Jonas lives in a small town with his family. They live in a society that has taken away pain and strife by converting to “Sameness”, a plan that has also eradicated emotional depth from their lives. The society lacks any color, memory, climate, or terrain, all in an effort to preserve structure, order, and a true sense of equality beyond personal individuality.
Jonas is selected to inherit the position of Receiver of Memory, the person who stores all the past memories of the time before Sameness, as there may be times where one must draw upon the wisdom gained from history to aid the community’s decision making.
Jonas struggles with concepts of all the new emotions and things introduced to him: whether they are inherently good, evil, or in between, and whether it is even possible to have one without the other. He is horrified to learn that the euphemistic term “release” really means euthanasia and it is used extensively to preserve the “sameness”, and he takes matters into his own hands.
The Giver felt like a very sparse story; it is a poor attempt at sci-fi, and clumsy and heavy-handed at its moral messaging. The world-building is very rudimentary at best, and no characters other than the primary ones are developed, and even the primary ones are developed only to serve the moral leanings. One cannot form an emotional connection with any of the characters.
While one can appreciate the overall message about the importance of individual differences and human emotion, the book lays it down way too thickly, with only marginal focus on world and character building. The ending also called back a key scene with an unnecessary deux ex machina. On the whole, would not recommend.