Here I will review each book separately (as short as I can make it, it might be a little long, though).
Here's my review of The Giver, the 1994 Newberry Medal winner.
“The Giver” by Lois Lowry is a fictional story for young adults, but do not be fooled by that description, this book will make anyone think about the meaning of happiness, sadness, and the true meaning of love. This book is hypnotic and will capture your attention immediately with its meaning and story of agony and exultation.
“The Giver” takes place in the fictional future of earth. To be more specific, the story takes place in the mysterious “Community” where perfection, precision, and monotony rule the lives of its citizens. The Community, is what is considered the perfect utopia, where any misbehavior is punished, where there are no imperfections and life is lived in blissful ignorance.
Jonas lives in The Community. Jonas is the main protagonist in the story, and on his twelfth birthday, when all the other Twelves are being assigned to the job they will hold until the day they are unable to work, Jonas gets selected. Jonas is selected to be the Receiver of Memories and starts his job the next day with fear because the Chief Elder said to him during the Ceremony of Twelve that this assignment will cause him physical pain. During his days at work , Jonas learns of pain, war, happiness, sadness, and most importantly, love.
When Jonas learns what is really happening in The Community he decides to run away, taking the newchiled, Gabriel, with him. The ending to this book is different than most, considering it has no definite end, no definite happily ever after, no written “The End”. We know nothing of the ending, but we do know that it is happy because the goals are achieved. They are achieved through trails, agony, and the survival skills learned in Cub Scouts but are, of course, not taught in a utopia.
One of the bigger messages is the message of happiness and sadness. Lowry teaches that without true pain, there is no true happiness. This says that the citizens of The Community can never be truly happy, no matter how much they think they are, because they have felt no pain in life except the trivial bruises and scratches from falling of their bicycle. This lesson is taught through the memories Jonas receives. The Giver gives Jonas good memories at first, and he enjoys them, but after The Giver gives Jonas horrid memories, he learns to really love the good ones and learns true happiness. Lowry does an exceedingly great job of communicating this message.
As you can probably tell from the preceding paragraphs, I really like this book. Lowry’s style of writing and expression of feeling makes the fantasy seem real and the characters’ reactions to things that are trivial and normal in our everyday lives seem like things from another planet. She really delves into the characters mind, and I have a feeling if I showed her an item, or a song, or a book, she could tell me exactly how any of the characters would react to it. This book is a must read for anyone who can read, I definitely recommend to everyone.
Now here's my review of Gathering Blue.
Gathering Blue is set in the same time as The Giver, but in a different place, a VERY different place. The Giver is set in a utopia, a seemingly perfect world, Gathering Blue is set in the exact opposite. If I knew the antonym for 'utopia' I would say that that is what is written all over it. Of course there is more to the book.
It's about Kira, an orphaned girl who was born with a twisted leg. Her mother defended her at birth and her grandfather was very powerful, so the villagers didn't send her to the forest to be eaten by beasts like they did with all the other children with birth defects. The village in which Kira lives in is horrid, the mothers call their children tykes and abuse them by locking them in a pen like they do animals. After Kira's mother dies, a woman in the village, Vandara, threatens to take her home and use it to build the "Kid Pen", as I named it, along with throwing her to the beasts. This conflict is brought to the leaders of the village and they decide that Vandara will get Kira's house, but Kira will live in the Council Edifice and be a Weaver recruited to restore the Singer's robe, worn only once a year at the Gathering.
Kira goes through many trials during her time restoring the robe, one of these is discovering and nurturing her Gift (to make this more familiar, it is like what Jonas had in The Giver, his 'seeing beyond'), which is weaving things that almost take on a life of their own. The boy who lives across the hall from Kira, Thomas, the Carver, has the same sort of gift, but with carving. Kira's friend, Matt, eventually comes to travel to a place to get a plant that will make blue (hence the title) and comes back with not only blue, but with Kira's father, who was thought to be dead. Kira's father tries to convince her to come back with him to Village where people with birth defects are accepted. Kira turns down his offer and stays to try and change the ways of her home.
This book was good, but I think that it was slightly plot less. If you've ever read a book that you enjoyed but when you look back on it, you wonder why you liked it, that's what Gathering Blue is like. It is technically good and shows Lowry's way with words, but does seem a little pointless. I would recommend this to someone who's looking for something to fill up some free time, but not for someone wanting to read a good, thought provoking book.
Now for the last book in the series, Messenger.
Messenger takes place in Village, the place where Kira's father (from Gathering Blue) dwells. Matt (now Matty), Kira's friend who first finds her father, lives with him. Kira's father is known as Seer throughout the book. Here we also see Jonas, Village is what Elsewhere was in The Giver, he is known a Leader in Messenger, however.
Matty is the person in Village who takes messages to various lands, he hopes, when he receives his true name, that it will be Messenger. He takes trips through Forest to carry the messages of Leader to the lands beyond Forest. He is the only one who can repeatedly go through Forest, but not for reasons such as everybody else is too old, no, it's because Forest has a mind of its own. It will give someone a Warning (usually in the form of a prickly vine growing very rapidly and stabbing someone in the leg with it), and if that person doesn't heed that Warning and returns to Forest, it will kill the person by Entanglement. Matty has never received a Warning, but when Village is about to close itself to outsiders, Seer sends Matty to get Kira, and when he returns to Forest with her, both of them get Warnings.
"Forest is thickening," Matty heard Leader say, and on the return to Village, he hears Kira say the same thing. They both get very wounded, Matty gets acid burns on his arms from the sap of vines he had to cut through, and Kira gets her feet shredded from the vine Warnings. Leader ends up going into Forest to try and save Matty and Kira, but ends up getting almost Entangled by the vines.
He communicates with Kira through their gifts and Kira tells Matty to use his gift (I did not state it here, because I didn't want to give anything away) to save them. This is where the book ends, Matty saves them.
But this ending, in my opinion is horrible, a thousand times more cryptic than The Givers ending. I'm not sure if Matty died, or was just really badly wounded, or if Village ended up closing. The book ends with something akin to, "Leader carried Matty's body away". BAM, ending. Matty is probably dead, but considering this is the end of the series, I would really like a definite ending for once, Ms. Lowry. Anyway, the book is great, but the ending kind of distracts from the excellence of the rest of the book. I would recommend this to almost everybody, except people who are easily angered by a bad ending.
Here's how I stared each book-
The Giver- 4 3/4 (1/4 taken off for ending)
Gathering Blue- 3 5/8 (1 3/8 taken off for seemingly plot less-ness)
Messenger- 4 (one star taken off for ending)
Hope you enjoyed,
Taryn.
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