The Giver

I find it pretty much impossible to read YA books as an adult and leave the adult in me behind long enough to enjoy them. There are those rare ones that are written on two levels, a level at which the youth gets all they need and another in which the adult is also satisfied. This book doesn’t quite make that bar for me, even though it addresses some important issues and would make a great choice if you were teaching a class filled with nine and ten year olds.

Jonas is a twelve year old boy, living in a colorless dystopian world of regiment and sameness. There is no pain or unpleasantness here, nor is there any joy or morality. Choices are never made, rules are followed, without anyone feeling the need for more...for in fact, in this society, all feeling has been purged. Kind of made me think of Stepford Wives.

In order to be held, I expect a lot from a good dystopian novel. This is a good one if you are young, but, again, the comparisons are inevitable, and I’ll take Margaret Atwood’s Maad Adam series, thank you.

I suppose what it all comes down to, for me, is that I would rate this book quite differently depending on what the criteria were for rating it. If I consider it for what it is, a YA novel, meant for a young audience, and concerned with stirring thoughts and considerations among them, it would get a 4-star rating, easily. As an adult, it was less enthralling and more just “interesting.” I wouldn’t probably give it more than a 2-star rating. So, I have landed on a 3-star compromise, with a caveat that if you are a parent or spend time with children in the right age group, this would be a great book to read and discuss with them. There will probably be a generation of kids who grow up with this book as an all-time favorite and a feeling that it helped shape their lives.

This is the part where I'm supposed to go, "Ooh, this book is such a terrifying wake-up call to the dark side of our views of Paradise, and even though we wish death and pain weren't a part of our lives, they're necessary because without them we would be ignorant and lost, and blah blah blah..."

So: Ooh, this book is such a terrifying wake-up call to the dark side of our views of Paradise, and even though we wish death and pain weren't a part of our lives, they're necessary because without them we would be ignorant and lost, and blah blah blah.

I get it, Ms. Lowry. I'm sure everyone is right when they say this book is brilliant, 1984 for twelve-year-olds, etc, but...I just didn't like it. Plus the ending was kind of crap, and I wish you would've explained a lot more about how that world was set up.

(ps: if you really liked The Giver and are getting really pissed off at me right now, don't take it personally. I was a very cynical twelve year old.)

Read for: 6th grade English

3.5/5 Stars! I read this book previously in middle school for English class and was still able to appreciate it almost a decade later.

The Giver is a story that sticks with many of us as it is often a part of required reading in school. I consider it one of the most impactful academic reads from my adolescence as it was one of the first stories to feel targeted towards me. I think the concept is fantastic and appreciate it's method of tackling serious issues through the lens of a teen. Though it was published after many famous dystopian stories of similar nature, I feel The Giver succeeds in resonating with younger readers and challenging them to think critically about society in a way many others cannot.

Reading as an adult though, I do feel I enjoyed it less. I had many more questions about the structure of the world that weren’t answered in text (I’m aware it’s a series, but for a first installment, I feel it could have benefitted with more detail). I felt it was lacking in characterization as I did not feel much attachment to the characters. Additionally, with both times I’ve read this novel, I tend to feel unsatisfied by the ending. The last chapter or so is such a drag in my opinion and doesn’t make me WANT to read more.

Overall, I’m sad that I didn’t enjoy The Giver as much as I did at thirteen but I’m glad I read it a second time.

At one point I wrote a review for this book. That review was very well written and could have won awards! Sadly, when I went to submit it was one of the times that the Goodreads server crashed and the review was lost for the ages . . . only I will ever remember how truly great that review was!

On to a new review that will be much shorter and definitely inferior to the original.

This is one of the granddaddies of the YA dystopian genre. Without this book we may not have The Hunger Games, Divergent, Maze Runner, etc.

I enjoyed this book . . . and I was frustrated by this book. I believe the fact that I was a new father at the time of reading made the subject matter difficult - I swear you will hug your kids right after finishing this. Twice while reading I threw this book across the room - that is not an exaggeration. I was so shocked by what I read that the book was propelled as far away from me as possible.

As an adult this book was hard to read and I cannot imagine reading it as a young adult. If my kids read this when they are teenagers, it is one I will definitely have to talk to them about before and after.

I did finish the series, and overall it is very enjoyable - and the other books are not quite as shocking as this one! (at least, none of them were launched!)

I think I automatically give a book four stars if I LITERALLY CANNOT PUT IT DOWN. And that's what happened with this book. I read it in probably a few hours?? AND IT WAS SO GOOD but also a little confusing (okay super confusing!!) THE GIVER had been sitting very near the top of my TBR pile for a long time...and I finally started this series and SO GLAD I DID. This book is beautiful and intricate and well thought-out. The themes were super thought-provoking, too, and I'M STILL THINKING ABOUT CERTAIN ELEMENTS WEEKS AFTER FINISHING THIS BOOK. It's one of those stories where you KNOW there is something more, hidden just behind a veil of well-written fiction...a world of depth and truth. But I was super confused about the ending. I KNOW IT'S SUPPOSED TO BE OPEN-ENDED but...I just don't like open-endings??? I'M BORING I KNOW. And it also just felt a bit rushed, like the direction took a major pivotal turn in just a few chapters and then BOOM -- the end. It bothered me!! BUT ALL IN ALL THIS BOOK IS AWESOME and I'm super pumped to read the rest of the series!! SORRY FOR THE INCOHERENT REVIEW!!

I read this dystopian YA novel in two sittings, at the urging of a real-life friend. He said I should try to imagine my 12-year old self reading it, which would have been at boarding school, where I was in a house of 34 girls aged 11-16. It was a really interesting way to read it. Here’s the reviewer:



12-year old Cecily’s review (as imagined by adult Cecily)

I didn’t get excited about my 12th birthday last month because it was my first one away from home. A couple of girls had birthdays last term, so I knew what to expect, and it was nice, but it’s not the same. Nothing is really, but mostly I quite like it here. The libraries are good, and there’s plenty of time to read because when we’ve done our homework there’s not much else to do. We’re hardly ever allowed to watch TV and we can only go out on Saturday mornings when matron takes us to the village shops and Sundays when we have to go to church. At least we don’t have to wear uniform on Saturdays.

In the book, Jonas is going to be 12. He’s not excited either, more like slightly anxious, because his community has a big Ceremony for his whole year group when their lives change forever because everyone is assigned their job and has to start training - but still go to school as well. I don’t know what I want to do when I grow up, but that’s OK. I don’t want someone else telling me - not even my parents (I know what they’d say anyway). I’m just glad I don’t have to decide yet.

The community is safe and polite and fair, but it’s a bit odd too. Jonas lives with his parents and sister, but everyone and everything is very samey and there are lots of rules. The children have to wear uniforms according to their age. Every evening, every family discusses their feelings and every morning they discuss their dreams. That’s weird, but it’s better than Miss S droning on with Bible readings and prayers and stuff. Actually, Jonas’ life is a bit like being a daygirl at this school.

Anyway, at the Ceremony, Jonas thinks he’s been forgotten. It’s even worse than being the last one to be picked for a team because it’s in front of everyone. It’s OK though: he’s given a really important job as apprentice Receiver of Memory. After school each day, he goes to the old man who is now The Giver and gets memories by a sort of touching telepathy. It’s a bit magical, but not like in a children’s story.

I hate it when grown ups say I’m too young to know stuff, but in his community, there’s tons of stuff no one is allowed to know except the Giver and Receiver. The first memories Jonas is given are nice, but some of them aren’t, and Jonas doesn’t understand all of them. Almost every time I had a question, Jonas asked it, and The Giver told him/me. The memories change Jonas. He sees and understands everything differently - more than the grown ups do, and because of his job, he’s allowed to break rules that even adults aren’t allowed to. That’s another thing that’s unfair here: the older girls have fewer rules than we do, but we’re just as sensible. I want to be grown up, but part of me doesn’t want to. It’s a bit scary.

Jonas’ friends like their jobs, but they’re not special like his is, and he is less and less like them, so he gets a bit lonely. Everyone and everything isn’t the same any more. And gradually Jonas realises lots of things he was told aren’t really true, and there’s bad stuff and bad people too.

Knowing the memories makes Jonas want to make the community fairer and better. So then the book changes almost to a different one, but with the same character. In the first part he was a happy child in his family and community, and then it turns into an adventure where he has a lot of responsibility, like an adult, and he chooses to do something important and dangerous because he knows it’s right. I’m not sure if I’d be that brave, but I hope I would. It was dreamy and exciting, but the ending was strange: I’m not sure if it was happy or sad or imagined.

I enjoyed the book. It wasn’t like anything else I’ve read. Some of my friends would enjoy it too, but not all of them. Unlike the people in Jonas’ community, we’re not all the same.


Image: Apple, with glimpse of red, by Spudwaka (Source.)


Adult Cecily’s thoughts

I enjoy dystopian fiction, but rarely YA, especially not works at the younger end, as this is. Without a real life YA by my side, it’s harder to identify with the characters, so my suspension of disbelief is less willing or able, and thus I’m more distracted by plot holes, inconsistency, and implausibility. (Yes, I know the last of those is a high bar for dystopias.) If I’d read this without trying to imagine my younger self, I would probably have given it 2*.

I think 12-year old Cecily would give 4* or maybe even 5*. She’d notice the link between the apple and knowledge (and probably roll her eyes and turn the page), have some interest in weighing whether the ends justify the means, and understand the emerging theme of sacrifice. I’m not sure the full horror of a life without colour (literal and especially emotional), music, and landscape would hit her, but I do remember that she was thinking a lot about the fact you can’t have good without evil, and vaguely, childishly, contemplating relative and absolute morality around that time, so sacrificing the experience of love to avoid hate and war would chime.

I doubt the issue of sameness protecting people from making the wrong choice would interest her much, and certainly any extrapolation to racism and integration would not occur to her. She would probably (deliberately) gloss over exactly how “the Stirrings” relate to male puberty.

I hope she’d note the vocabulary creating an escalating feeling of familiarity with this unsettling community: a newchild, the Old, sleepingroom, release, and male and female (avoiding the age distinction of girl/boy and woman/man). As a tomboy, I also hope she’d notice the non-traditional gender roles (other than each family being allowed one boy and one girl): it’s Jonas’ father who’s a Nurturer and his mother who has an important government role.

At 12, with fairytales recently relinquished (not that they ever really are), she’d probably accept the mechanics of memories unquestioningly. Adult Cecily was puzzled by how they’re transferred (the process itself was a bit creepy), how they’re released, when they’re retained, let alone how it’s possible to create communities where people have “forgotten” things as fundamental as colour. To borrow a point from creationists(!), where’s the missing link - what would have been the interim stages to get to this point? (I also wonder whether people were originally persuaded, coerced, or brainwashed - but I don’t mind that being unanswered.)

The biggest, and completely unnecessary, inconsistency is that the whole community is built around sameness, but inexplicably, there’s one type of it that cannot be tolerated. This was “necessary” for the plot, but could have been achieved with a slightly different prohibition.

Giving adult jobs to 12-year olds in a world with machines and even computers, stretches credulity (even though it still happens in many parts of the world), but Jonas can’t be older because of the extended metaphor of puberty. Children and YA tend to prefer protagonists slightly older than they are, but not all ten-year olds would fully appreciate this.

If you’re an adult contemplating reading this, do so alongside a young adult, whether that be your inner child, or one you raise or look after.


Image: Cover art by Ashley Barlow (Source.)

Quotes

•t“Our community can’t function smoothly if people don’t use precise language.”

•t“Love… a very generalized word, so meaningless that it's become almost obsolete.”

•t“Mirrors were rare in the community; they weren’t forbidden, but there was no real need of them.”

•t“The life where nothing was ever unexpected. Or inconvenient. Or unusual. The life without colour, pain or past.”

•t“The joy of being an individual, special and unique and proud.”

•t“It's the choosing that's important, isn't it?”

•t“After a life of sameness and predictability, he was awed by the surprises that lay beyond each curve of the road.”

Related fiction

•tFor 12 to adult, Ursula Le Guin’s The Ones Who Walked Away from Omelas, which I reviewed HERE.

•tFor adults and introspective older teens, Catherine Lacey’s Pew, which I reviewed HERE.

Soo. A long, long, long time ago, a friend of a friend suggested this and I said no. Because thats how I was (and still kinda am), I would say no to anything I wasn't sure of.

Anyway, about five years later I finally borrowed it from OverDrive.

I loved it! I am a fan of utopian societies that aren't as perfect as they seem. (Like Divergent and Matched).

The story was great and kept me interested til the end.

So that ending...I'm not gonna spoil but the story wasn't resolved. And the next books don't really continue. I am very disappointed. The only reason this didn't make it on my favorite list is because of the unresolved ending.

This book is perhaps the best refutation that I have seen in some time of a common philosophy of pain that is sometimes found in the popular media and in some versions of Buddhism. According to this philosophy, pain is the ultimate evil, and so, to eliminate pain and suffering we must give up desire, and individuality. Self is an illusion, and leads to pain; desire and agency are dangerous, so we should give them up and join the cosmic oneness "enlightenment" to find a utopia without pain. As George Lucas unfortunately has Yoda say to Anakin, "you must give up all that you fear to lose."

And, of course, this is hogwash. Choice, agency, adversity, love, desire, and real pleasure are dangerous, they can lead to pain, but without them life has no purpose. Love could lead to the loss of that which we love, but life without love is empty. Purpose comes from choosing. Purpose comes from overcoming adversity. Yes, you could choose poorly, and that could lead to pain, choice is dangerous, but without it, life has no meaning, it is colorless. Greatness in life is found by overcoming adversity, not by the absence of adversity. Without opposition, there is nothing to overcome, and thus there may be no bad, but there is also no good, there may be no pain, but there is also no joy.

***Spoiler Alert***

The book's ending mirrors this ambiguity. Although some later books answer some of these questions, at the end of this book we are left to wonder: Did he die? Did he live? All we really know is that he was made free, and he made a choice... was it the right one? Did it lead to happiness for him? Did it lead to happiness for the community who will now have his memories? Will they destroy themselves, or will the Giver be able to help them find true purpose and happiness in life? We don't know, because that is the way of all choices. We can't always know the outcomes of our decisions, and therein lies the danger, but the risk is well worth the rewards.