Lois Lowry

Strange changes are taking place in Village. Once a utopian community that prided itself on its welcome to new strangers, Village will soon be closed to all outsiders. As one of the few people able to travel through the dangerous Forest, Matty must deliver the message of Village’s closing and try to convince Seer’s daughter to return with him before it’s too late. But Forest has become hostile to Matty as well, and he must risk everything to fight his way through it, armed only with an emerging power he cannot yet explain or understand. This ebook includes a sample chapter of SON.

Messenger

Christine

In this novel that unites characters from "The Giver" and "Gathering Blue," Matty, a young member of a utopian community that values honesty, conceals an emerging healing power that he cannot explain or understand.

Annika Arguemore

He died?! What? All that hard work for nothing? Well, not really nothing since he was able to serve his purpose. It's too bad he didn't have his happy ending, though. A true hero, is what Matty was. He sacrificed himself for the benefit of his people.

Jaden Nelson

I actually really loved this book for so many things. First, I absolutely loved how things from the other books started tying in. I am going to keep it spoiler free so, I will just say that after I figured out who all of the characters were, it was very easy to follow. I loves the fictitious elements in this book that could never actually happen, but seemed so real. Also, the ending, although a little sad, was very heartwarming and I felt was a good way to end the book. I am looking forward to the next book and I would recommend this book to anyone, even if you haven't read the other books(because you don't necessarily need to). The books was pretty short, but a great story and left me satisfied. Almost 5 stars!

Raven K

no words, just thoughts. lots of freaking thoughts 😭

Lacy W

Title: The Messenger
Author: Lois Lowry
Genre: Young Adult Dystopian
Format: ebook from libby
Series: The Giver
Star Rating: 4 stars

tw: violent deaths, child abuse, animal abuse, assault, cruelty to those with disabilities, ableism (a character is called the blind man)

When I first started this book, I was a little apprehensive. I liked Matty in Gathering Blue but he wasn’t my favorite character. I wasn’t super into that book anyway. I was so in love with the Giver, that it was hard for any other book to live up to it. So that’s why I waited so long to start this book. I am so mad I waited so long because this book was fantastic!

The world Matty lives in is just so amazing. The whole world would be such a better place if the world was like Matty’s. There was no selfishness. Neighbors are already ready to lend a hand. People from other places were welcome and treated with love and respect. It was just a truly great place. It made me sad that I live in a world where we are selfish and treat others like garbage. 

While I was reading this book, I remember an assignment from school. We had to write an “ending” for the Giver. Like what happened with Jonas and the baby he rescued. I think I made mine into a happy ending, where they get taken in by a nice family and taught about the holiday of Christmas. It was pretty fun, even though at the time, for some reason, I hated the Giver. This book kind of reminded me of the ending that I wrote. I wish I still had it. It’s probably not very good but I remember being pretty excited about it. 

I am so mad about how this book ended. I won’t give anything away but, ugh. I stayed up way too late reading this book and I was just devastated by the ending. I just laid there and stared at my wall for a couple of minutes. Thank goodness I have the next book already, as I’m trying to collect a certain edition of all the books or I would have been even more furious because I probably would have waited for the book to be available on Libby. 

Overall, this was a fantastic book. It’s a great tie-in with the first and second books. I’m anxious to see how everything gets wrapped up. There are still a lot of unanswered questions that I sincerely hope get answered. I really can’t recommend this series enough.

Sara Gómez 

** spoiler alert **
           Me ha alegrado ver personajes que ya conocía, siento que así no se me hace un libro "corto y ligeramente ajeno" como me pasó con el anterior, es más fácil quererlos al ya conocerlos a pesar de las escasas 200 páginas.

Amaba a Mati en el anterior libro y me apena el final de este😥

Callie Anna

I really liked reading this story. I read it in 45 minutes and got a good idea of it as a whole. I loved The Giver, but haven't read the first companion book. The characters were interesting and I enjoyed the setting. I bought it so I'll be re-reading it soon.

Stefanie Sugia

"But now he knew that there were communities everywhere, sprinkled across the vast landscape of the known world, in which people suffered. Not always from beatings and hunger, the way he had. But from ignorance. From not knowing. From being kept from knowledge."
Matt, who's now Matty, came along to live in a community called Village; a place that accepts people with disability and welcomes strangers from different places. From his previous community, Matty went with a blind man named Christopher - Kira's father, whose true name is Seer - to Village, where he's accepted and educated to become a better person. Village has been a rather peaceful and happy place with the guidance of Leader, who came to Village eight years ago with a sled. But it seems the peacefulness of the Village is beginning to change; the people are changing and people wanted the Village to be closed from outsiders. And so Matty needed to do something important before the Village is closed - which required him to go through the dangerous and thickening Forest....

Read the full review here:
http://www.thebookielooker.com/2014/0...

Alexia

Jane The Bookaholic

Such a beautiful and amazing series. So much want to read the rest.

Leigh Osborne

It was pretty good a bit too short for my tastes.

Emily

Sparks the connection between The Giver and its companions. The imagery was magnificent, and the character of Leader was so fun to connect back to The Giver. It was very interesting to see how surroundings were described by Seer, even as though he was blind. I also really appreciated the growth of Matty as a character from the previous book Gathering Blue when he still had his one syllable name. I'm greatly anticipating reading the last installment of this series!

Lisa Collins

Okay, so here we go. I was going to try not to compare this book to the first two in the series, but it’s so hard considering they’re connected. The books are all in the same series, sure, but I feel like they’re in different subcategories from one another. They’re all dystopian, but the first one (The Giver) is more realistic than the second one, (Gathering Blue), which ushers in more magical elements, and then Messenger is some sort of full-blown fantasy.

I’m still trying to understand the magical elements. There were so few magical things happening in The Giver that when Gathering Blue started taking on that tone I was a little surprised. Now, Messenger has gone full on fantasy with people who have special “talents”, forests that fight back (no, really), and the ability to sell off the most precious intangibles individuals have.

Alas, I don’t understand it, but perhaps that’s a good thing. No one in the story understood how any of this could happen, but they flowed with it. It brought me closer to the characters because I felt like I was just as clueless as everyone else. How does someone sell his or her “deepest self”? No idea, but apparently it’s possible.

I love the story of Village. It’s wonderful grounds for a story on morals. Once upon a time the people of Village fled from their cruel, unfair, et cetera cities and found themselves in a Utopia dedicated to kindness and helping people with anything and everything they may need. Village was a safe place where you could go to start over and be happy. But something started to happen. The happy people saw what they had and decided they wanted more. So they got crazy, sold a bunch of stuff, and the forest freaked out and started killing people. The End.

But of course that’s not the end. The story of Village and Forest is just one part of Matty’s story. His happens to be one I appreciate more than Kira’s (Gathering Blue) or even Jonas’s (The Giver). I’ve been staring at my ceiling for, like, ten minutes trying to figure out how to explain how much I love Matty’s character. He was once something of a menace, but in this book he grew so much. He always had a very caring personality, but it quadrupled and I don’t think he even realized it. He was always thinking about using his gift to help people without batting an eyelash at how it would inconvenience him. God, I love Matty.

All in all, I really enjoyed this book. It totally made up for whatever Gathering Blue was lacking and it made me pretty excited to read the last book in the quartet. You should totes (totes?) read it… or don’t. (Your loss!)

Barbara Rosas

4.5 
Ese fue un final que no sé si simplemente dolió o dolió demasiado.

Nikki Sojkowski

So in elementary school, my teacher made us read The Giver as a class. The ending has the main character and a baby in a sled during a storm. This is clearly Leader, who runs village. However, when we read The Giver my teacher said the 'lights' were NOT a village and was actually the main character dying. So HA teacher. I was right.

Anyway, this was a pretty interesting follow up. I'd read the Giver and Gathering Blue before without realizing they were connected until the end of Gathering Blue (which I read second). So having the characters of those two books make appearances was pretty cool. Actually, it should be done more often. Just have characters from past books make little appearances. Like little inside jokes shared with the authors faithful readers.

Back to my topic, the book was pretty good. More simple than what I like but it is a younger YA book (11-3) and not really a teen (14-18) book. Of course any age can read any book, I am merely generalizing the "intended audience" range. The main character, Matty, is the village messenger and he lives with Seer is adoptive father but all if the welcoming people of Village aren't acting like themselves and want to close the Village to outsiders. Of course he's super naive, but he's got special powers which make it up to him to save the Village from themselves. The book left some loose ends (again, I'm not sure if this character at the end actually died) and it's never explained HOW the people just suddenly become mean. I'd like to know!! So because of that this novel can't possibly get a 5 in my book.

I don't know what it is about Lowry's books but there is something so simple and gorgeously crafted about them. Can't wait to pick up the last book in the quartet.

Andrea McGuffey

So when I wrote my review about Gathering Blue I mentioned that it had nothing to do with The Giver but after reading Messenger, I see how it's starting to tie together. I can't wait to read Son.

Messenger

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