Son

This is the story of the mother of the baby from The Giver...confused? If you have read The Giver you won't be, if you have not you should (and the other two books; Gathering Blue and Messanger) before you read this one. I would assume it can stand alone, but it is all the much richer with the background from the other books. Vivid descriptions, raw emotions and hard choices are at the core of this book. The love of a mother can drive even an emotionally deprived girl from the Giver community to embark on a quest of epic proportions.

Learning the fate of many of the series characters and answering some of the questions left at the end of the other books.

Fierce/Lame Inar was my favorite character. He was one of the most genuine of souls.

When Inar described what his life was like with his father. His revelations were unexpected and sad, but he had made peace with his existence.

There were some inconsistencies in the story, enough to question but not enough to ruin it.

I have mixed thoughts on this one. I would give it 2.5 stars if I could.

I greatly appreciated how this wove the disparate strands of The Giver, Gathering Blue, and The Messenger together in a coherent way. (I particularly love The Giver.) Even so, Son stands on its own and is fully accessible to someone who hasn't read Lowry's previous works.

The first and second parts, "Before" and "Between," are hauntingly good (and very reminiscent of The Giver), painting first a dystopian society without emotion or individualism, and then contrasting that with a small but thriving community of outcasts who have created family by choice.

Unfortunately, the third section, "Beyond," takes the tale out of the realm of science fiction or even parable and transforms it into a cartoonish allegory that steals much of the meaning and thoughtfulness from the rest of the work. Suddenly the worlds and woes we've encountered aren't because of good intentions gone bad and ignorance of what could be, or even the almost-mindless tyranny of the few over the many (with, more or less, the complicity of that many), but pure "evil." The final confrontation between Gabe (Gabriel? an angel?) and the Trademaster (the fallen, exiled angel?), with its suggestion that we're willing to give away those parts of ourselves we should treasure most, has all the subtlety of a heavy brick to the head.

I was pleased that the love of a mother for her son, and of that son for his mother - loves that would have been deemed "selfish" and wrong in the world of "Before" - end up saving not only these two individuals, but also their entire community. I only wish this could've been conveyed without trading Lowry's deft touch for a sledgehammer.

Lowry's gift is raising and wrestling with difficult questions, and the first two sections of Son continue in this tradition beautifully. It's unfortunate that she ends this series with somewhat last-minute and trite answers

Ugh, what is this post apocolytical trendiness. Quasi Biblical themes. The narrator was very good, which is why I trudged through this. I suppose the market for this story is Hunger Game fans. I prefer more originality.

I felt this story was a little weaker than Lois Lowry's previous books, but it was wonderful to be reunited with some old friends, while meeting new ones.

The so expected end of the quartet is what I had been looking forward to, and this time Gabe got to be one of the main characters, which was fun to watch his journey, his growth.

Claire and Gabe were my favorite characters, Seeing their story towards one another was what kept me going.
I also loved seeing how Jonas participated in this book. I loved his wisdom and serenity.

She performed it very well. I would enjoy listening to another book narrated by her. My favorite narrator so far was Ron Rifkin, from "The Giver", though.

Not really, although I really enjoyed the end. I was kind of slow going for a while between the first and second parts of this book, but I kept on going because I wanted to see what would happen to Claire and how she would find her son.

I think Lois Lowry could have explored so many things so much more throughout the quartet. I really missed some points of the story where she kind of left a blank. My favorite book is still "The Giver" (the first one of the quartet), which was the reason for me to go look for the rest of the series.
I know some mystery has to be left in the air, but I wish there could have been a proper end to Claire and her son, with more details, but it was left up tp imagination.

This moved a little slow but it was a good wrap up of the series so far.

yes

yes

No I have not. She did a great job as narrator.

Kristen Dunst.

I can't place why this book seemed to be so draggy--I have read all the other three in the series and The Giver was so good, I was hoping for more from this. I think perhaps the author simply chose to write for a 4th grade audience and kept her vocabulary and situations at that level. There was a great deal of over-explanation and repetition that an adult reader would not appreciate, but certainly it would be good for children.
An example would be something like getting introduced to a character and a fact about him, and then in the next chapter, the same fact is repeated in an different way, like within the narrative, "She remembered that he had lost his mother as a child and therefore..." it just really seemed for younger children than her previous books so I was disappointed.

And there is a lot of suspension of disbelief --not because it takes place in an alternate society, but because certain things seem too unlikely even within that society.

The narrator has a sort of odd, cheery tone, particularly in the beginning, and it is clear she is trying to channel the freakishly happy dystopian society, so there is a reason for it, however, it was somewhat annoying to me.

I was also not satisfied with the ending as I think it was resolved very quickly and artifically. I believe Lowry is a good enough writer to be able to have made the ending more complex.

I only bought this book because I had read the other three stories in this series. I would only recommend this book to someone who has read the other three, only to finish the series. Quite honestly this book did nothing for me to wrap up the original story of "The Giver" I think that this book was only written to please those people that pressured Lowery to tell us what happened to Jonas and Gabe. I became increasingly agitated with the progress of the story/ the characters: Claire took seven years to finally talk to someone about her being there; six years to gain the strength to climb a mountain; chapters talking about the climbing of the mountain in what was only a days journey, discussing every notch, nook, and cranny. Nonetheless, I really enjoyed Book One as it was detailing Claire's life, bringing us back to the community we first learned about in "The Giver".

Not impressed. Maybe I'm too dim witted but I have no idea the point of the Trade Master. Plus, we took forever with the journey of Claire and the ending was far to quick and easy.

No.

No. Everyone lived happily ever after. Although, I'd love to learn more about the Community we first learned about, certainly does not need to be anything about the three main charters, but more of its beginnings and future.