in the book gathering blue what are some details about the setting?

Gathering Blue is a companion book to The Giver. It is second in a kind of trilogy that Louis Lowry has written (the third is called The Messenger). The novel is not specific about time. It is sometime in the future and it is not a very nice place. The setting is pretty much dystopian. Civilization has gone backwards. People in Kira's (our protagonist) call it the "Ruin". The whole village resembles a sort of medieval town in England. The story begins in the "Field of Leaving" where Kira waits for her mother to be buried. The place is surrounded by dark ominous forests. Kira ends up in the village. Most of the people are poor in the medieval sort of way. Kira ends up in a nice almost futuristic like castle where she gets to make a robe for hours a day. Although the place is nice it is also a quasi-prison where she is expected to fulfil her role as seamstress for some really strange holy person (I forget who, I have to look at the book again.)