Gathering Blue by Louis Lowry

Gathering Blue is the second book in the Giver series. It's really more like a companion novel than anything else. Honestly, I did question whether or not they were even set in the same world at the beginning because they were so different. But that doesn't make this book any less good. So it follows a girl named Kira who's mother just died. Her father died before she was born and she has a hurt leg from birth. She's seen as useless in her tribe and some people want her out now that her mom is gone but she has a talent. She can sew very well and the leaders of her tribe see that in her and give her a special task. That's all I'm going to reveal plot wise because it really is just better going into this book without knowing much.

This book was completely different from the first. I didn't believe they were even in the same series at first but, especially towards the end, I found this book to be super interesting because of what it added to the world. It's set in a society so different from what we have today but it also makes me think about what our society is like in ways that I hadn't thought of before and that's what I love about these books. Lowry has this way of creating a almost dystopic society but doing it so subtly that you are just like most of the characters who don't realize how corrupt it is because it's all they know and they live right in the center of it. It's truly genius how she pulls off putting the reader in the same shoes as her characters.

I will say that it took me a while to get into this book. I tried to start it on several occasions but I just couldn't get passed those first twenty or so pages, but let me tell you, when I did, this book was phenomenal. It's super short but doesn't feel like we're lacking in anything, except maybe in character development in some of the side characters, but even then, I got the impression that they did have a strong back story we just didn't get to hear about it. That was disappointing, but at the same time, I didn't mind it for some reason,

I am really looking forward to reading the next book in the series because I know all the books have to connect but I'm not sure how yet. We get an extremely vague idea at the end of this book and I'm so curious as to how it all ties together. I'm sure it will be just as marvelous. 5 out of 5 stars.