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4.08 AVERAGE
4.08 AVERAGE
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
A great adaptation of The Giver that stays true to the original text. I can see using this with developing readers who have difficulty accessing the original text.
I absolutely love this story. It is so powerful and wonderful and I will never tire of experiencing it in any form. I really loved this adaption but I wish more was done with the acquisition of color throughout the book. Other than that it was really beautiful and solid.
Started may 24 2021 finished may 24 2021
Art style was basic, and it made sense for the bland world but for the colored world it just still looked like an average comic book. A turn into a more euphoric style when he sees color would have been way more striking against the blue greytone world. Also, I hate when graphic novels write too much. The point of a graphic novel is to USE THE DRAWINGS, you don't have to describe the situation the characters are in or how they are feeling, that's what the drawings are for. But, I am being a bit of a hypocrite since I liked another book that didn't fully use the drawings to describe the feelings and setting, yet that book had a good art style to make up for it.
Art style was basic, and it made sense for the bland world but for the colored world it just still looked like an average comic book. A turn into a more euphoric style when he sees color would have been way more striking against the blue greytone world. Also, I hate when graphic novels write too much. The point of a graphic novel is to USE THE DRAWINGS, you don't have to describe the situation the characters are in or how they are feeling, that's what the drawings are for. But, I am being a bit of a hypocrite since I liked another book that didn't fully use the drawings to describe the feelings and setting, yet that book had a good art style to make up for it.
Review originally posted on my blog, Nine Pages.
I am reviewing this book from memory; I don’t have it in front of me as I write this review.
Spoilers.
I am the rare reader for this graphic novel adaptation, vaguely aware—it’s true—of The Giver but who has never read the novel, never seen the movie, never seen the play. I was excited to see this graphic novel adaptation and more excited for the very good excuse to take it home to read (I was to lead a book discussion on the adaptation). So I can’t talk about this adaption as an adaptation.
I can only talk about the graphic novel as a separate, standalone entity—which I realize that it is not, but I am probably one of the few to read it who can talk about its conveyance of the plot and the world’s ideas without past experiences bleeding in to color my reading of this.
In a future, highly regulated society where almost every choice is sacrificed along with feelings of desire and perceptions of color and smell that would announce difference and the necessity of choice, and everything from how to dress to when to learn to ride a bike to a martial partner to a career to children that the parents did not birth is assigned by a committee. In order to live with this regulation, the society sacrifices its history, its memories of the former world, which are thrust on a successive line of Receivers only occasionally consulted by the committee before the committee announces its decisions. Each Receiver alone holds memories of war, pain, risk, joy, love, color, difference bar the brief time when an old Receiver trains the new one. The Receiver is chosen by the committee, but it seems that there is some innate quality that makes one a more apt choice (possibly signified by blue eyes though I am inferring this from what I know of Jonas and the second book’s title, Gathering Blue) Before being chosen, the story’s child protagonist, Jonas, begins to experience the color red.
The absence and emergence for Jonas of color was particularly well-conveyed in this form. The graphic novel begins in white and gray, pale blue, and tan for shadow and minimal shading, but color bleeds into the illustrations as Jonas’ Receives more memories of the past at first palely but ultimately in a deep, livid paint of many colors, and the past is always vivid, although the Giver begins Jonas’ Receiving with a red sled on a hill in the snow, easing him into the transition from non-color to color.
I read this story in a day, and the ambiguous ending had me leaving my nest of blankets to run to my housemate to demand to know what outcome the rest of the series reveals. I have to believe that I became invested in this story then, though I can’t say that I really enjoyed it. I don’t actually think that this is a story that is meant to be enjoyed—or if it is meant to be enjoyed, then it is only in the rebellion of the protagonists against the status quo.
Jonas’ is a hard world to accept, but it is not at all difficult to see how some could laud these sacrifices, could laud this version of peace, for “the greater good,” to borrow a phrase from Grindelwald’s propaganda. The Giver and Jonas decide that the world’s way of life is not worth defending, is in fact worth destroying, bestowing pain and memory on the populace by force, and I think the story would have us support the protagonists’ decision.
But the open ending of the novel, the failure to follow up with the community after Jonas has left and his memories have been dispersed among the community members leaves open the possibility that the decision is wrong, though irreversible. And the consequences of the decision on Jonas and on the toddler Gabe, whom he has taken under his care, are also open ended. They hide and live a life on the run, stumble through exhaustion and dehydration and starvation and cold and heat. They cyclically stumble upon the sight of the first memory that Jonas Receives and Jonas takes yet one more ride on the red sled down the hill towards a village celebrating Christmas.
I think The Giver is meant as a warning. And I think that it is meant to make us question what is most important in life.
In this format, it was a quick but impactful read, raising many questions in the comparison of Jonas’ world to our current society.
What would life be like without the burden of choices? Would we need to sacrifice every choice to be content without choice?
Did Jonas and the Giver make the right choice?
I am reviewing this book from memory; I don’t have it in front of me as I write this review.
Spoilers.
I am the rare reader for this graphic novel adaptation, vaguely aware—it’s true—of The Giver but who has never read the novel, never seen the movie, never seen the play. I was excited to see this graphic novel adaptation and more excited for the very good excuse to take it home to read (I was to lead a book discussion on the adaptation). So I can’t talk about this adaption as an adaptation.
I can only talk about the graphic novel as a separate, standalone entity—which I realize that it is not, but I am probably one of the few to read it who can talk about its conveyance of the plot and the world’s ideas without past experiences bleeding in to color my reading of this.
In a future, highly regulated society where almost every choice is sacrificed along with feelings of desire and perceptions of color and smell that would announce difference and the necessity of choice, and everything from how to dress to when to learn to ride a bike to a martial partner to a career to children that the parents did not birth is assigned by a committee. In order to live with this regulation, the society sacrifices its history, its memories of the former world, which are thrust on a successive line of Receivers only occasionally consulted by the committee before the committee announces its decisions. Each Receiver alone holds memories of war, pain, risk, joy, love, color, difference bar the brief time when an old Receiver trains the new one. The Receiver is chosen by the committee, but it seems that there is some innate quality that makes one a more apt choice (possibly signified by blue eyes though I am inferring this from what I know of Jonas and the second book’s title, Gathering Blue) Before being chosen, the story’s child protagonist, Jonas, begins to experience the color red.
The absence and emergence for Jonas of color was particularly well-conveyed in this form. The graphic novel begins in white and gray, pale blue, and tan for shadow and minimal shading, but color bleeds into the illustrations as Jonas’ Receives more memories of the past at first palely but ultimately in a deep, livid paint of many colors, and the past is always vivid, although the Giver begins Jonas’ Receiving with a red sled on a hill in the snow, easing him into the transition from non-color to color.
I read this story in a day, and the ambiguous ending had me leaving my nest of blankets to run to my housemate to demand to know what outcome the rest of the series reveals. I have to believe that I became invested in this story then, though I can’t say that I really enjoyed it. I don’t actually think that this is a story that is meant to be enjoyed—or if it is meant to be enjoyed, then it is only in the rebellion of the protagonists against the status quo.
Jonas’ is a hard world to accept, but it is not at all difficult to see how some could laud these sacrifices, could laud this version of peace, for “the greater good,” to borrow a phrase from Grindelwald’s propaganda. The Giver and Jonas decide that the world’s way of life is not worth defending, is in fact worth destroying, bestowing pain and memory on the populace by force, and I think the story would have us support the protagonists’ decision.
But the open ending of the novel, the failure to follow up with the community after Jonas has left and his memories have been dispersed among the community members leaves open the possibility that the decision is wrong, though irreversible. And the consequences of the decision on Jonas and on the toddler Gabe, whom he has taken under his care, are also open ended. They hide and live a life on the run, stumble through exhaustion and dehydration and starvation and cold and heat. They cyclically stumble upon the sight of the first memory that Jonas Receives and Jonas takes yet one more ride on the red sled down the hill towards a village celebrating Christmas.
I think The Giver is meant as a warning. And I think that it is meant to make us question what is most important in life.
In this format, it was a quick but impactful read, raising many questions in the comparison of Jonas’ world to our current society.
What would life be like without the burden of choices? Would we need to sacrifice every choice to be content without choice?
Did Jonas and the Giver make the right choice?
A powerful way to consume this story. It hurts more to see the baby being released with both art and words than when I just read the original story. I do recommend reading the original book The Giver first and then reading the graphic novel for an additional layer to understanding this modern classic.
challenging
dark
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This book started out very slow for the first 3/4 of the book. The last 1/4 was interesting. I love the topics and themes of this book, but found myself bored most of the way through the book. There was also a scene in this book that was extremely disturbing. Huge trigger warning for violence against a child. I do want to see what will happen to these two characters, but may just spark note the last few books.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death
A faithful retelling of Lois Lowry's classic novel. The writing of the graphic novel is sometimes a bit heavy on the narration/exposition, but overall it was able to evoke the emotions I had reading the original for the first time, and that was really what I was looking for.
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
tense
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
N/A
One of my all time favorite "children's" novels in graphic novel form. At times the art is wonderful. Other times not so much.