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dostojevskijs 's review for:
The Giver Quartet
by Lois Lowry
The Giver Quartet is a series of short stories about different dystopian societies. It begins with Jonas who lives in a society where pain and suffering is no longer known. But the price paid for a life without pain is a life without love, a life without happiness. Everyone in the community is a follower of Sameness; and they live by many strict rules. Precision of language is important. It doesn't do to use words with abstract definitions; if the definition is too broad, how will you ever understand the meaning behind the spoken word?
In December, Jonas becomes a Twelve. It's the start of their last days as a child; it'll be the start of the rest of his life. At the ceremony, Twelves are assigned a job to keep for the rest of their lives. There's caretakers, and teachers and any title that helps keep the community going like it always has. But Jonas isn't assigned anything like that. No, Jonas is to be the new Receiver of Memory.
His job is to carry all the memories from the past. To keep the community without pain; it's his job to carry the bad memories of pain and hurt. But he soon realises there's so much more to it. There's good memories too. Memories of what a snowflake feels on your nose, or what it is like to love. It's a feeling hard to forget – and he has a hard time letting go of the thought that there must be more to life than Sameness.
Oh, wow. The first short story, The Giver, completely blew me away. It hit me quite hard on a personal level. It was just as beautiful and empowering as it was sad. I don't necessarily agree with the whole ”if you don't know sadness, you can't know happiness” point of view but the story definitely made me think my own experiences over; both good and bad. I feel like the point is that all the memories and experiences make us who we are.
I didn't like the second story as much. I feel like I would've liked it if it hadn't dragged out the beginning so much – I would've loved it not to end as soon as it did but rather that the first half became more like the first half of the first half. It was slow and ended just as it got interesting. The same more or less goes for the third one; it feels forced and unnecessary. Like it was mostly done to link The Giver and Gathering Blue together.
But the fourth one? I do have some issues with what parts the author decided to give more pages but over all, the plot is just as beautiful and painful as The Giver. I'm sad it's last in the series because I have a feeling the quality of Gathering Blue and The Messenger will cause a lot of people to give up reading; which means they are missing out big time. It was definitely worth to get through those stories to get to this one. It's going to be hard to ever forget it.
In December, Jonas becomes a Twelve. It's the start of their last days as a child; it'll be the start of the rest of his life. At the ceremony, Twelves are assigned a job to keep for the rest of their lives. There's caretakers, and teachers and any title that helps keep the community going like it always has. But Jonas isn't assigned anything like that. No, Jonas is to be the new Receiver of Memory.
His job is to carry all the memories from the past. To keep the community without pain; it's his job to carry the bad memories of pain and hurt. But he soon realises there's so much more to it. There's good memories too. Memories of what a snowflake feels on your nose, or what it is like to love. It's a feeling hard to forget – and he has a hard time letting go of the thought that there must be more to life than Sameness.
Oh, wow. The first short story, The Giver, completely blew me away. It hit me quite hard on a personal level. It was just as beautiful and empowering as it was sad. I don't necessarily agree with the whole ”if you don't know sadness, you can't know happiness” point of view but the story definitely made me think my own experiences over; both good and bad. I feel like the point is that all the memories and experiences make us who we are.
I didn't like the second story as much. I feel like I would've liked it if it hadn't dragged out the beginning so much – I would've loved it not to end as soon as it did but rather that the first half became more like the first half of the first half. It was slow and ended just as it got interesting. The same more or less goes for the third one; it feels forced and unnecessary. Like it was mostly done to link The Giver and Gathering Blue together.
But the fourth one? I do have some issues with what parts the author decided to give more pages but over all, the plot is just as beautiful and painful as The Giver. I'm sad it's last in the series because I have a feeling the quality of Gathering Blue and The Messenger will cause a lot of people to give up reading; which means they are missing out big time. It was definitely worth to get through those stories to get to this one. It's going to be hard to ever forget it.