The Giver

In The Giver, Lois Lowry creates an emotionless world, where there is no conflict, no love, no pain and where no one ever starves. But when a boy named Jonas is given feelings, affection, and anger, he sets out to change the world. Lois Lowry’s The Giver made me philosophize about the meaning of life in ways that I never would have otherwise, due to the creativity of the world that exists inside The Giver.

Life for Jonas was orderly until the “Ceremony of Twelves,” where he was given the highly honored job as Receiver of Memories. While training for this job, he meets his mentor, The Giver, who helps guide him through the painful and lonely journey of becoming the Receiver of Memories. But once he starts to feel emotion, Jonas sees how much everyone around him is missing the feelings in life. For example one time Jonas says, “If everything’s the same, then there aren’t any choices! I want to wake up in the morning and decide things!” Revelations like this start to cause Jonas to question the boundaries of his existence. How will Jonas react to these changes?

The main theme of The Giver is that the ability to chose is a fundamental human right. Whether it’s deciding which clothes to wear or designing a new way of air travel, choice is always important in life. Additionally, Lois Lowry’s writing style is full of feelings and deep emotions, that allows the reader to experience and connect with the characters’ joy, love, and anger. This writing style adds to the effectiveness of the main idea especially as Jonas is able to feel emotions. For someone who enjoys thinking about philosophy and the meaning of life or for someone who likes to feel deep connections with characters, I would highly recommend this book.

Author ; Lois Lowry

Genre ; Post Apocalypse