After the death of her mother, Kira's own life is in balance when greedy neighbors want to leave her for dead in the wild so they can take over her home space. However, Kira is taken under the protection of the local council because of her ability to sew -- an almost magical talent that she is now given leave to explore and learn more -- particularly about how to dye threads, even if blue dye remains elusive to their community. But as Kira meets under artists under the local council's protection, she realizes protection might come with a price.

This was an interesting book. It is definitely very well written with evocative language to create this world and people it with compelling characters. Somehow it feels like not a lot happens and also a ton happens in this book, which is a rare talent. It is never dull, as the reader spends the whole time trying to figure out the ins and outs of this world through Kira's eyes as she reminiscences on the past and makes new discoveries of her own.

I haven't the foggiest how this book actually connects to its successor novel, The Giver, unless I somehow missed something obvious. I kept waiting for a tie-in to come up but found none. However, I am interested enough to keep up with this quartet to see if/how it all comes together and also simply because I like Lowry's writing style and intriguing dystopian worlds.

The audiobook narrator did a good job voicing all the different characters. ( )

Representation: Character with a physical disability
Trigger warnings: Ableism, bullying, physical assault, murder, implied death or disappearance of parents, suicidal thoughts
Score: Six points out of ten.
Find this review on The StoryGraph.

One year ago, I read the first instalment of The Giver Quartet, The Giver--an outstanding read. I hoped the fictional composition after The Giver, Gathering Blue, would be at the same standard as the former. When I glanced at the blurb, it looked intriguing, but the low ratings warned me not to read it. When I read and finished Gathering Blue, I was underwhelmed and felt that it wasn't as good as The Giver.

It starts with the first person I see, Kira, whose last name remains undisclosed, arriving on an unknown location. Surprisingly, there are people living there, but they forced Kira to battle and fight to the death, much to her detriment as she has a disability. The plot twists as Kira does not battle and instead she integrates into the community. After the opening pages, nothing much happens, as all I see is Kira living her new life in a place I don't know the location of. The worldbuilding is worse in Gathering Blue than The Giver as there is no explanation for why everything is the way it is. What is blue? How does the society function? Those are questions the author did not answer. The conclusion petered out Gathering Blue. I'm so dissatisfied. ( )

Adversity

While interesting to see how an earlier manifestation of the isolated communities looked like, this book was more of a tease than a meal. ( )

Really good - immediately heading to the next one as these are quick reads. ( )