GATHERING BLUE BY LOIS LOWRY
Genre: YA, Dystopian
Series:  The Giver Quartet
The Giver (#1 Giver Quartet)
“Take pride in your pain,” her mother had always told her. “You are stronger than those who have none.”
– Lois Lowry, Gathering Blue
Synopsis: 
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. [Goodreads]

*Warning this may contain spoilers because it is a companion novel*

In this companion novel to The Giver by Lois Lowry, Kira is living in a village that is almost the complete opposite of Jonas’s community from The Giver. This society is a more dark and savage civilization that does not treat all citizen equal. Kira is a disabled girl whose mother had just died and she is left to try and fend for herself while some woman in the village want her sent away. She soon realizes things about her community that she never knew before.

Although this book present you with a society that is flawed and makes you question the community and what the world could become, it fell flat and was quite disappointing.There is hostility towards children, a cast off of those who are different or disabled and a division in society between individuals and their jobs.  I really enjoyed that it set up for a lot of discussion and thought on the topics of the society, values in life and a possible future for our world. I thought that Kira was a strong and flawed character and liked her relationship with Matt. Matt was a really great character and really thought he stood out in the book. He had that great child personality that was fun and nostalgic. I was so happy to find out that the third book is revolving him. There were elements of the story that were really intriguing such as the importance of names and its relationship with age. The plot made sense at the end and the pieces began to fall together and I especially like the hints towards the other books, but this book was my least favorite out of them so far.