Gathering Blue by Lois Lowry is a dystopian novel about disability and exploitation in a small village. It builds a strange and compelling world around Kira, where syllables in names denote age and maturity, where orphaned children are redistributed, but not loved.

It's difficult to discuss much in this novel without spoilers, but it is a different society in the same world as The Giver, a society which is limited by whatever disaster broke the world into small enclaves and scattered villages with vastly different organizational structures and coping mechanisms. Kira's village is patriarchal, ableist, and harsh. She was born with a deformed foot and was only allowed to live because of her grandfather's status and reputation.

The world is fascinating, every bit of description feels precise and necessary. The only thing I would want changed is to have the book last longer. It feels... unresolved, but that's probably on purpose. It's trying to be hopeful in a very bleak world, but we don't get to see that hope fulfilled in the way I would have liked. Again, that feels purposeful and it doesn't make it a bad story, just probably not one to turn to for a comfort read.

*Edit: It’s unresolved because it’s book two of a quartet. I’ve found some of what I was missing in book three, Messenger.

Messenger connects The Giver and Gathering Blue to show the slow creep of xenophobia in the Village that had always been a welcoming place. This is a strong entry that can stand on its own, but is much better due to what came before.

I like the way that this story incorporates the previous two books such that this story can make sense on its own, but it completes the unfinished threads of the other books so that they feel more complete. I'm very excited to see how this series concludes in Son, but "Messenger" alone filled in a lot of what was missing from Gathering Blue.

The dynamic between Matty and the blind man was very good. Matty is not as knowledgeable as the blind man, but the blind man clearly values their friendship, and I think Matty enjoys having someone to help. From a narrative perspective, the way that we get hints of the blind man's breadth of knowledge even when Matty doesn't have the context for his assertions was very well handled. It made them both feel like full persons even when we mostly are left with Matty's thoughts.

I'm glad that Kira didn't let Matty heal her for the journey, and that he respected her autonomy and didn't force the healing on her. The discourse about disability within these books seems to be very well handled.

Overall I liked this one and I'm looking forward to reading the conclusion in Son.

Marco’s dad makes a breakthrough and it endangers his life. Marco has to make some difficult decisions quickly and not everything works out as he’d hoped. I used to read this one over and over, especially the scene in the car.‬

I like this one, a lot. It’s definitely a point of no return for the series, something fundamental has changed that cannot be mitigated. To be clear, I mostly like the change, and I consider the changes to come to be good, narratively. This particular installment is bittersweet, mostly good but with an edge to it.

Rachel suffers through an ordeal of psychological torment and has to re-make a decision she thought was settled. Through it she has a realization about her place within the Animorphs.

I appreciate Rachel's journey in this one. I think it's something that needed to be addressed before the end of the series. While the plot resolution is ambiguous, the realization she has and the character growth it belies is really important.

This book confronts the Andalite ableism that has been shown since early in the series. It examines norms, friendships, and prejudices through an alien lense. This is all during a high-stakes life or death mission that’s standard for this series.

I appreciate the angle taken in this book, it acknowledges human ableism while pushing back on ableist language in general using a sci-fi analogue. On the podcast we frequently find ourselves using the concept of a magical analogue as a way to examine a type of trauma while keeping it separate from what the reader could actually experience. This book confronts both the specific Andalite prejudice against physical disabilities and non-normative bodies, while also using the Animorphs’ particular situation to push against any idea of a “normal” that could be used to judge and demean anyone.

For Marco this is a break from the ongoing issue of Visser One, but even though nothing changes on that front it’s clear that it weighs on him. This isn’t a light book, but it deals with a different issue than Marco normally faces, which itself can be a break of a kind.

Jake sees what happens to the future if he gets sloppy and/or gives up. It’s heart-wrenching, combining a grim visage with a small moment in a hidden garden. We also meet the Orr, an alien species I was looking forward to.

The interactions with each of the Animorphs are different blends of depressing, where this future glimpse shows Jake how completely he can fail if he messes up. The precarious nature of this scenario means its hard to know whether the stories he was told which then conflicted with his observations were because he was lied to for some reason or if some meddling occurred within the event.

There have been a lot of time-shenanigans recently, with this one feeling like a counterpoint to Back to Before (which looked at an alternate past instead of a possible future). I like them, I just had forgotten that they ramped up for a bit.

The Animorphs discover the Venber and try not to freeze to death. They turn to Cassie as the ethical voice. This book has a few new morphs and a lot of being deadly levels of cold, truly, it's hard to overemphasize how cold they are in this one.

This book feels like it's setting the stage for later action, I'm also pretty sure it's the first time the entire group have gotten the exact same morph at the same time. There's some body horror because HAVE I MENTIONED THE COLD and that's not great for carbon-based bodies from the temperate zones of the Earth. It's not filler and it shouldn't be skipped, but it definitely is moving some pieces in place that will be used later, and that can be felt in the book.

We see the continuing threads of tension between Cassie and Marco, lingering from his distrust over her actions in Animorphs 19, "The Departure". Cassie also seems to be getting pretty sick of everyone assuming she is the arbiter of ethics, we'll have to see if that comes to a head or if she adjusts (I truly don't remember which it is as I type this).

The Animorphs are champions for the Ellimist in his epoch-spanning war with Crayak. Tensions rise due to Erek's pacifism; Jake experiences the nature of the Howlers. We learn about the Iskoort on a world far away and some assumptions are changed.

I like this book a lot. The setting is strange, the Iskoort are quirky and well-described. There's a lot of really cool worldbuilding in this place that it's almost impossible for the story to ever visit again, but I appreciate how much we get in this small slice. The description of the buildings is very evocative and whimsical, and the descriptions in general manage to convey confusion and hubbub without losing the narrative thread.

The introduction of and explanation of the Howlers is really interesting, in a good way. I have a lot of thoughts that will probably form a longer post later, I intend to compare and contrast them with something from another book, but that might not happen immediately.

This series established several generalizations about alien species early on and then has spent the last ~15-20 books dismantling those assumptions. No group is a monolith, and here Ax encounters more of his people, not all at their best.

The levels of narration in this book are so good! I don't want to spoil anything, but the way Ax's internal monologue is handled is masterful. I hadn't remembered this one very well, it just hadn't stayed with me. Ax's description of humans for Andalites and of Andalites for humans are really funny. This book is about despair and desperation, it also shows how much Ax has changed since he first met the Animorphs.