This was one of those books that I was embarrassed to have on my list. Embarrassed, or ashamed of the school system that picked out my assigned reading. Either way, I managed to go 25 years without reading this classic Young Adult book and it has successfully been crossed off the list. Before my review though, let me apologize for the creepy quality of my picture. I've gotten lazy with the last couple books and just taken the picture wherever I happen to be reading when I finish...and the dark brown couch maybe wasn't the best background for the black book cover, which also looks like it's floating in midair a little bit. But whatever. You can tell what book it is and I guess that's the point.
Lois Lowry's classic book The Giver is maybe one of the first dystopian books we have, paving the way for the thousands of similar books/trilogies we have now. (I'm kind of just saying this without any actual proof that she's the original, so if I'm wrong just let it go. She clearly came way before Matched and Divergent and Delirium and all those, which is all I'm saying.) There's a purer quality to this plot because of that than when you read some of the newer ones. Although I've read all those newer books I just mentioned and enjoy them quite a bit, you kind of can't help but feel like they're all just variations of each other. You can't feel that way reading this classic because...it's a classic. (I actually just now bothered to look up when it was written. I'm going to go ahead and stick with my point that 1993 makes it a classic.) Brief plot synopsis: Jonas has grown up in his picture perfect society where spouses and children and careers are chosen for you by the powers at be, and there are no problems. No variations, no conflict, and pain, and no questions. But when Jonas reaches age 12 and is given his career assignment as the new Receiver, who will receive all memories and truths from the world of old from his mentor The Giver, everything changes. He sees things from the world that used to exist (ours) and is able to experience and feel them as The Giver shares those memories and truths with him. And the more he learns, the more he questions the perfect world he's been living in all along.
This was a really great book. I really enjoyed reading through the perspective of Jonas - who narrates - and learning things in pieces as he shared them with you. This futuristic world created by Lowry certainly doesn't smack you in the face with the harshness and evil of The Hunger Games' Panem, but the reader eventually learns enough to become just as angry and offended over the course of the book. Something that I thought was interesting is that lots of the societal qualities touched briefly upon in this book (spouses are chosen for you, life paths and careers are chosen for you, you are given medicine upon reaching puberty that eliminates all sex drive and interest in the opposite sex) are all central plots of recent dystopian books...supporting my theory that this really is one of the ones that laid the foundation for the entire genre we're so familiar with now. Another small note that kept cracking me up as I read is that this book is a mere 170-something pages long. In an incredibly small amount of words, Lowry successfully crafts an entire plot that is engaging, interesting, and detailed from start to finish. Some of those newer dystopian books I keep referencing feature writing that takes twelve pages to simply introduce a scene when Lowry managed to write the entire scene in one page. So gold star, Lois.
Bottom line, this is a book that's still taught in schools for a reason. I missed out on it in my small-town public education, but I shouldn't have and it's ridiculous I waited so long to read it myself. It's great, and it'll make you think. Read it.
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