Bookfanatic reviewed on 5/11/2009

Helpful Score: 2

This cautionary tale is marketed to teens but adults will enjoy the story as well. The Giver is a story set in a future world where there is no poverty, sadness, violence, hunger, deformity, great pain or great joy. There is no music or art or fiction for pleasure. Everyone has a place in society. Everyone is more or less the same. Sameness is greatly valued. Individuality, freedom of choice, variety don't exist. . This is the story of Jonas a 12 year old boy who discovers that there is more to life than what he has been led to believe.

This book isn't very long but its message will stay with you for a long time. It's a book I would like my children to read when they are old enough. After reading this story, I came away with a greater appreciation for what we have in our lives. I had the same reaction to this book as I had to reading Orwell's 1984. As awful as our own world can be at times and as much as we want simplicity and order, what we have now is infinitely preferable to the perfect world depicted in The Giver.

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