Paperspine Blog

Hey everybody! I was thrilled when Paperspine said that I could blog for them about young adult fiction. There are so many reasons that I enjoy reading YA fiction. I think that part of is nostalgia, especially if they’re books that I read when I was young. For instance, when I read the Little House books, I’m transported back to being young myself, curled up on the couch by my mother’s fireplace, reading those books (they were perfect “the power’s gone out” reading material). I thought that some of the things they did in those books were so neat and my imagination ran wild with how I could do things Laura did. It was fascinating to me, because it was such a different life than I led.

Another reason, and perhaps the biggest reason I still love to read YA, is that I LOVE a good story. And while regular fiction can accomplish that, over and over again I find that I can consistently find good stories in the young adult genre. They’re not so concerned with being literary and with trying to make you think as they are with being enjoyable. That’s not to say that there’s no thought involved or nothing literary in the YA genre. There is, but by necessity, the story must be good first because while you often find adults who read a specific book to say they’re well-read, the younger audience reads because it is enjoyable. Even if forced to read by parents or teachers, most kids and teenagers won’t be able to get all the way through a book if it isn’t, above all else, enjoyable. And that’s why I read. I don’t read to have read. No. I read because I want to have an enjoyable experience. Young adult fiction gives me that more consistently than any other genre I’ve read. Yes, I still read “adult” fiction, but my first love in reading will always be the young adult genre.

I have just finished reading The Giver by Lois Lowry. This is not the first time I have read this book (and I doubt that it will be my last) but every time I read it, I catch something new, something that makes me love the book just a little bit more. Lowry is one of my favorite authors of young adult fiction and this book is one of my favorites by her. This book presents a very unsettling picture of what can happen if mankind ever tried to be “perfect”.

The Giver is the story of a young boy named Jonas, who lives in a society that has managed to eliminate most of the things that cause us problems. There is no war, no poverty, and no illness. People are monitored from a very young age to find out what career path will be best for them. Spouses are carefully matched and assigned. The community has moved to Sameness: all the girls of a certain age wear their hair in a certain style with ribbons tied the same way, children receive bicycles at the same age, and must reach a certain age before being allowed to wear jackets that close in the front rather than the back.

The community seems happy with this arrangement, as does Jonas – until he turns 12 and is selected to become Receiver of Memories. In Jonas’s community, there is only one Receiver, who is trained by the former Receiver, who now calls himself the Giver. Jonas slowly is given memories of the time before Sameness. It is the Receiver who can warn the community when they are about to make a mistake in changing a law or how to deal with a problem, as the Receiver has access to all of these memories. But only the Receiver (and the Giver) can truly feel any emotions or make decisions for themselves. Are the benefits of Sameness worth the costs? And, if not, can Jonas and the Giver change things?

This book is a fantastic read. Your heart will reach out to Jonas, struggling because the world around him suddenly seems very shallow, to the Giver, who has been through so much pain, and to little Gabriel, the baby the comes to live with Jonas’s family in the hopes that he will mature enough to keep from being Released from the community.

And if you enjoy this book, be sure to check out Gathering Blue and Messenger. Gathering Blue is a companion to this book and Messenger ties the two books, involving Jonas as well as characters from Gathering Blue.

- Misa

Other reviews of this book:

Passion for the Page