Gathering Blue has a lot to say about control, class warfare, restriction of creativity, treatment of disabled and elderly, gender roles, societal expectations and more – more so than the fist novel, but it present it to you with a gentle hand. There’s a bit one can take away about sacrifice for the greater good and trust as well. The village in this novel looks and operates much different than the community in the first which I found refreshing, but behind the scenes you see it has a lot of similarities as well. Overall I enjoyed the characters and found the story well written. I do have to agree that some threads you can see from a mile away, but it’s a YA novel so I’m not going to criticize it too much on that front.

4.0 out of 5.0 stars4.0