After reading The Giver, my daughter and I took the plunge and committed to reading the whole series. I'm not as big a fan of book series as my daughter is (why have four books that each take four hours to read when you could have one sixteen-hour book?), but so far, I'm feeling okay about this one. I like reading about the plants used for dyes, and it's always nice in an unsettling way to wonder via fiction who one's friends and who one's enemies are. I do have a feeling these books won't stick with me, but they're fun for now and less violent than The Hunger Games, which my 10yo read a few months ago. On to Messenger.