The Giver - Review by Halea Coulter

The Giver

by Lois Lowry

* * * * Stars

The Giver follows the story of a young boy named Jonah who is about to turn 12. Everyone in his class is also about to turn twelve, in fact everyone in the community Jonah lives in is about to have their birthdays. That is how society work, everyone is born at different times through out the year, but to make things easier, their official birthdays are all the the same time. As children get older, they get new privileges; at 8 they are allowed to wear sweaters that button in the front, at 9 they get their own bicycles to ride, and at 12 they get what will be their jobs for the rest of their lives. When December finally arrives, Jonah is given the job of Reciever. Jonah has no clue what that is, and neither does anyone else for that matter. The story goes on, and Jonah learns that he is to recieve memories from the Giver, hence his job title and the books name. The Reciever is the only one who has memories from before everything fell apart and was put back together again in a very strict fashion. The Reciever has memories of snow, rain, lakes, colors, sailboats but also war, destruction, pain, and death. These are things that people no longer have, in this society, they don't even have parents, they are birthed by a woman and named in December and give to parents to raise until they are 18. In this society, you do not die a natural death, it is a called a release; no one knows what they do, but Jonah finds out, all it is, is an injection, like is currently used for the death penalty. In the story Jonah's parents are caring for a baby, Gabriel, who doesn't seem to be maturing fast enough and when he is due for release, Jonah takes Gabriel and leaves, and the end of the book is a mystery.

Personally, I quite enjoyed the book, apparently other people did too, it's an older book, but it was given a Newberry Medal so you know it has to be pretty good. The book has been banned in many schools, apparently for the way it handles death, suicide, sex, and you can infer that it promotes communism. Honestly, I don't see why any of those things are issues, nothing in the book is really that bad. Also, i recently read the book Matched by Ally Condie and it dealt with the same futuristic, dystopian society and i liked it better. Neither of the societies seemed much different from one another, but I did prefer Matched, just because it had a more intriguing story. Also, if I had to pick between living in Matched's society or The Givers I would pick Matched because even though neither sounds fun, Matched sounds a bit better. In matched the adults are at least allowed to do what married couples are supposed to, in The Giver, they have to take pills to suppress sexual urges of all kinds. Overall though it was a very good book, it was a short and quick read, and I would definitely recommend it.