The Giver by Lois Lowry

I remember reading The Giver back in middle school, I think it was 6th grade so it has been almost 10 years. Wow. If you were unaware they are making a movie that will be coming out later this year. This led me to decide to reread a book that I remembered loving when I first read it, but did not remember everything that happened. And boy am I glad I did.

I imagine most of you have read it, but if you haven't or need a refresher, The Giver follows a boy named Jonas who is about to turn 12 in a dystopian world. In this world everything is neat, organized, and in order. Everyone has a place and a job to do. Every year leading up to the age of 12 children in this world have a ceremony where they celebrate some new step in society, ranging from getting a new coat or bike to starting volunteer hours or getting assigned a job for life. Assigned a job for life, pretty daunting, huh? That's what happens at age 12, and what we experience through Jonas. Without giving too much away, Jonas is assigned a very important job as the receiver. It is his job to hold all of the memories of the past for his society; both good and bad. It is through these memories that Jonas begins to question the society he has always known, and his life is changed forever.

For a YA novel (yes, I'm fully aware that I've been reading a lot of these lately, but they're nice summer reads) The Giver poses a lot of interesting questions to the reader that I'm not really sure that I really could contemplate as an awkward, prepubescent tween back in 6th grade. The loss of individuality. Can you have love without knowing loss and pain. And so many more. The Giver is a super quick, easy read, at less than 200 pages, but it stays with you and leaves you thinking. It's also interesting to compare this dystopian world written in the '90s to the dystopian world's of YA literature today, such as The Hunger Games. Why is our youth so entranced by these dystopian societies? Why are we?