DAsoldier reviewed Gathering Blue by Lois Lowry
Review of 'Gathering Blue' on 'Goodreads'
Read it twice. LOVE IT!!
215 pages
English language
Published Jan. 24, 2006 by Delacorte Books for Young Readers.
Gathering Blue
by Lois Lowry
4 stars
(42 reviews)
In her strongest work to date, Lois Lowry once again creates a mysterious but plausible future world. It is a society ruled by savagery and deceit that shuns and discards the weak. Left orphaned and physically flawed, young Kira faces a frightening, uncertain future. Blessed with an almost magical talent that keeps her alive, she struggles with ever broadening responsibilities in her quest for truth, discovering things that will change her life forever.
As she did in The Giver, Lowry challenges readers to imagine what our world could become, and what will be considered valuable. Every reader will be taken by Kira's plight and will long ponder her haunting world and the hope for the future.
brenticus reviewed Gathering Blue (The Giver #2) by Lois Lowry (The Giver Quartet, #2)
None
3 stars
I'm not sure on exactly how this relates to The Giver, but it definitely draws on a lot of similar themes and motifs. Unlike the unlike the borderline sci-fi dystopia of The Giver, this presents a dystopic future where people have regressed to a medieval-like state, and anyone unable to pull their weight is killed or shunned.
A lot of the ideas here feel either simpler or murkier than in The Giver. The village is more obviously in the wrong, the mysteries are more evident even if the characters can't see it, and the characters even just blurt out some concepts that seemed to be built up around skills and usefulness and support.
I think the most interesting themes were the ones around creativity. Kira and Thomas are only able to use their skills in ways that stifle their creativity. At the same time, they were taken in because of …
I'm not sure on exactly how this relates to The Giver, but it definitely draws on a lot of similar themes and motifs. Unlike the unlike the borderline sci-fi dystopia of The Giver, this presents a dystopic future where people have regressed to a medieval-like state, and anyone unable to pull their weight is killed or shunned.
A lot of the ideas here feel either simpler or murkier than in The Giver. The village is more obviously in the wrong, the mysteries are more evident even if the characters can't see it, and the characters even just blurt out some concepts that seemed to be built up around skills and usefulness and support.
I think the most interesting themes were the ones around creativity. Kira and Thomas are only able to use their skills in ways that stifle their creativity. At the same time, they were taken in because of that creativity, and they would struggle to utilize their skills as fully outside of their jobs. The line between doing what they want and doing what the council wants is only just starting to be toed by the end of the book, but the related discussions were definitely the most interesting to me.
So this doesn't feel as good as The Giver did. The themes are less poignant and less complex. The setting feels less thought provoking. The plot kind of ends just as it seems to be getting interesting. But it's still a decent read, and it does make me want to read the rest of the quartet.
A lot of the ideas here feel either simpler or murkier than in The Giver. The village is more obviously in the wrong, the mysteries are more evident even if the characters can't see it, and the characters even just blurt out some concepts that seemed to be built up around skills and usefulness and support.
I think the most interesting themes were the ones around creativity. Kira and Thomas are only able to use their skills in ways that stifle their creativity. At the same time, they were taken in because of that creativity, and they would struggle to utilize their skills as fully outside of their jobs. The line between doing what they want and doing what the council wants is only just starting to be toed by the end of the book, but the related discussions were definitely the most interesting to me.
So this doesn't feel as good as The Giver did. The themes are less poignant and less complex. The setting feels less thought provoking. The plot kind of ends just as it seems to be getting interesting. But it's still a decent read, and it does make me want to read the rest of the quartet.
Pentapod reviewed Gathering Blue by Lois Lowry
Review of 'Gathering Blue' on 'Goodreads'
3 stars
This is considered a sequel to The Giver but there's not actually any overlap between characters and setting, except that presumably they both happen in different societies that have arisen from the same post-industrial-downfall Earth. The author appears to be examining different possible societies that could arise in that situation, and where the setting of The Giver appears initially idealistic, the setting in Gathering Blue is described as unforgiving and survival-of-the-fittest from the very start as we meet Kira, whose life is threatened due to her physical imperfection (a twisted leg causing her to limp and need a stick to walk).
In similar form to The Giver, the protagonist slowly learns to see the truth about the society she lives in and start to challenge it. I didn't like this as well as The Giver however; maybe I already started suspicious due to having read The Giver first, but it …
This is considered a sequel to The Giver but there's not actually any overlap between characters and setting, except that presumably they both happen in different societies that have arisen from the same post-industrial-downfall Earth. The author appears to be examining different possible societies that could arise in that situation, and where the setting of The Giver appears initially idealistic, the setting in Gathering Blue is described as unforgiving and survival-of-the-fittest from the very start as we meet Kira, whose life is threatened due to her physical imperfection (a twisted leg causing her to limp and need a stick to walk).
In similar form to The Giver, the protagonist slowly learns to see the truth about the society she lives in and start to challenge it. I didn't like this as well as The Giver however; maybe I already started suspicious due to having read The Giver first, but it was fairly obvious that nefarious things were afoot and most of the plot twists and "revelations" for Kira were not very surprising at all. Kira is also a very passive protagonist and her friend Matt was more interesting in many ways; after her initial fight for her life, she didn't seem to need to use her cunning or intelligence much at all. And I found the ending a bit abrupt, could have included a little more thinking about Kira's intended plan.
Interesting read nonetheless but lacked the impact of The Giver.
Bryan Fordham reviewed Gathering Blue by Lois Lowry
Review of 'Gathering Blue' on 'Goodreads'
5 stars
Good story, ends a bit abruptly
