

MATTY WAS IMPATIENT to have the supper preparations over and done with. He wanted to cook, eat, and be gone. He wished he were grown so that he could decide when to eat, or whether to bother eating at all. There was something he needed to do, a thing that scared him. Waiting just made it worse.

Matty was no longer a boy, but not yet a man. Sometimes, standing outside the homeplace, he measured himself against the window. Once he had stood only to its sill, his forehead there, pressing into the wood, but now he was so tall he could see inside without effort. Or, moving back in the high grass, he could see himself reflected in the glass pane. His face was becoming manly, he thought, though childishly he still enjoyed making scowls and frowns at his own reflection. His voice was deepening.

He lived with the blind man, the one they called Seer, and helped him. He cleaned the homeplace, though cleaning bored him. The man said it was necessary. So Matty swept the wooden floor each day and straightened the bedcovers: neatly on the man’s bed, with haphazard indifference on his own, in the room next to the kitchen. They shared the cooking. The man laughed at Matty’s concoctions and tried to teach him, but Matty was impatient and didn’t care about the subtlety of herbs.

We can just put it all together in the pot, Matty insisted. It all goes together in our bellies anyway.

It was a long-standing and friendly argument. Seer chuckled. Smell this, he said, and held out the pale green shoot that he’d been chopping.

Matty sniffed dutifully. Onion, he said, and shrugged. "We can just throw it in.

Or, he added, we don’t even need to cook it. But then our breath stinks. There’s a girl promised she’d kiss me if I have sweet breath. But I think she’s teasing.

The blind man smiled in the boy’s direction. Teasing’s part of the fun that comes before kissing, he told Matty, whose face had flushed pink with embarrassment.

You could trade for a kiss, the blind man suggested with a chuckle. What would you give? Your fishing pole?

Don’t. Don’t joke about the trading.

You’re right, I shouldn’t. It used to be a light-hearted thing. But now—you’re right, Matty. It’s not to be laughed at anymore.

My friend Ramon went to the last Trade Mart, with his parents. But he won’t talk about it.

We won’t then, either. Is the butter melted in the pan?

Matty looked. The butter was bubbling slightly and golden brown. Yes.

Add the onion, then. Stir it so it doesn’t burn.

Matty obeyed.

"Now smell that," the blind man said. Matty sniffed. The gently sautéing onion released an aroma that made his mouth water.

Better than raw? Seer asked.

But a bother, Matty replied impatiently. Cooking’s a bother.

Add some sugar. Just a pinch or two. Let it cook for a minute and then we’ll put the rabbit in. Don’t be so impatient, Matty. You always want to rush things, and there’s no need.

I want to go out before night comes. I have something to check. I need to eat supper and get out there to the clearing before it’s dark.

The blind man laughed. He picked up the rabbit parts from the table, and as always, Matty was amazed at how sure his hands were, how he knew just where things had been left. He watched while the man deftly patted flour onto the pieces of meat and then added the rabbit to the pan. The aroma changed when the meat sizzled next to the softened onion. The man added a handful of herbs.

"It doesn’t matter to you if it’s dark or light outside, Matty told him, scowling, but I need the daylight to look at something."

What something is that? Seer asked, then added, When the meat has browned, add some broth so it doesn’t stick to the pan.

Matty obeyed, tilting into the pan the bowl of broth in which the rabbit had been boiled earlier. The dark liquid picked up chunks of onion and chopped herbs, and swirled them around the pieces of meat. He knew to put the lid on now, and to turn the fire low. The stew simmered and he began to set the plates on the table where they would have their supper together.

He hoped the blind man would forget that he had asked what something. He didn’t want to tell. Matty was puzzled by what he had hidden in the clearing. It frightened him, not knowing what it meant. He wondered for a moment whether he could trade it away.

---

When, finally, the supper dishes were washed and put away, and the blind man sat in the cushioned chair and picked up the stringed instrument that he played in the evening, Matty inched his way to the door, hoping to slip away unnoticed. But the man heard everything that moved. Matty had known him to hear a spider scurry from one side of its web to another.

Off to Forest again?

Matty sighed. No escaping. I’ll be back by dark.

Could be. But light the lamp, in case you’re late. After dark it’s nice to have window light to aim for. I remember what Forest was like at night.

Remember from when?

The man smiled. From when I could see. Long before you were born.

Were you scared of Forest? Matty asked him. So many people were, and with good reason.

No. It’s all an illusion.

Matty frowned. He didn’t know what the blind man meant. Was he saying that fear was an illusion? Or that Forest was? He glanced over. The blind man was rubbing the polished wooden side of his instrument with a soft cloth. His thoughts had turned to the smooth wood, though he couldn’t see the golden maple with its curly grain. Maybe, Matty thought, everything was an illusion to a man who had lost his eyes.

Matty lengthened the wick and checked the lamp to be certain there was oil. Then he struck a match.

Now you’re glad I made you clean the soot from the lamp chimneys, aren’t you? The blind man didn’t expect an answer. He moved his fingers on the strings, listening for the tone. Carefully, as he did most evenings, he tuned the instrument. He could hear variations in sounds that seemed to the boy to be all the same. Matty stood in the doorway for a moment, watching. On the table, the lamp flickered. The man sat with his head tilted toward the window so that the summer early-evening light outlined the scars on his face. He listened, then turned a small screw on the back of the instrument’s wooden neck, then listened again. Now he was concentrating on the sounds, and had forgotten the boy. Matty slipped away.

---

Heading for the path that entered Forest at the edge of Village, Matty went by a roundabout way so that he could pass the home of the schoolteacher, a good-hearted man with a deep red stain that covered half of his face. Birthmark, it was called. When Matty was new to Village, he had sometimes found himself staring at the man because he had never known anyone before with such a mark. Where Matty had come from, flaws like that were not allowed. People were put to death for less.

But here in Village, marks and failings were not considered flaws at all. They were valued. The blind man had been given the true name Seer and was respected for the special vision that he had behind his ruined eyes.

The schoolteacher, though his true name was Mentor, was sometimes affectionately called Rosy by the children because of the crimson birthmark that spread across his face. Children loved him. He was a wise and patient teacher. Matty, just a boy when he first came here to live with the blind man, had attended school full time for a while, and still went for added learning on winter afternoons. Mentor had been the one who taught him to sit still, to listen, and eventually to read.

He passed by the schoolteacher’s house not to see Mentor, or to admire the lavish flower garden, but in hopes of seeing the schoolteacher’s pretty daughter, who was named Jean and who had recently teased Matty with the promise of a kiss. Often she was in the garden, weeding, in the evenings.

But tonight there was no sign of her, or her father. Matty saw a fat spotted dog sleeping on the porch, but it appeared that no one was at home.

Just as well, he thought. Jean would have delayed him with her giggles and teasing promises—which always came to nothing, and Matty knew that she made them to all the boys—and he should not even have made the side trip in hopes of seeing her.

He took a stick and drew a heart in the dirt on the path beside her garden. Carefully he put her name in the heart, and his own below it. Maybe she would see it and know he had been there, and maybe she would care.

Hey, Matty! What are you doing? It was his friend Ramon, coming around the corner. Have you had supper? Want to come eat with us?

Quickly Matty moved toward Ramon, hiding the heart traced in the dirt behind him and hoping his friend wouldn’t notice it. It was always fun, in a way, to go to Ramon’s homeplace, because his family had recently traded for something called a Gaming Machine, a large decorated box with a handle that you pulled to make three wheels spin around inside. Then a bell rang and the wheels stopped at a small window. If their pictures matched, the machine spit out a chunk of candy. It was very exciting to play.

Sometimes he wondered what they had sacrificed for the Gaming Machine, but one never asked.

We ate already, he said. I have to go someplace before it gets dark, so we ate early.

I’d come with you, but I have a cough, and Herbalist said I shouldn’t run around too much. I promised to go right home, Ramon said. But if you wait, I’ll run and ask . . .

No, Matty replied quickly. I have to go alone.

Oh, it’s for a message?

It wasn’t, but Matty nodded. It bothered him a little to lie about small things. But he always had; he had grown up lying, and he still found it strange that the people in this place where he now lived thought lying was wrong. To Matty, it was sometimes a way of making things easier, more comfortable, more convenient.

See you tomorrow, then. Ramon waved and hurried on toward his own homeplace.

---

Matty knew the paths of Forest as if he had made them. And indeed, some of them were of his making, over the years. The roots had flattened as he made his way here and there, seeking the shortest, safest route from place to place. He was swift and quiet in the woods, and he could feel the direction of things without landmarks, in the same way that he could feel weather and was able to predict rain long before the clouds came or there was a shift in wind. Matty simply knew.

Others from Village rarely ventured into Forest. It was dangerous for them. Sometimes Forest closed in and entangled people who had tried to travel beyond. There had been terrible deaths, with bodies brought out strangled by vines or branches that had reached out malevolently around the throats and limbs of those who decided to leave Village. Somehow Forest knew. Somehow, too, it knew that Matty’s travels were benign and necessary. The vines had never reached out for him. The trees seemed, sometimes, almost to part and

Reviews for Messenger

[Ruth Gilpin · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Wow, heartbreaking and riveting but I still wanted to read the next one after finishing it. Lol.

[wanderlustlover_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I'm going to potentially forget Gathering Blue and Messenger the way I forget The Godfather Part III. Rather like Gathering Blue was how I found Messenger.

Messenger was Matt(y)'s story. I love the characters, flushing our The Seer and The Leader. (I was disappointed that Kira's village was better and we never learned how at all, or why she moved to the cottage, or what became of Thomas or Jo, or that society so well built in book two).

I love how important he becomes and how much we see through his eyes. I'm not sure the significance of the ending choice resonated with me. And I very, very, very deeply felt disappointed in where it ended. On that moment when the characters from book one and book two finally meet. Once again, right as the whole point of the journey is reached, the story ended.

I was sad.

[evelynnygren · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Good edition to The Giver series. I enjoyed reading about Matty's story and what he does for everyone. I'm interested to see what happens in the last book.

[regoodrich · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I liked this third book in the series more than the previous two. Each one can stand on its own as a single story, though some characters do cross over. This tale dealt out a strong emotional punch because of the likeableness of the young main character who faces an unhappy fate. There was greater suspense involved. This made it hard to put the book down. I love the “Brother’s Grimm” feel this tale has, especially when the main character led me through a dark, foreboding forest. Now on to book four!

[agentx216 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This book started out really strong and continued with the characters from "Gathering Blue". Again there were secrets and mysteries and magic and there are some good reveals. However, the book falls apart at the end. There is a conclusion to a small part of the story but then the book ends and with the fashion of a deus ex machina of "well this solves everything". Bye bye mystery of the trade mart and anything at all that happens surrounding it. This is another where the beginning of the book and even the middle is so strong but the ending causes the focus on my conversation to be on how bad it was. It was fun to see characters back and combining into this new village - but it's spoiled with no real focus. Even a lack of focus on a special part of the human condition (memories/feelings in The Giver and art in Gathering Blue). Still fun, still a bad ending. Final Grade - B

[fingerpost_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I thought this was better than "Gathering Blue," but not on par with "The Giver."The third in the series is set in yet another community in this post-apocalyptic world. Matty, the little boy who left the village towards the end of "Gathering Blue" is the protagonist, now living in a different village (called Village.) In Village, people get along, are good to each other, and welcome outsiders who manage to find their way through the forest (called Forest). But a mysterious man has begun to come to Village on occasion and hold a "Trade Mart" in which he asks people what they want, and what they have to trade. It is quickly evident that he is trading parts of their personality or souls. The town is becoming more selfish with each Trade Mart. Soon the borders will be closed, and Matty is sent on a mission to his previous home to bring back Kira, his friend from home, and the actual daughter of his adoptive father in Village. But Forest itself is also becoming hostile, and his once simple trek through the paths of the woods becomes fraught with danger.The book is an allegory for the obsessive greed and consumerism of our modern world, especially in the United States. But while we understand the metaphorical purpose for the mysterious trader and for the forest suddenly becoming a hostile and willful force, from the practical literal story, these things are not explained in the least. I an appreciate the symbolism, but when the writer presents something that demands an explanation in the story, I expect to get an explanation by the end, and these two key plot elements are not explained.So, not terrible... but not recommended either.

[kerribrary · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

Couldn't finish this one, either. I think I got about halfway through it before I gave up.

[jennybeast · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Back to world of Gathering Blue. A little sadder, a little more bittersweet, but I was really happy to see these characters again. Mattie's story in the post-apocalyptic villages.

[ssperson_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Yes, I finished this (the third book in the series) after I finished the fourth book. I left my copy of this book on a plane, and had to order another copy. However, I had the fourth book with me on vacation, and asked my son to fill me in on what I'd missed in this book, which got me where I needed to be for the fourth book.

I'm very glad that I actually finished reading this book. While my son did a stellar job at describing what happened, it was of course more engaging in the author's words. I really liked the message of people using their gifts, even if it means sacrifice for the greater good.

This book also did a good job of tying together the series, which was something I was unsure about after reading the second book.

[emscape · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Lowry ties together the stories in The Giver and Gathering Blue, giving us more insight into this world she has created and teaching the reader more important lessons.

[drfuriosa · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A beautiful, sad tale about how we fight and overcome ugliness in the world. Lowry ties threads from both The Giver and Gathering Blue, so you'll want to have read them both before you start this one.

[japaul22 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The third book in Lowry's Giver quartet continues the story from Gathering Blue and starts to add in elements from The Giver. As in all of these books, Lowry leaves a lot to the individual reader's imagination. I like this - especially in a YA novel. By leaving a lot unsaid, the reader thinks a little more deeply and is forced to do some analyzing in order to really appreciate the book.I'm looking forward to reading the last in the series.

[vickimarie2002 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I love this series so much! There is so much to think about. I've been reading these with my son.

[junipersun · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

It's been so long since I read Gathering Blue that I'm coming to this book with a tabula rasa.I really enjoyed the interactions of Matty and Seer, and could identify with his level of comfort and familiarity in the forest. And then the ending came, and it was much too soon, and not at all what I expected or wanted. How could that happen to the main protagonist? No fair.

[obtusata · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This one has a sad ending that doesn't completely resolve questions, but the story is still interesting and I'm looking forward to the next book.

[faith_murri · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

While the plot issues with Gathering Blue weren't resolved in this one, it stood on it's own better as a story. I loved Matty in this, and all the other characters too, like Seer, Leader (who's totally Jonas), Jean, and Kira from Gathering Blue. The themes of immigration and acceptance, of social sickness reflecting in nature were very well done and relevant. I wished there had been a bit more in some areas, but found myself deeply engrossed throughout and read it all in one sitting (it is very short though, so that isn't exactly a bragging point). I'm excited to read Son now, which is considerably longer than Gathering Blue and Messenger, possibly even combined.

[saroz_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

There are some genuine problems with Messenger. Chief among them is Lowry's decision to sell out the open ending of her series' first book (The Giver) and, even more bizarre, to cut the lingering questions of the second (Gathering Blue) off at the knees. What was symbolic before is frustratingly literal now, and in a really trippy move, the characters we've followed up to this point have gone from having slightly exaggerated natural talents to actual magical abilities. Remember Jonas in The Giver and how he could "see beyond"? Meaning, of course, that he was more attuned to the world around him, more capable of empathy? Well, now he can literally "see beyond," psychically, with a mental version of Ozma's magic picture. How do ya like them apples? It's all a bit of a shame, because in just over 150 pages, Lowry crams some really interesting ideas into the story. Once again we have a community with something cancerous at its center, but this time it's the community Jonas himself leads, and the cancer is...well, pretty literal. What was meant to be a socialistic haven for outcasts is hit by a wave of selfish, nationalistic behavior - externalized through illict trades with a "Trademaster," which is both pleasingly Faustian and several dozen levels more intriguing than anything in the previous book, Gathering Blue. Unfortunately, just as it seems to be reaching a fever and the reader starts speculating where it's going to go - will we see Jonas himself the creator of a worse society than he escaped as a child? - Lowry abruptly drops the entire plot and never discusses it again. It's bizarre. I've almost never read anything like it. That's far from the only issue. Matty, the protagonist first introduced as Matt in the previous book, doesn't really talk or act anything like he used - but that's forgivable, as he's gone from child to teen. What's less forgivable is that we left his friend Kira in a pretty nasty "closed contract" situation, in the style of a Twilight Zone episode with a bleak twist - and now, here she is in this book, having not only solved her problems but somehow changed her entire community to erase any threat left over from that book. Since nothing was really resolved in Gathering Blue, this feels like a massive "I don't care!" from the author, and we can only wonder if she had a tight deadline, a contract to finish, a large paycheck, or all three in symphony. Seriously, there has never been a book in a single-author series that more poorly resolves another.These issues, combined with a misjudged attempt to "outdo" The Giver's famous ending, leave Messenger a real mess. That's too bad because, as I said, it's certainly not boring. Lowry has one more chance - in the extra-long Son to tie this all together and have it all make some kind of sense. I sincerely hope that's what happens, but I certainly don't have to "see beyond" to know not to expect anything of the kind.

[cindywho-1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I liked that she pulled together the characters from the previous books, but she also left too much unexplained about the gifts and the bad things that were happening to the people of village along with a preachy storyline about materialism and immigration.

[carlahaunted · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

This addition to the Giver series felt more heavy-handed and preachy than the other two; I felt uncomfortable rather than intrigued or entranced while reading it.

[vhartpowers · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Matty has gone to live with Kira's father Christopher, known as Seer in Village, even though he is blind.
Matty is the Messenger and he's coming to age where he will receive his given name by Leader. He hopes it will be Messenger.
However, Village is changing and something is happening in Trade Mart. People are changing and want to block anyone new from coming to Village.
Before the changed people in Village build a fence Matty goes to Kira to bring her to live with her father.
This book follows Gathering Blue which was better than The Giver and this book, was better than Gathering Blue.

[starla_aurora · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

beautifully amazing. The fight "village" is having with whether or not to continue to accept outsiders is so similar to many times in life, and now currently.

[jamski-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

"Messenger" is the tale of Matty, the wayward village tyke from "Gathering Blue" who is, in fact, the person who "gathers the blue" and takes it to Kira. He does this by finding his way through the forest, to…another place, another village, which has a couple of VERY interesting residents, and I dare not expound on this too much for fear of giving secrets away which you should uncover for yourself. I will note that this is a far better place for Matty than his previous home, even if he does have to stay clean (most of the time, anyway.) He remembers fondly his friend Kira though, and her strange talent for weaving, and when he discovers that he has a peculiar talent too, he's off on a journey of his own, perhaps to reunite a family. Or perhaps to save his faltering village. Or perhaps there's more at stake than just the Village…

There. Another obscure synopsis. I really don't want to give anything away.

This is the third book in Lois Lowry's "Giver" quartet, and really ties the series thus far together. Again, at fear of giving too much away, I won't go too much in-depth, but I will note that, at least to this point, this is my favorite of the series. That might change as I tear into "Son", the fourth book, but "Messenger" definitely left me in tears.

Dig it. Five stars.

[startwithgivens · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Definitely my least favorite book of the three. I felt Gathering Blue and The Giver had more to offer than The Messenger. Lowry is still a great author and brought the characters together well, however the book didn't capture me as the others did.

[annhepburn · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Not as good as the first or second... this is so short, and so allegorical, it reads like an outline, rather than a completed book.

[lissabeth21 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

So so sad. Reminiscent of the multitudes of young people who give their lives, their true selves, to the fight for freedom and good. Immensely satisfying third book in this quarter, the pieces all flowing together.

[emma_manolis · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Setting: 2/5

In Gathering Blue there were two villages that were separated via a forest. The main character lived in a village where the hurt, the deformed and the handicapped were seen as invaluable and were typically left to die in the field. The village discovered at the end of the tale is comprised of all the deformed and less valued members of that first village and their offspring. Messenger takes place in this same spot of the planet but the focus has shifted to the deformed village. All of a sudden the forest is alive and it's evil, which is never really explained. Honestly, I had a really hard time picturing this village, which wasn't the case with the last book, Gathering Blue. The other thing that has been really bothering me concerning the setting is the fact that in The Giver the setting seemed to take place in a time and place where there was technology and I couldn't help but picture it as a time similar to our own. Then Gathering Blue comes along and all of a sudden it's like their in the middle ages with no technology whatsoever. I just assumed that this must be the location Jonas went on to discover. His cameo in Messenger proves that it isn't. I'm just not buying this rapid decline in technology. The setting is really confusing.

Characters: 4/5

I'm very happy that there really weren't too many new characters introduced in this novel. One of the things that had bothered me most about Gathering Blue was the fact that there were no characters from The Giver. That is extremely disappointing when the reason you even bothered to read more was because of the fact that you had enjoyed the characters and story from The Giver. Messenger's cast is comprised of characters from both novels with a focus on Kira's father and Matty. This was especially great as a reader because you are able to see how these characters have evolved and progressed as the series has continued. I really think the characters were the best part of Messenger.

Plot: 2/5

Here is the plot in a nutshell: The deformed village has been letting people hop the border whenever because they all understand how awful things were and have gotten in the original village. Well one day, all of a sudden, the community of the deformed village is completely against this and they want to build a wall to help control their immigration problems. (Sound familiar?) The reason they are so against this is because during their weekly trades some people have begun selling their souls to fix themselves. (Wall street anyone?) Nature has an agenda too and the forest is getting ticked off at the whole thing and has decided it will just kill anyone who decides to venture in. Matty needs to get Kira because after she discovered that her father lived in the deformed village she realized that she needed to help fix the old village, but she promised she would come back someday. Obviously her time is running out and she needs to be warned which takes place in the last ten percent of the novel. The resolution is rushed and feels a tad unfinished since none of this strange sudden paranormalness is ever even explained.

Writing: 3/5

This was not Lowry's best work. There seemed to be serious issues with pacing. I think it took way too long to establish much of anything in way of plot and setting. The main conflict doesn't even seem to come into the picture until the end of the book and then everything just ends. Basically about 90 percent of the book reminded me of that chapter in The Grapes of Wrath where the turtle is crossing the road. I still think Lowry has proved herself as a good writer via The Giver, this just isn't up to par for me.

[jennysbookbag.com · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This is a good series.

[t1bnotown · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The part with the gaming machine was pretty bizarre- how would it create those special candies? I understand Mattie's gift and what became of it, but I wasn't happy with the ending. I'm definitely curious about the final book in The Giver Series.

[mhanover10 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is the third of a quartet of stories that start with the Giver. From other reviews, it sounds like this series started as a trilogy and the author threw in a fourth to tie everything together. In the Giver we met Jonas and his sterilized community where people really didn’t have feelings and didn’t really experience loss. That is also where we met Gabe. Then we met Kira and Matty in Gathering Blue where everything needed to be perfect. People who had something wrong with them were sent to the fields where the ‘beasts’ killed them. We saw levels of society. We find out that Kira is destined to be the weaver of stories into the gown. Now we meet Matty again six years later and he lives in Village of the Broken, the place where the castoffs have gone to live a peaceful existence, where everyone is kind to each other and helpful. We also meet Kira’s Dad who she was told was killed on a hunt by a beast in Gathering Blue but is alive and blind.
Things begin to change in Village. At the Trade Mart, people trade material things for newer items but soon people are going to Trade Mart carrying nothing in but coming out changed, and not for the better. Greed, selfishness, ridicule is starting to creep into Village changing Village to an unpleasant place to live. Soon some of the residence want to put up a wall around Village and not let anyone else in. So Matty sets off to retrieve Kira even though he knows Forest is changing and not for the better.
This book is a good lesson on greed, how people can change, become more selfish when they sell their souls. When I read Gathering Blue, I wasn’t quite sure how it even related to The Giver. The Messenger has now tied them together a little bit more as Jonas is now Leader in Village and his sled is in a museum. I listened to the audio version of this book and I found myself being pulled into the story. I found myself sitting in my car wanting to hear more even though I should go inside. I do want to know more about Trade Mart and where the Trade Master came from. Was he a resident or did he visit the village. How did he switch from trading for material items to people’s souls and what did he need them for? Was he the devil? How did Jonas become Leader in such a short time? Why did Forest become so angry? I think there are some metaphors here. What does Forest represent? What does Trade Master Represent? What about the gifts that Kira, Jonas and Matty have? I’m really enjoying this quartet and can’t wait to see how Son ties all three of them together and hopefully wraps things up.

[jguidry-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This book revolved around my favorite character in the Giver series, Matty. I really liked his character in Gathering Blue because he had a lot of spunk. He changed a lot in this episode to adapt to his new life in Village. It made sense to the story, but I was just a tad disappointed because I loved the old Matty. Toward the end of the book, Lowry brought back little episodes of the old Matty so that made me happy. As for the plot, I thought it was the best of the series. The scary dystopian element wasn't as blatant in this one so you really had to think about human nature. I also like how Lowry slipped in a few characters from the previous books. This was very well-written with a focus on character development and my favorite in the series. The ending was 100% appropriate, 100% surprising, and I'm not sure I've recovered yet.