octavia_cade 's review for:

The Giver: Graphic Novel by Lois Lowry

3.0

dark reflective medium-paced

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I read the novel of this back in 2017, I think, and I remember liking it, albeit with reservations. I thought the whole smiling fascism aspect of it was very well done, and I appreciated that the story didn't shy away from the genuinely horrific costs of living in this apparent utopia. It stuck at only three stars for me, however, because (with the best will in the world) I just didn't find the worldbuilding convincing, and it's the same with this very competent adaptation. It's a likeable graphic novel, but I can't get past things like Jonas' first experience of sunshine. The story can gabble on about climate control all it wants, but plants don't grow without photosynthesis, so how is this ecology even surviving? And the total dissolution of families when they stop living together... you leave home, as a young adult, and you just are never that bothered about seeing your parents again? Some dystopias manage this sort of thing very well. Orwell's fascist government of Nineteen Eighty-Four, for instance, has always struck me as horribly convincing in its attempts to sever the natural affection between parents and children.

The Giver just doesn't do the same. I'm mildly emotionally affected, but that's a response that lasts only as long as I can refrain from actually thinking about how this world holds together. I mean, I'm going to read the rest of them now, five years after starting the series, because I dislike not finishing series, but still. The graphic novel has at least allowed me to remind myself of the plot, so I'm glad I stumbled across it in the local library.