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3.87 AVERAGE
3.87 AVERAGE
adventurous
emotional
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
adventurous
challenging
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
It didn't pull me in like "The Giver"; probably because I already know what this future is like. However, Claire was relatable for me and I appreciated having a concrete ending with questions from the previous book answered.
This whole series went nowhere I thought it would go. But it was still enjoyable and satisfying.
Oh my goodness. It liked wrapped up everything so nicely and made me cry too... AHH
Love this conclusion to the Giver trilogy. It tied up lose ends and brought the story together. I gasped as some old characters were reintroduced. The different societies...worlds almost, are startling. But not really if we examine our own world.
As I told my students, I waited 20 years for this sequel. The parallels between the two novels were interesting in the beginning, but I think I bought into it a little less at the end. The Part III confused me as to how many of the people were interconnected - having read Gathering Blue and Messenger beforehand - and how meaningful these connections were really. While it did tidy up some aspects of The Giver, I do really wonder about Jonas's community still, and whether or not that ever changed after his flight. I believe there really are criticisms of this old community that come out quite strongly in Son, and it leaves you feeling that free will, choice, and emotions (human nature, really) are something meant to be carefully guarded and cherished - just in case.
LOVED getting an ending to Jonas's story as well as learning more about baby Gabe. Excellent read for those who have either read the series or those who have only read a portion of the series. Lowry does a beautiful job weaving the lives of her characters together into a finale that leaves everyone satisfied. Since it's a companion series, the order you read them in is irrelevant (except The Giver and Son, which have to be read in that order.). Pick one up and enjoy!!
Sigh ... Lowry, why did you keep writing sequels to a book that never needed any sequels?
I found [b:Gathering Blue|12936|Gathering Blue (The Giver, #2)|Lois Lowry|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1388195391s/12936.jpg|2134456] to be somewhat lackluster, [b:Messenger|12930|Messenger (The Giver, #3)|Lois Lowry|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1386924375s/12930.jpg|901952] to be pretty awful ... and for a while, I thought this one might actually be different. Maybe not different enough to redeem the whole series, but at least different enough to justify its existence.
That's because the first section of the book takes place in the same community as [b:The Giver|3636|The Giver (The Giver, #1)|Lois Lowry|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1342493368s/3636.jpg|2543234], and this society remains equally fascinating through another character's experience of it. It follows the experiences of Gabriel's birthmother, Claire, and shows another side of the community that is still familiar to us. For the most part, the worldbuilding in the original book is one of its strongest, most enduring qualities -- few of us will forget our first exposure to it, which was, for many in my generation, our introduction to dystopia --and the first part of this book brings us back to that well-wrought world. This book would have been stronger if Lowry had published it as a novella or short story and scrapped everything that happens after Claire leaves the community ... but that did not happen.
The other communities are far less developed than the original one, and Claire sort of muddles her way through them for a few years, dragging the reader along for a far less interesting ride than what we thought we were in for in the beginning. Also, the book gets a little bit too "magical" without any explanation. I think that's my major bone of contention with this series, the sort of unevenness between the groundedness of Jonas's community, where almost everything makes sense even if it is horrifying, and the random, unexplained "powers" and magical realism running rampant in the rest of the world. (I did reread "The Giver" recently and realize that there is a touch of this unexplained magical realism there as well, but because it is a less prominent part of the story, it's less irritating.) Also, it wasn't just the random magical-ish things that lacked explanation -- there were also major plot points that didn't seem to make sense.
It also felt like the book "tried too hard" to tie together all the sequels that shouldn't have been written in the first place, and the connections just weren't strong enough to make wading through all the separate stories that got us to that point worth it. I have a lot of respect for Lowry as a writer, and I wish she hadn't wasted so much of her time and mine spinning additional stories that never really needed to be told.
I found [b:Gathering Blue|12936|Gathering Blue (The Giver, #2)|Lois Lowry|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1388195391s/12936.jpg|2134456] to be somewhat lackluster, [b:Messenger|12930|Messenger (The Giver, #3)|Lois Lowry|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1386924375s/12930.jpg|901952] to be pretty awful ... and for a while, I thought this one might actually be different. Maybe not different enough to redeem the whole series, but at least different enough to justify its existence.
That's because the first section of the book takes place in the same community as [b:The Giver|3636|The Giver (The Giver, #1)|Lois Lowry|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1342493368s/3636.jpg|2543234], and this society remains equally fascinating through another character's experience of it. It follows the experiences of Gabriel's birthmother, Claire, and shows another side of the community that is still familiar to us. For the most part, the worldbuilding in the original book is one of its strongest, most enduring qualities -- few of us will forget our first exposure to it, which was, for many in my generation, our introduction to dystopia --and the first part of this book brings us back to that well-wrought world. This book would have been stronger if Lowry had published it as a novella or short story and scrapped everything that happens after Claire leaves the community ... but that did not happen.
The other communities are far less developed than the original one, and Claire sort of muddles her way through them for a few years, dragging the reader along for a far less interesting ride than what we thought we were in for in the beginning. Also, the book gets a little bit too "magical" without any explanation. I think that's my major bone of contention with this series, the sort of unevenness between the groundedness of Jonas's community, where almost everything makes sense even if it is horrifying, and the random, unexplained "powers" and magical realism running rampant in the rest of the world. (I did reread "The Giver" recently and realize that there is a touch of this unexplained magical realism there as well, but because it is a less prominent part of the story, it's less irritating.) Also, it wasn't just the random magical-ish things that lacked explanation -- there were also major plot points that didn't seem to make sense.
Spoiler
Like, why was it imperative that Gabriel go after the Trademaster? Why was that designated his "job" all of a sudden? Jonas was so insistent upon it, but it seemed mostly just a convenient way to resolve the story, or to make it seem like the various threads were meant to tie together all along when really it felt like they were still unraveling.It also felt like the book "tried too hard" to tie together all the sequels that shouldn't have been written in the first place, and the connections just weren't strong enough to make wading through all the separate stories that got us to that point worth it. I have a lot of respect for Lowry as a writer, and I wish she hadn't wasted so much of her time and mine spinning additional stories that never really needed to be told.