3.5 stars 
 Another very interesting story from Lois Lowry. It's so hard to include this as part of the The Giver series for me just because of how much I LOVED The Giver and have carried that story with me as one of my favorites ever since I was 12. 
 I zipped through the book in a matter of hours, but really, I wasn't as interested as I had hoped. My attention wasn't really grabbed until the end of the book and I loved how it all concluded. I was really surprised, actually! 
 Another thing I really liked was how it all tied back into The Giver as well as Gathering Blue even though each book is its own specific story. Very glad I finally got around to this! 
 Full review originally posted on The Book Addict's Guide: I have to admit - I went into Messenger quite skeptical. The Giver has been one of my favorite books since I was twelve (and that was thirteen years ago!), I reread The Giver last year (and still loved it) and then almost immediately after that, I read Gathering Blue and was pretty disappointed. Unfortunately, I felt the same kind of disappointment with Messenger. 
 All of these books are super quick reads (with the exception of my first time around reading The Giver, I finished each in a matter of hours in one day), but unfortunately I felt the same about Messenger as I had about Gathering Blue - the story was easy enough to follow and they both have very nice lessons (they are more for middle grade readers, I think) but I was just never quite as captivated as I had been when I first read Jonas's story. 
 I thought Matty's story in Messenger was actually a little bit more interesting that Kira in GB. It seemed a bit more magical as far as abilities go and I enjoyed the characters and the dynamics much more. Also, we got to see Jonas's reappearance as an adult who is now the Leader of Matty's Village. I really think that helped me make more of a connection to the book as well. I liked that this book felt a lot more like a continuation of a series instead of a companion since we see both Jonas and Kira from the previous books.