Village has for years been a safe haven for all comers. Refugees from harsh cruelty in their former homes live there harmoniously, helping each other to overcome the past and build a new future. Many inhabitants are physically impaired in some way. Some also have particular gifts which determine their true names and their places in the settlement: Leader, Seer, Mentor, Herbalist.
Matty first arrived in Village as a wild young boy who called himself the Fiercest of the Fierce. In the space of six years he has shed that title but retains the courage and loyalty he has always shown. He has not yet received his true name; for the present he serves as a messenger between Village and other settlements which lie beyond Forest, which only he can enter without fear.
As inexplicable shifts in attitude are beginning to occur in Village, and Forest is becoming mysteriously more menacing, Matty is discovering and learning to use his gift. When an unprecedented decision which will change the very nature of Village is reached by popular vote, the boy is called upon to make a journey through Forest like none he has made before, one demanding all his courage, his skill, his gift.
In Messenger, Lowry brings together the threads of The Giver and Gathering Blue, weaving an intricate tapestry of story. This book is, in my view, the darkest and most disturbing of the three, but also the most powerful in its depiction of self-sacrifice in the face of despair.
Becka's Book Review 