The Giver

By: Lois Lowry

Narrated by: Ron Rifkin

Lois Lowry’s The Giver is the quintessential dystopian novel, followed by its remarkable companions, Gathering Blue, Messenger, and Son.

Jonas's world is perfect. Everything is under control. There is no war or fear of pain. There are no choices. Every person is assigned a role in the community. When Jonas turns 12 he is singled out to receive special training from The Giver. The Giver alone holds the memories of the true pain and pleasure of life. Now, it is time for Jonas to receive the truth. There is no turning back.

Critic reviews

"A powerful and provacative novel.”
-- The New York Times

Excellent story that unfolds before your eyes

What did you like about the performance? What did you dislike?

I liked Ron Rifkin as The Giver but not as Jonas, a little too whiny at times with his voice.

Any additional comments?

The book was amazing at bringing you along for the ride, the most sad part was Jonas seeing what the 'release' was. Really good character development and would recommend to anyone. As with others, the cheesy music was really bad and sometimes made it tough to hear the story.

Absolutely Fabulous

I found this book in the library one day, and couldn't put it down. The Giver is a fascinating story, and Lowry draws you in. Even though the wold is completely foriegn, you understand it completely, and it doesn't confuse you. Soon after finishing it, I devoured the two sequels. Lowry is a wonderful author, and I completely recomend all of her books, especially this one.

Made it much easier to get into the book

I loved the performance because when I started reading the book for school I couldn’t get into it and had trouble actually reading it and than I came on here and listened to it and I actually liked it a lot. Didn’t love the music was distracting and didn’t under stand the end.

Why the music?

I loved the story and the narration was great. I just disliked the periodic music.

Intriguing Vision of a Twisted Future

The Giver offers a vision of the future that is grim and weird, but always intriguing. In books like The Hunger Games or Feed, it is easy to see how current trends lead into the strange future worlds of those stories, but The Giver is less clear. Why family and community life is so regimented and twisted in this world is never fully explained; was there a great war or the rise of a dictator or what? Also, how big is this world -- are we only reading about one city-state? Are the other communities (like the one on the other side of the river) much different than this one? These ommissions don't harm the story, as it remains highly readable and consistent, but they do muddy the waters when it comes to figuring out what inferences we should draw and what moral the story is driving at.

But hey, I loved the story, and I thought the narrator did a superb job. I plan to get the next books in this series.