The Giver.

My first impression:

If I saw this book on a shelf in the library I'm not gonna lie, would probably have never picked it up in my life unless someone actually told me that it was a great book. When I first started reading The Giver I was actually not at all interested in it especially since the cover of the old grandpa and a tree was not really that appealing to me (p.s. I’m a guy). After I crawled through the first chapter I actually went upstairs to grab an energy bar which could mean one of two things: I was really hungry and needed something to keep me awake, or I just had absolutely no interest in reading this book. I know this may seem a bit harsh but seriously, the whole part of how everybody does what they’re supposed to and somebody being “frightened” just from a plane flying over their head was a complete turn off for me and I knew I was in for a long read knowing that there was probably not going to be much excitement or action in this book (everything just seemed soo…predictable); not to mention the part where they get to the whole “sharing of the emotions and feelings” part -I practically shut down (thus the possible need for the energy bar). Even though the character was a guy and the odd ("dystopian") behaviors were somewhat interesting, I just get the feeling that this book was not meant to target guys...

A few chapters later…

It wasn’t until I got to about the middle of the book when I finally received that “attachment” you get to a book when you know that you’re not going to put it down until you get to that very last page to see what actually happens. When I finally got to the last page I was a bit confused by the vague ending of music suddenly appearing out of –literally– nowhere. So I quickly ruffled through the pages looking for an answer, but later on I found out that Lowry had left that part for our own interpretation allowing us to imagine our own ending. I thought this was actually kind of nice since I just kept imaging Jonas reaching "Who-Ville" (from “How the Grinch Stole Christmas”) and meeting all the “Whos” holding hands and singing around a ginormous Christmas tree. This “Who-Ville scene” actually made me think back to the cover of the book and since this book has a lot to do with “memory” I just thought that maybe it was because of the cover and the tree that made me refer to such a jolly scene. Of course, that’s just a thought and highly unlikely, but it’s just fun to think about since this book kind of opened my eyes to how much a single memory can affect us so much without us even knowing it.