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The Explanation (with spoilers):
When Kira, a gifted young girl with a twisted leg, is orphaned, she must fight for her very survival against a brutal and primitive society that is blinded by prejudice. To them she is worthless and lazy; cursed with an unforgivable weakness--best left out, as others have been, for the beasts...
Spared from certain death by the Council of Guardians, who want to make use of her mystical talent, Kira gradually realizes her salvation comes at a price and brings enormous responsibility. As the secrets of her dark world unravel, pride in her won pain is not enough. Kira must somehow find the strength to question the values of her entire community and be willing to confront the truth for the first time.
Timeline Notes: Gathering Blue takes place at the same time as The Giver.
This was a dramatic shift in tone from The Giver--we go from an emotionless, "perfect" community to one where a girl struggled to fend for herself against the people of her home. There weren't any visible connections to the previous book yet, besides the fact that they took place during the same time.
Kira was an orphan, a cripple, and one who was gifted in embroidery--her redeeming trait that saved her life. Her enemies looked down on her due to her twisted leg and claimed that she should be thrown to the "beasts."
Beasts were said to come from the Forest, a forbidden, dangerous place. Kira had been told that her father had been killed by beasts--indeed he had; the beast of a man called Jamison had attempted to murder him.
Jamison: The cause of Kira's horrible old life and her new, prison-like one in the Edifice. The one who was so kind, and the one who ordered Annabella, Kira's mentor, to be killed for knowing the truth.
Kira had two remnants to hold onto her past: a wild boy named Matt, and a scrap of fabric she embroidered herself. She had one main task to do while at the Edifice: fix the Singer's robe in time for the Gathering. She gathered all the dies and threads she needed--except for blue. Blue was the one color she was in need of.
Kira wasn't the only talented artist who was captured: Thomas the Carver and Jo the Singer, as well as the current Singer, were all forced into the regime. The three children learned that the story of the past and hope for the future was determined by the agenda of the government--so the two oldest decide to start taking the future into their own hands.
Matt was the one to bring Christopher, the Seer, Kira's father, to reunite with Kira. Matt had traveled briefly into Village, both to find Cristopher and gather blue for Kira. He even made a joke to Kira that she could marry Jonas--but Kira dismissed it at the time.
The ending was sudden and had me rushing into Messenger. The sudden ending wasn't a cliffhanger; it just ended too suddenly. It didn't leave me with a sense of conclusion--it left me with an irritation, and a hope that Messenger would give me the information I wanted to know.
And that's where we're going next.