Book Review: Messenger by Lois Lowry

Matty has lived in Village for six years now, sharing a home with the blind man who is called Seer. Village is the place where those who were unwelcome in other communities have been accepted and thrived. Everyone is kind to one another and there are no secrets. But something is changing in Village ~ people are changing, the forest around Village is changing, and not for the better.

Messenger by Lois Lowry is the third book in the Giver Quartet. In this novel, we are reacquainted with Matty and Kira from Gathering Blue, and Jonas from The Giver, who is now called Leader. Matty is the main character in this story, though. He is the messenger for Village because he is the one who Forest allows to pass through freely to other communities. When the people of Village decide to close to newcomers, it is Matty who must post signs warning others that they are no longer welcome. During this trip through the ever-changing Forest, he seeks out Kira in the hopes of bringing her to Village before it is too late.

I enjoyed the relationship Matty has with Seer, Leader and other characters throughout the book. He is a genuine character who recognizes his own flaws as he explores the gift that he has discovered in himself. I thought Lowry did an excellent job of keeping his personality from Gathering Blue while also showing how he has grown so much since that time.

Once again, there's a magical aspect to the story, with Kira, Leader and Matty all using their special gifts throughout the book. Seeing the storylines of the first two books brought together here was fun, and I'm looking forward to reading the final book in the series, Son, to see how it is all wrapped up in the end.

If you enjoyed The Giver, I strongly recommend you read the rest of the series. While I enjoyed The Giver the most, it's fun to continue the journey in Lowry's world.

My Rating: 4/5

Read my reviews of the other books in this series:
The Giver
Gathering Blue
Son
This review was written based on a copy of Messenger that I borrowed from the library.

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Getting back to blogging

It seems that blogging has dropped to the bottom of my list for the past year, and was pretty low for the year or two prior to that. I love to read, and am continuing to do so, but as my regular readers know I haven't been around much. My last blog post was almost a year ago!!

There are many things that have taken me away from blogging. Work has been much more challenging and interesting these past few years, but that means I really don't want to get back on the computer when I get home at night - or on the weekends.

Family life has been more busy with kids having multiple activities in the evenings, leaving little time to just hang out and write about the books that I read.

I will admit to a bit of a Facebook addiction, which means way too much time spent scrolling through my newsfeed instead of doing something more productive. This is one of the things I'm working on and hoping that this will free up some time for getting back to the blog.

Overall, life is good. Work is …

Book Review: The Bookman's Tale by Charlie Lovett

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The Bookman's Tale: A Novel of Obsession by Charlie Lovett is a wonderful journey for anyone who loves books. It follows Peter's search in 1995, which turns into a bit of a thriller at times. But Lovett also takes the reader back in time a bit so we can learn the story of his relationship with his wife and how he came to be a bookseller. He does a beautiful job of expressing Peter's feelings about the rare books he encounters, and his feelings are contagious.

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The Secret Lake by Karen Inglis is a wonderful children's book that reminds me of the adventurous stories I read as a child. I saw other reviewers say something similar. I'm not sure what it is about the way the story is told, but it is reminiscent of children's books from many years ago, yet it will definitely appeal to the kids of today.

Stella and Tom have an adventure in the past that leads to new friends and discoveries. While it's a time travel story, it doesn't have a lot of fantasy elements (although there are some moles that act a bit unusua…

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