I watched the movie WAY before I ever got the book. I had high expectations going into it because everyone I know said they LOVE this book.

I will say, I couldn't stop myself from drawing comparisons to the movie, but the more I read, the more the movie did NOT give this book any justice. Once of the better dystopian books I have read. ( )

They called her Water Claire. When she washed up on their shore, no one knew that she came from a society where emotions and colors didn't exist.

That she had become a Vessel at age thirteen. That she had carried a Product at age fourteen. That it had been stolen from her body. Claire had a son. But what became of him she never knew. What was his name? Was he even alive? She was supposed to forget him, but that was impossible.

Now Claire will stop at nothing to find her child, even if it means making an unimaginable sacrifice.

I really liked this series. I'm ashamed to have not picked it up earlier. The only downfall that I didn't like was that it had similar circumstances to other distopians I've read. This isn't really an issue because it was published prior to those other books. I liked it and I liked how it all tied together across the series! ( )

I've been making a point to go back and read classics or required books from junior high and high school because I can understand them better AND appreciate them much more than when I was a teenager.

The Giver has always been one of those books where even if I didn't remember details or what I felt when reading it 15 years ago, something about it stuck with me and made me want to read it again to see if I still got the same feeling.

I have read the Giver before (for school-required reading), but never the sequels, and once I made the decision to give the Giver a try this year, I ended up reading through all 4 books in 4 days because I couldn't put them down!

Though there are recurring characters in each book, Lois Lowry does an excellent job of keeping the focus on the current story and the characters it revolves around. The theme of human adaption to survival stays the same throughout the series, with each book showing a different take on what communities will do to survive and how their adaption adjusts with greed and power involved. It was fascinating to see how different groups of people responded, how different the technologies were and how extreme those differences can be even though the communities were close enough to each other to travel and all were living in the same time period.

The only con or downside I can think of for the series is that the fantasy aspect of the story shifted a bit more to the superpower focus of the characters, which took a bit away from the themes of suppressed creativity.

But overall I enjoyed it and wished there was more to this series, even though it ended at a good point.
( )

Lee read book 1, Giver, and really liked it. I offered to purchase the entire series, but he wasn't interested @ this time. MHSL had the entire series and I read all. Highly recommended. ( )