Given his lifetime assignment at the Ceremony of Twelve, Jonas becomes the receiver of memories shared by only one other in his community and discovers the terrible truth about the society in which he lives.
Il est des romans dont on craint de raconter l'histoire, tant on a peur de faire passer à côté de l'essentiel. L'essentiel ici, c'est bien le style de l'autrice et l'ambiance dans laquelle elle réussit à plonger le lecteur ; sa description d'un monde pas du tout désirable (encore que... patientez jusqu'au dernier et 4e tome) et pourtant chaque page est pétrie d'humanisme. De la SF avec un monde d'une inventivité incroyable que l'auteur parvient à distiller sans être démonstrative, au fil de l'histoire qui nous happe page après page.
I enjoyed reading this book, and it was interesting. I thought the author did a good job of not making the society be dystopian or clearly bad or evil, but rather just a different decision about what makes a happy society. I felt the ending was weak in many ways however.
This book is on so many "must read before you die" type lists that I never actually read the blurb or knew anything about it. I heard it was a kid's book so I put it on my TBR and never really thought about it again. Until I saw it listed on paperbackswap.com and decided to request it.
After I received it in the mail yesterday, I figured I'd jump right in. I still didn't know what it was about and kept my expectations low. But, damn, what an incredible book. I mean, for about 200 pages, I felt quite a few gut punches and, yes, even dropped a few tears. I can't believe how much the story and young Jonas and The Giver touched and moved me.
Now I have to decide whether to list the book or keep it for another read later on.
Apparently this is a YA book that's been out for a while, but since it's been an even longer time since I was a YA, I'd somehow missed its existence till now. I picked up the audiobook from the local library after reading a recommendation for it among lists of dystopian fiction, and I did enjoy it; quite a short listen at only 5 hours so it must be quite a quick read in text.
The story follows 11-going-on-12 year-old Jonas, through whose eyes we slowly begin to understand the community in which he lives. What seems at first to just be metaphor, for example about how things are colourless and how everything is the same, is slowly is revealed to be literal truth. It's very cleverly done the way the book slowly feeds the reader bits of information that bit by bit reveal a picture of an increasingly artificial, …
Apparently this is a YA book that's been out for a while, but since it's been an even longer time since I was a YA, I'd somehow missed its existence till now. I picked up the audiobook from the local library after reading a recommendation for it among lists of dystopian fiction, and I did enjoy it; quite a short listen at only 5 hours so it must be quite a quick read in text.
The story follows 11-going-on-12 year-old Jonas, through whose eyes we slowly begin to understand the community in which he lives. What seems at first to just be metaphor, for example about how things are colourless and how everything is the same, is slowly is revealed to be literal truth. It's very cleverly done the way the book slowly feeds the reader bits of information that bit by bit reveal a picture of an increasingly artificial, dystopian community where conformity and contentment are idealized at the expense of, well, pretty much everything else. When Jonah turns 12 he is given his life assignment as the Receiver of Memory and only then does he - and we through his eyes - start to understand how different his community is from our own, and what his predecessors chose to give up in order to create a "perfect" world.
It's very reminiscent in many ways of 1984, and is a cutting but very simply laid out examination of what exactly it would really mean to eliminate inequality and pain for every single person. Very thought-provoking. From reading other reviews I have also just learned that a movie was made of this, which I may need to go check out now.
I've never read these books, despite having them come up in conversation and in passing many times. The first one was good, but for the most of it I found myself thinking about how cliche it felt. Young Adult Dystopians novels always seem really obsessed with social control. Not that that's a bad thing, and of course that's a set of ideas that is actually really important to young adults. But to me, it made this narrative feel really...trite. I enjoyed the second novel in the series much more.
The story brought up some interesting ideas but most of what's going on is left to the reader's imagination, to fill in the gaps that the author perhaps couldn't on her own.
It doesn't seem believable that euthanasia would be such a large part of their society, but no one knew about it except a select few. Clearly the society was technologically advanced to the point of terraforming the planet and manipulating memories, but if that's the case, why was the ability to "see beyond" or "hear beyond" found randomly in the population? If memory control was so important, wouldn't the succession of Receivers have been engineered to be flawless? Why would memories be released to the general population on death? And what were they seeing and hearing beyond anyway? Genetic modifications that prevented people from perceiving certain things? Or technology-based barriers?
The plan that Jonas and the Giver came …
The story brought up some interesting ideas but most of what's going on is left to the reader's imagination, to fill in the gaps that the author perhaps couldn't on her own.
It doesn't seem believable that euthanasia would be such a large part of their society, but no one knew about it except a select few. Clearly the society was technologically advanced to the point of terraforming the planet and manipulating memories, but if that's the case, why was the ability to "see beyond" or "hear beyond" found randomly in the population? If memory control was so important, wouldn't the succession of Receivers have been engineered to be flawless? Why would memories be released to the general population on death? And what were they seeing and hearing beyond anyway? Genetic modifications that prevented people from perceiving certain things? Or technology-based barriers?
The plan that Jonas and the Giver came up with makes no sense. Jonas was releasing memories to the community along the way. Is it distance based? Did he not need to die to make it happen? And if that's the case, what was the point? How big is this society? If there are other communities aren't there other Receivers?
The whole story is just too vague and the ending followed that trend.
Interesting tale. Read some reviews that it's not original, and has done plot holes. Both are true. However, I enjoyed it and, as a YA novel, it's a good introduction to the themes. I'll be reading more in this world
I still remember the feeling I had of reading this while in school, when it was about five years old; I loved it almost immediately, and I credit it with being one of the first novels to make me question the world around me, even if it wasn't apparent at the time. I mean, honestly, I first read this when I was in seventh grade for school. That was sometime in the late 1990s.
I still have a lot of the same feelings for this novel, though now I'm going to be pushing to read the series; I still need to do that.
I love this book, and it's so difficult to really write a lot of why. It's such a simple tale, starting with such a simple frustration: the knowledge that there's more, that there's something else, that one person is meant to be burdened by the knowledge to …
I still remember the feeling I had of reading this while in school, when it was about five years old; I loved it almost immediately, and I credit it with being one of the first novels to make me question the world around me, even if it wasn't apparent at the time. I mean, honestly, I first read this when I was in seventh grade for school. That was sometime in the late 1990s.
I still have a lot of the same feelings for this novel, though now I'm going to be pushing to read the series; I still need to do that.
I love this book, and it's so difficult to really write a lot of why. It's such a simple tale, starting with such a simple frustration: the knowledge that there's more, that there's something else, that one person is meant to be burdened by the knowledge to make life "simpler" for everyone else. And all of that builds up; it builds through simply adding to the knowledge that there was a world before, that there were feelings before, that 'precise language' isn't so precise (nor can it really be), and changing the knowledge of what it really means to be Released.
And all of that spurs action, shows that something can happen in the simplest of actions by the fewest number of people. Even today, I think especially today, this is a message that needs to be heard again and again.
Perfect for a young person's first 'dystopian/utopian' book, but a bit on the shallow side for those who have read similar works before. I think I lost something by not having read this when I was back in middle school, so take my personal rating with a grain of salt.
Great setup and tension, fumbled a bit for the ideological simplicity delivered with a heavy hand at the climax, but kudos for the ending and relative skill in illustrating the central message of free will.
Engaging book set in what seems to be a utopia but is slowly revealed to be a dystopia. Not because people are oppressed but because no one is allowed to feel anything extreme or remember anything unpleasant. By turns fascinating and hilarious.
I simply loved this book. I picked it up to read in honor of Banned Books Week, and I'm glad I did.
Jonas lives in a quasi-Utopian society where everything is strictly laid out for them. From birth to death, the people follow the rules, or are "released". When the children turn twelve, they are placed in their job, and Jonas is selected to be the next Receiver of Memories, a rare and honored position in the society. As the Receiver, he uncovers things that he didn't know, and did not want to know, about his life and the lives of those around him. He and the former Receiver (now the Giver) are left with their singular knowledge of life and are faced with the hard choices that come with the knowledge of both good and evil.
Definitely not an uplifting book, but one that will stay with you afterwards.
The Giver is a great work of science fiction, not because it's set in the future, but because it envisages how our society could use technology and examines the social and personal implications in a way that helps us understand ourselves better. In this case it looks at the cost of convenience and conformity from the perspective of a young boy coming of age. The ending seems a little abrupt and feels a bit out of kilter with the rest of the story, but its ambiguity lends it poignancy that a more traditional approach is unlikely to achieve. Over all, a great, quick read that packs a startling number of concepts into such a small space. Sadly, I doubt a movie adaptation can do it justice.
