November 27, 2014
Happy Thanksgiving! After celebrating with my family, I came home and finished this book, the third in Lowry's "Giver Quartet" of novels. It was too short. The plot was too simple and resolved unsatisfactorily. The complaints that I had about Gathering Blue only working in conjunction with other books? I feel exactly the same about this book, and the plot wasn't even all that compelling.
A shame, because I'd been looking forward to reading a story in the perspective of Matt (yes, now Matty). But he's kind of a boring narrator; he reflects on how he used to be naughty, until he moved to Village with Kira's father and becomes swayed by the loving influence of this utopia. Since Matty moved there, Jonas has become the leader. In fact, he is called Leader. Everyone and everything significant is referred to literally. The schoolteacher's "true name" is Mentor; the blind man is (ironically) Seer. The forest isn't called "the forest," but just "Forest." It's kind of fucking stupid.
So things are changing for the worse in Village at the start of the book. Some tradesman is like trading people their souls or their health for the items they most covet: gaming machines (what is the deal with those, anyway?), a woman's affections, whatever. It's not explained why, nor is it explained why this tradesman (the devil, maybe?) would want to turn people selfish, as the usually welcoming Village people vote to close their town to any more outsiders. It makes me think of Stephen King's Needful Things, except no motive is yet clear.
It seems that, partly by Jonas and Kira's influence in their own home communities, overall conditions across the land are improving. It did not escape my attention that Kira wore all blue in this book. But for whatever reason, as Village threatened to go bad, Forest (huge and magical, tentatively connecting many communities to Village) has become hostile. Which is the main conflict of the book, I guess.
Jonas and Kira (who are going to fall in love and bang and make babies, obviously) are both psychic or whatever, while Matty has magical healing powers. When all three of them are trapped in angry Forest, he sacrifices his life to heal his friends, the people in Village, Forest, and he even brings his puppy back to life. But he is dead...but all of the problems of the book are resolved, and all of the evil done by the trades is undone.
This book could have been so much better. I feel like Lowry just slapped it together; she could have written it in a day, for all I can tell. The thing is, I'd still like to read the fourth of this "quartet." It's set back in Jonas's home village, told from the perspective of a young birth mother. To be one is considered the most base assignment that a girl can have. The teaser chapter seemed rather dark, and more exciting than any part of Messanger. I highly doubt that many questions that this series brings up will be answered, so I'd almost advise against reading this one.
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