The Giver

 Tell me a story... of a dystopian future

The Giver (The Giver #1) by Lois Lowry

Publication date: April 26, 1993

Date read: November 6, 2021 (reread)

Eleven-year-old Jonas lives in a seemingly ideal world of conformity and contentment. At the ceremony of Twelve, each child turning twelve that year is given his or her job assignment - one that has been chosen by the elders and will determine what they do in love from that day on. But Jonas isn’t chosen for just any ordinary job - he is chosen to be the next Receiver of Memory. As Jonas begins to undergo his training, he learns that maybe his community isn’t as idyllic as he once believed. 

Disclaimer: I’m not sure how many times I’ve read this book exactly, but it’s at least a dozen. It’s one of my all-time favorites.

Audiobook note: I’ve read this book in all formats, but twice have done the audiobook. The actor Ron Rifkin does the narration, and he is excellent.

This is one of those books that, if you’re reading it for the first time now, seems a bit derivative, because other authors have been borrowing from books like this ever since. (This is not to say that this is the first dystopian fiction, by far, but it’s one of the big influences.)

I love the simplicity of this book. There’s no over-arching evil plot, no love story, no apocalypse. And there are really only two main characters - Jonas and the Giver. I think both characters are incredibly well-written and realistic. Jonas is only twelve-years-old throughout most of the book, and his actions are very believable for a real kid in this situation. (The older I get, the more it stands out to me how young twelve actually is - something that obviously didn’t strike me when I read it at that same age.)

Speaking of which, the official reading age for this book is about 12 (varies slightly depending on where you look), which is the age I was when I first read it. If you are sharing it with a child, though, I definitely recommend reading it yourself first, because it is a very heavy book, with many possible triggers (see the list of trigger warnings at the end of this post). I think, at 12, some aspects will be too advanced, but overall the basic concept will get through and the reading itself will not be too difficult. 

Overall, I highly recommend this book to anyone - teen or adult - who likes science fiction or dystopian fiction. It’s simply one of the best.

5/5 stars 

Trigger warning: mention of drowning, euthanization, discussion of sexual feelings, death of a newborn, animal death, war