Court's Blog

I'm so happy I finally decided to pick The Giver up. Actually, the library I work at started up an employee book club, so I have them to thank.

There may be spoilers ahead...

The Giver is a short read, but a very good read. As a dystopia usually goes, the book starts out with a world seemingly so perfect that you see how a society like that would be appealing. As the book progresses the imperfections of the rules and normalcy that has been established in the Community start to become apparent. As each child in this Community becomes a Twelve they are assigned their job for training. The main character, Jonas, is selected to become the Receiver of Memory. As he takes on the role of Receiver of Memory, which is held by only one person, he starts to see the imperfections and why they're imperfect. An interesting aspect of the book is that Jonas spends most of the time coming to realize the flaws of his community versus him actively standing up against the Community. At the very end he does leave to seek what is 'outside' and you know it'll cause a stir, but it doesn't give you any hint as to whether anything in the community was changed by his leaving.

Overall I really like this book. It's a nice simple read if you're looking for something short, but it still has the thought provocation a dystopia, or any book, needs.