"Messenger"

As Promised: "Messenger"

Fair Warning: Here there be spoilers!

"Messenger"
Lois Lowry
Houghton Mifflin, 2004
ISBN: 978-0618404414

Matt has managed to escape from the brutish fens and now lives with The Blind Man in a village open to all those who seek sanctuary. But dark times are stirring. The forest, always open to Matt, is becoming darker and more sinister. And in the village, people are trading away their deepest selves for happiness that Matt can't see. Soon, talk turns to closing off the village, and Matt must make one more trip into the forest to bring The Blind Man's daughter back safely. His only hope is the gift he has, if only he knew when, and how, to use it.

"Messenger" is the third (and last) book that ties to "The Giver". Matt, as well as Kira and her blind father, appear as holdovers from "Gathering Blue", although several years have elapsed. And, if you didn't figure out who the leader of the village was from the last post, shame on you. (I'll give you a hint: a sled) This book is more outrightly dark than the other two. While "The Giver" was dark with its too-rational world, and "Gathering Blue" was dark with its cruel "Lord of the Flies"-esque life, "Messenger" has both physical manifestations of cruelty and the subtle attitude shifts. This is a little off topic, but I've always been more creeped out when human nature and survival instinct runs amok. Case in point: the movie "War of the Worlds", starring Tom Cruise and Dakota Fanning. It wasn't that great of a movie to begin with, but what stuck with me the most was a scene when Tom Cruise and his family are trying to escape. The power has gone out everywhere and, for some reason, cars refuse to run. Tom Cruise somehow manages to get a car running (I'm not sure how...maybe he just laid hands on it and said "The Power of Scientology compels you!"), and he and his family are caught in a crowd of people, who beat down the doors, break windows, and swarm over this car in their attempts to get away. That scene scared me more than any tripod-y alien ever would. The same sort of thing happens in "Messenger". Slowly, the people start to change and become more and more cruel, to the point of closing off the village. This isn't half as scary as a thousand people beating against a minivan, but you get the idea. Meanwhile, the forest is the physical bogeyman (kinda). Lowry's descriptions of the rot and decay is just vague enough to let your imagination fill in what it actually looks like. And, unlike the other two character-driven books, this one is very plot driven. (Okay, true, "The Giver" really picks up there at the end...but this one is plot most of the way through.) You're worried about Matt getting through the forest, you're wondering about this gift he has and what it all means, and then you're worried about him making safely out the other side with Kira in tow. And, while the ending is not exactly the most satisfying, at least it ends.

Personal note: I was surprised with this book by my dad, who went ahead and ordered it without telling me, right after it came out. I read it in a furious afternoon, and at one point threw the book onto my bed and screamed (not too loudly). So, yeah.