he contents of this particular book should have been the one to answer the most questions that I had regarding Son. Messenger introduces the almost utopia to which Jonas and Gabe flee to at the end of The Giver, and the place that Claire journeys to in pursuit of her son. We are offered the closest semblance of a utopia in a world of dystopias... This is also the story in which Trade Master is introduced. However (and this is a big however), I really think that this book would have functioned better as a short story. I could not connect with Matty's character and I don't think that Trade Master played a big enough part to be the villian of Son. The primary message (in my humble opinion) is that, where humans are concerned, there will be corruption... and I really don't think that Lowry needed an entire novella to accomplish this and set the scene for the "afters" of the previous two books. Lois Lowry also added a pretty big magical element to this book - which she expands upon in Son. Although Lowry set up the beginnings of a sort of magic in Gathering Blue, the amount that existed in Messenger seemed totally unbelievable. Messenger simply felt too different from The Giver for me to care about it as a part of a series from a beloved book.