Messenger

Messenger is the third book in Lois Lowry's The Giver series.

Trouble is brewing in Village.  Once a utopian community that welcomed 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, too, and he must risk everything to fight his way through it.

The Breakdown:
1. So many dystopian society book show this society many years after the breakdown that lead to why society is the way it it, but this book takes a different approach.  In Messenger, Lowry shows what caused the breakdown in Village's way of life.  It really brings into focus how much fear and hatred can alter a society.

2. Matty's character showed fantastic progress as a character from Gathering Blue to this book.  He as grown up so much from the little tyke Matt, the Fiercest of the Fierce, to the young man he is in this book.  Honestly he appears much wiser than some of the adults in Village at times.

3. This book really ties the series together from The Giver and Gathering Blue, especially once you figure out who Leader is.

To Read or Not to Read:
Read

Currently Reading:
Don't Look Back
by Jennifer L. Armentrout