Review: Son by Lois Lowry

ISBN: 9780547887203
Format: Hardcover
Source: Purchased
Series: The Giver Quartet #4
Released: October, 2012
Length: 393
Goodreads  |  B&N
*Please note, this review may contain spoilers for the previous books in the series*

     SUMMARY

They called her Water Claire. When she washed up on their shore, no one knew that she came from a society where emotions and colors didn’t exist. That she had become a Vessel at age thirteen. That she had carried a Product at age fourteen. That it had been stolen from her body. Claire had a son. But what became of him she never knew. What was his name? Was he even alive? She was supposed to forget him, but that was impossible. Now Claire will stop at nothing to find her child, even if it means making an unimaginable sacrifice. Son thrusts readers once again into the chilling world of the Newbery Medal winning book, The Giver,　as well as Gathering Blue and Messenger where a new hero emerges. In this thrilling series finale, the startling and long-awaited conclusion to Lois Lowry’s epic tale culminates in a final clash between good and evil.

     REVIEW

Finally FINALLY after all these years, there is an ending to one of my favorite books in the entire world. I've read The Giver so many times since childhood, I've lost count. Son came out back at the end of 2012. I ordered the entire new hardcover set as soon as Son was released and never read it until now. Maybe I was afraid considering everyone was saying how much they hated it and how horrible it was.

Well, let me just make it clear how much I disagree with those opinions. After reading Gathering Blue which was a bit underwhelming and Messenger which I really enjoyed, I was so eager to read the conclusion. I needed to know about Claire, about Gabe, about how it all happened.

Son is broken up into three parts: the happenings of The Giver from Claire's point of view; what happens to Claire immediately after; and her quest to find the son she lost so many years before. I enjoyed every single part, every single word of this book.

I especially loved reading about Claire in the community of The Giver. It was our first glimpse at that world other than the glimpse we got through Jonas many years ago. It never ceases to fascinate me, that "utopian" society. I wish there was another entire book on it.

I lovelovelovedddd reading about what happened to Claire after The Giver was over. It was beautiful and lovely and tragic all at the same time and I wish things could've happened differently so I wouldn't be sitting here heartbroken before you, but it is what it is. I've accepted it and am beginning the road to recovery.

The final section I suppose was my least favorite but that's because I was less fascinated by Village than I was by Claire's oceanside home for much of the book and by the community of The Giver. But this third part is where all of the action happens, where all of the metaphors and lessons come into play. A lot of people didn't appreciate the villain and what he stood for, but I did. He was so creepy all on his own, but this book spoke to me on a whole other level. Maybe I took things a little too seriously, I don't know, but I really was blown away by the implications of Son and what it portrayed about our world and the evils we succumb to. I won't go on though, or else we'll be here all day.

Aside from the profound meanings deeply rooted in this entire series, especially in Messenger and Son, it really was an emotional ending for me. I've obviously grown attached to the characters over the years and seeing things play out the way they did... it was tragic and heartbreaking but beautiful and gave me a huge sense of satisfaction when it was all said and done. I of course still have so many questions about the little things but I'm okay with never knowing, or with drawing my own conclusions as I have done with Lowry's books for so many years now. I'm happy with how it ended. I am.

     THE BREAKDOWN

RATING: ★★★★ 1/2 - Really enjoyed it!

Son was a brilliant ending to The Giver Quartet after so many years waiting to find out what happened next. I guess I never really expected to know what happened next considering Lois Lowry wasn't exactly known for giving specific and detailed endings to her novels in this series. The deeper meanings and symbolism in this book blew my mind and left me thinking long after I'd finished. It also left me a little creeped out - just sayin'.

I loved Son and I can't wait to read it again to (hopefully) go through it on a less emotional level and really be able to understand everything that is this book, aka Amazingness. I was thrilled with this final book and I can't help but wonder what it was that others found so lacking that they specifically disliked it (or even hated it - gasp). Either way, it was my second favorite in the series next to The Giver and I recommend the entire series to anyone who has read and loved The Giver or to anyone who wants to experience speculative (children's) fiction at its finest.

Have you read Son? Did you read the entire series? What did you think? Were you among those that wasn't happy with it for a conclusion to such a popular series, or were you like me - loving the crap out of this book? I can't wait to hear what you think!


A. 

Messenger by Lois Lowry: I've been lied to all these years!

ISBN: 9780547995670
Source: Purchased
Format: Hardcover
Series: The Giver Quartet #3
Released: 2004
Length: 187 pp
Goodreads  |  B&N

*Please note this review may contain spoilers for the previous books in the series. Click here for a spoiler-free review of book 1, The Giver*

     SUMMARY

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.

     REVIEW

After reading Gathering Blue, the second book in this series, and being somewhat disappointed, I didn't think I was going to enjoy Messenger much. It was the one of the three previously published books in the series that I hadn't bothered reading when I was younger (probably because I hadn't loved Gathering Blue back then either) so I had almost no idea what to expect. I was pleasantly surprised to find that Messenger was about Matty (formerly Matt in GB) who was pretty much my favorite character.

*Okay, so as a precursor to the rant I'm about to go on, if you haven't read The Giver or Gathering Blue, just turn back now. What I'm about to say will spoil The Giver. Probably not GB and it most certainly isn't a spoiler for this book, Messenger, but if you plan on reading Giver, just come back later.*

So, when Son, the fourth book in this series, was released back in 2012, I had a total freak out. Being a huge fan of the The Giver, I was so excited to find out what happened to Jonas and Gabe and whether or not what they saw at the end of The Giver was real or whether it was a hallucination (I'd always been convinced [or hoped beyond hope] that it was real). A lot of reviews, posts, discussions, etc., even touted Son as the book that would tell me what happened to Jonas and Gabe.

Then I get to Messenger... and I frickin' find out what happened to them. I obviously will go no further, in case you decide you want to know for yourself, but WTF! Seriously, what. the. frig. I felt like I'd been bamboozled. Like I'd been lied to my whole life about this really important thing that happened to a couple of fictional characters that I happened to love like real people. I guess maybe that was my own fault, right? I should've just read Messenger back in the day and been done with it. But I was like 12, what do you want from me? I wasn't the masochist I am now. I wasn't going to read something I wasn't interested in. But I'd been researching this for like... over a decade, trying to figure out what happened to them, and here it was all this time (since 2004, anyway), waiting for me. Why didn't anyone tell me!!!

*For those of you that chose to stick around but wanted no spoilers, it is now safe to read spoiler-free.*

Messenger itself, once I got past that bombshell, was pretty great. It was creepy and it drew me in right from the beginning. Lowry has a knack for creating worlds we need to know more about. This is the third one in this series that she'd created and I'm still in awe. I loved Matt in Gathering Blue and he was still a great character to read about, especially as a lead, in Messenger.

The symbolism is rampant as always, but I can't go into it for fear of 1, going on forever and ever, and 2, spoiling something from the next book. The series has grown up a bit though. Matty is older, a teenager basically, I feel like this hooked me more because I considered it a YA novel rather than MG - obviously it's easier for me to relate to someone ten years younger rather than fifteen. That was also probably the reason I was so much more emotional with this one, too. I played right into Lowry's hands and she tore me right up.

My only gripe, and the thing that made dropped the rating by a whole star, was that as always, Lowry left so much unresolved. Maybe she thinks it's a cool thing to do, like how she ended The Giver. Yes, it worked that once. You don't have to leave me hanging every single time! Not even making 200 pages, I feel like if she'd made Messenger just a smidge longer, as long as the other books maybe which would have added about 30-50, she could have resolved the one other important thing (which yes, is kind of explained in the final book, but still!) and it would have been a really fantastic book.

Either way, I guess it doesn't matter since I know how that part of the story resolves now that I've read Son. So with that being said, I really did enjoy Messenger, almost as much as I loved The Giver.... almost. :)

RATING: ★★★★ - Enjoyed it!

I'd heard so many things about the two companion books to The Giver over the years, mainly about how crappy they are compared to The Giver. I won't make any excuses for Gathering Blue, but I was so pleasantly surprised by Messenger that I still have a hard time finding why it's so disliked. It drew me in from the beginning with (limited as always, but still) great world-building, characters you can understand, relate to and grow to care for and love, and simple but beautiful and profound writing that always manages to send one heck of a powerful message. I like to think of Matty as being the one to deliver this particular message (once you read this book, you'll know what I mean...).

I enjoyed Messenger so much and am glad that I finally decided to continue the series. Have any of you read Messenger? What did you think - as compared to Giver, to Gathering Blue, on its own? Did you, like me, find yourself surprised by how much you enjoyed it and enjoyed being sucked into a story like you'd been with The Giver? Or did you think it fell flat? If you did, was it because of the lack of resolution for certain parts of the plot?

Can't wait to hear what you think about this one!

A.

Gathering Blue by Lois Lowry: That Time I Was So Let Down by a Favorite Author

ISBN: 9780547995687
Source: Purchased
Format: Hardcover/eBook (alternating)
Series: The Giver Quartet #2
Released: January, 2000
Length: 241 pp
Goodreads  |  B&N

     SUMMARY

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.

     REVIEW

I remembered from long ago... back in the day (am I old enough to use "back in the day" now? Do I have a "day"?) picking up this book in the book store back home. I was probably around 12 or 13, and I was excited that there was a (supposed) sequel to my favorite book at the time! I also remember being pretty disappointed. The thing I didn't remember was why.

I went into this one after re-reading The Giver, which is still one of my favorite books of all time, a bit apprehensive because I knew from some vague experience that I didn't love this one. Not to mention the the ratings for this one were quite a bit lower than they were for Giver. The first few chapter dragged, though I think that was all in my head. I had been psyching myself out so I'd totally given myself bad juju where this book was concerned.

Eventually I forced myself to dive in and actually found myself enjoying the novel. I finished the more than half that was left in one sitting. The book gave me a similar feeling to when I read The Giver, in the sense that I was interested in what was happening, I was intrigued by this new world Lowry had created and I cared about Kira, the main character, and her little companion Matt.

Then... (cue dreadful sound drum sound) I got to the ending. And I was like... what? I kinda sorta didn't exactly remember the twist that was coming, but I kinda sorta did, so I wasn't necessarily surprised by it, but I was surprised by the way it was handled. Basically: WTF?

Kira, the main character, was pretty passive and naive on some important things in the novel, but she was strong and resilient, enough that I didn't mind it. I took her passiveness as a trait she'd grown up with and wasn't something that would be easily changed.

So anyway, when we get to a mostly predictable but still pretty great plot twist - Lowry does nothing with it!! It was like the inconclusive ending to top all other inconclusive endings. I know what you're thinking - why am I so mad when Giver had a hell of an inconclusive ending? NO. Giver was totally different and you know it! (This is where I stomp my feet and call you a poopie head. This book put me in full on tantrum mode). In The Giver, Jonas did something, something was happening, we just didn't know what he fate was after he did.

Kira, in Gathering Blue, was given this news, a sort of solution to the problem that had been building for most of the book, and instead of doing what I expected her to do (which still would've been pretty lame and the easy way out, though she would have at least been doing something), she did nothing. I guess she technically does something but it is literally in no way shape or form explained. We can make some sort of assumption, but it's not even like with Jonas in Giver where the conclusions are nearly drawn for you and you just have to pick which one to believe. No. We just seriously don't know what the point of Kira's decisions are because it isn't explained well.

Damnit. I sound like I really hated this book, don't I? I didn't, but I really hated the ending. The only saving grace is that there are two more book in the series. Thank God I'm reading them now when they're already published. These books were released years and years apart. Imagine the immense frustration after reading this one if I had to wait five years for the next book to come out!?

Either way, the writing was simple but wonderful as always and Kira was a character I ended up caring about. I loved Matt, the main character's young friend, especially, and the world-building, while not terribly in-depth, was sufficient - until the ending! Grrrrr. Okay. I'm done now.

RATING: ★★★ 1/2 - Liked it

Despite the crazy rant I just went on, I actually liked this book. Lois Lowry has a beautiful writing style and she builds unique worlds that I feel like I just need to know more about. She just has this special talent for using her fictional worlds to help others understand our real one.

Though the ending was the complete and total opposite of what I deem to be satisfying and acceptable, it was a good addition to the Quartet and definitely made me think about what I value in life and whether I'm placing importance on the right things.

Have you read Gathering Blue? It definitely doesn't hold a candle to The Giver which is one of my favorite books of all time, but I enjoyed it nonetheless and look forward to continuing the series. Did you enjoy it? Who can resist Matt? I mean come on!

Tell me what you thought!

A.