It seems to me The Giver is one of those books you either love or are fairly apathetic about. Unfortunately, the flood of dystopian novels this last decade has moved a lot of people into Camp Apathy. Undeservedly.

Color, joy, music, love, thought, wisdom. These are a few of those things that must disappear if everyone is to be equal.

Jonas has reached the age where jobs are assigned (a dystopian trope because of this book), but his role will be different from anyone else. His is a job nobody else can understand, nobody except the Giver. You see, Jonas is the Receiver, the reason everyone else can live in “sameness,” free of war and pain, inequality, suffering and death. Now it’s his turn to realize the beauty lost from the world all because people found a way to be equal.

Think about this book the next time you complain about how unfair life is. Maybe you’d like life better if everything was equal, but would you give up real, meaningful choice or happiness just to get rid of the pain? If the decision was yours, what would you do?

Go get The Giver, think about it, READ IT!!!