Just Finished Reading The Giver by Lois Lowry

The Giver, by Lois Lowry, is a 1993 young adult novel that delves into dystopia and the consequences of social engineering gone awry.  Jonas is a twelve-year old boy living in what on the surface seems like a close-knit, loving community far off into the future, many years following a worldwide calamity.  His family, like the others around him, encourages its members to openly express their emotions and be precise in their thoughts...sounds commendable, but the reasons reveal themselves to be less than benevolent as the story gradually unveils the horror beneath the surface equanimity and stability.  No one selects their own line of work...the Elders perform this function after carefully analyzing each child over the years.  Jonas gets picked to be the Receiver of Memory...and in the process has his eyes opened beyond his wildest expectations.  The community strives for "Sameness" among its members and anyone who deviates too far from that ideal is selected for "Release" into the "Elsewhere"...Jonas learns about what that really means, too.  I thought that the author wrote with a lot of character insight, and some of the story's facets...while sometimes dipping a bit into fantasy...to me seemed to have allegorical connections with our own world of today.  The Giver was made into a 2014 movie starring Jeff Bridges...after finishing the book I read about it: the ending in the film was altered in some ways, but most of it seems true to the original story.  I don't know whether Lois Lowry initially intended to follow up on this book, but eventually over the years she has written three more, all of which are loosely connected into a series.  I'm currently about halfway through book number two, Gathering Blue, which was published in 2000...