The Giver By Lois Lowry

I discovered “The Giver” for the first time just a week ago. I absolutely loved the book and I wish I read it earlier. The main character of the story, Jonas, lives in a perfectly peaceful futuristic world called the “Sameness”. Jonas lives with his mom, dad a little sister, Lily, who is 8 years old. Jonas’s mom works as an employee at the Department of Justice while his dad’s occupation is called “the Nurturer”. In Jonas society, everything is seemingly perfect: there is no pain, no war, no fear, no justice, no hunger, no color, and no choice. Everything in people’s lives is regulated by the community: the weather, the names, the clothes, even the dreams.
At the age of 12 every person in the community is assigned a special role that he or she is going to perform for the rest of their lives. Therefore, after 12, age in the world of sameness is not considered important anymore, because the kids start training for their future roles. Some of the roles or assignments include: Assistant Director of Recreation, Birth Giver, Nurturer, Lawyer, Caretaker, etc.  But one of the most important roles in the community is the job of the Giver. The Giver holds the memories of the whole world before the world turned to “Sameness” and he passes his memories to the Receiver, who is chosen by the community for being special and having extraordinary abilities. At the Ceremony of Twelve Jonas becomes a Receiver. He is warned that receiving memories would be a very painful process and he would have to prepare himself for loneliness and challenges of the life that lies ahead. But nothing could prepare Jonas for what he is about to discover. When Jonas starts receiving the memories, he begins to experience colors; he learns the feelings of excitement, joy, warmth and love. But he also experiences the most difficult memories such as pain, hunger, suffering, war and despair.  The most disturbing event of his life happens when he witnesses his father “releasing” unwanted twin baby to “Elsewhere”. He realizes that “releasing” means simply killing a human being by giving a lethal injection. That is when he learns that everything he was taught up until this point of his life is a lie.