Gathering Blue by Lois Lowry
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
I was greatly disappointed with this installment of The Giver. I admit, up until chapter 13 I was actually quite interested in the story, but found the remainder of the book slow. In addition, after chapter 13 I noticed a change in the writing, which was very confusing.
I didn’t mind the oddity of the story or the lack of details that surrounded the circumstances of the village, but I was greatly annoyed by what can only be described as the author’s desperate attempt to make the story much longer than it actually had to be. Which brings me back to my previous statement of the change in writing style. It appears that after chapter 13 the author realizes that the story should be much longer and changes the narration to resemble more the style of a children’s book, with many repetitions of various details that were just given. This made for a tedious and boring reading experience.
The characters in general were interesting enough, but there occurred no character development whatsoever throughout the entire story.
The twists and shocking surprises the author added in a rather unfortunate attempt to include depth to the story were very predictable and did nothing to improve the story.
Also, I had the impression the author tried to include moral lessons for her young readers, but considering the outcome of the story, it becomes questionable if such lessons should be given to her audience.
This book wasn’t really worth the time and effort it took to read. I rated it two stars only because of the first 12 chapters that contained some intrigue, but at this point I cannot decide if I should recommend it.
