Goodreads synopsis: Twelve-year-old Jonas lives in a seemingly ideal world. Not until he is given his life assignment as the Receiver does he begin to understand the dark secrets behind this fragile community.
My rating: 5 stars.
Content warnings: Light PG-13. Brief but painful images of injuries, loss, and war.
Thoughts: We learn from our past, and there's a reason stories and history are so important to our human experience. And I'm not sure any book could have demonstrated this better than The Giver does.
Even if it is labeled as a "kid's book" I think it's an important story for adults as well. Maybe even more so.
The book never comes out and says it, but it shows so powerfully how we can never really have true happiness without some level of pain. And how important our pain and past experiences can be in a true, deep life experience.
But it still recognizes how often the sterile, pain-free life of the community can seem like the best option. It can even feel like it if it were ever possible to be enacted.
It doesn't shy away from the pain and difficulty life presents. But it doesn't pretend they don't hurt either. Without talking down to the audience, the book presents pain and joy in ways that don't pretend to have all the answers, but it doesn't leave you hopeless either.
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