Book 8 -- The Giver by Lois Lowry

I read this book in elementary school, and I don't think I really grasped it back then. So I re-read it in anticipation of the oncoming movie (which looks awful, by the way).

Context:

Jonas lives in the perfect world. Spouses and careers are hand-picked for each person; there is no war, pain, fear, or emotion whatsoever. However, when Jonas is selected to be the Receiver of Memory--a rare, prestigious honor--he learns that there used to be more to the world than his daily routine. 

My Thoughts:

Okay now I remember why I thought of this book when I read Divergent: the age ceremonies! Of course, the age ceremonies are more about assignments and the Choosing Ceremony is about choice, but still.

So anyways, I just really really love this book so much. 

I love how it's not your typical dystopian novel. Things are bad without being bad. Jonas doesn't even realize what a controlled world he's living in until he receives memories from the Giver. And this leads to an interesting discussion and moral conundrum: should people be allowed to make choices? What is the inherent value of these choices? This is something Jonas struggles immensely with and something I think would be fun to introduce into a classroom. 

On the one hand, you can't miss what you don't know. So Jonas's friends and family live in a world without love, color, music, weather, or career options--is that really so bad? As readers, we balk at the idea of someone taking away our emotions and the nuances of life--but only because we are so spoiled by them. They also have no heartbreak, no pain, no lies, no war, no illness. What's so wrong with that? Jonas would have lived a perfectly content life, never knowing any different had he not been selected as the Receiver of Memory.

And then, of course...we know that pain is what makes us human. Our ability to process and experience emotions and experiences and change based on what we learned is key to our identities. Without some sense of personal relevance, we are nothing more than robots. What is even the point of life if we all continue on the same structured, bland, neutralized path planned out by someone with our "best interests" in mind? Even if our choices end up being destructive, shouldn't we have the right to make those choices?

DO YOU SEE HOW FASCINATING THIS BOOK IS YET?

I just wish we had more back story. How did Jonas's world come to be this way? How many communities like Jonas's are there? Are there other communities with different rules? Is there still war and all those other things Jonas received memories of, and they're just sheltered from it somehow (much in the same way Chicago was a pocket unto itself in Divergent)? 

And the whole ending is just so freaking sad. I know Lowry has released sequel novels to The Giver that kind of explain what happens, but before that, the ending was just a huge question mark. Does Jonas and the baby die? I always thought they kind of did, because it was just so convenient how they 'stumbled' upon the exact scenario from Jonas's first memory. 

This is a very short book, but it's slammed full of interesting themes and fantastically written scenes. 

My Rating: 5/5

Hands down one of my favorite books I've ever read. The plot makes sense, the characters feel very real, and I love that it's a dystopian with a utopian face. Lowry creates an incredibly imaginative world that makes the reader question everything they know about the human experience. This is a book that will make you feel and think, and will leave a lasting impression on you.