“The Giver” by Lois Lowry

So I am still stuck in my “life-of-humans-in-the-future” phase and I am waiting for my sister to finish Warwick Davis memoirs (which she says are very entertaining, by the way) so we can start a Picture of Dorian Gray (a bit of a change of pace). Since I figured I only have a couple of days left until she is finished I decided to go ahead and read (or re-read, rather) the Giver.

This book was the first book that I read completely on my own. It was the first book that I completed and concluded was my favorite book. Since then I have read several other books that have seemed to have taken its place and the images of the book seemed to have faded with the years. I thought I would re-read it remembering the premise and not remembering much else and figured that I could get though it in a couple of days. I enjoyed it immensely.

So, The Giver. Although most of us have read this book in middle school, I will give a small summary of the premise of the book. The book takes place in a time where equality is cherished above all else. But in order to be truly equal things have been remove from society that would cause inequalities. It is considered rude to draw attention to the differences of others and people have learned to operate without many differences that people use now to define who they are and cherish the life that they have. In The Giver people are assigned, homes, family units, and occupations that they believe that they will enjoy or rather excel at due to their expressed desire and aptitude.

Jonas is a boy that lives within the society and has been assigned the task to become the town’s new Receiver. The Receiver operates with the elders and is keeper of all of the wisdom that the town knows. He is a councilor to the other elders when they face something that they have not experienced before and he uses the memories of the past to advise and guide the elders’ decisions. The Receiver is the keeper of all of the memories of the world. These are all the memories of pain and pleasure, all the tings that would make people and things different in the world; before the community went to Sameness.

This is just one of those books that I am in aw of the creativity of the book. Completely unique and once I read it, it reminded me that differences are important, and things as simple as pleasure and as harsh as pain should not be taken for granted. 

“Ender’s Game” by Orson Scott Card

So after my stint with the hunger games, I was at a loss. I was quickly measuring all other books to the Hunger Games, and realized that Harry Potter was the only other book that gave me that kind of feeling. So in an attempt to quickly get the book out of my head I went over all of the books on my bookshelf, examining all of the books that I have and had not read. My sister found Ender’s Game on my shelf and said that perhaps that would be what I was looking for. And in a way it was.

Ender’s Game takes place in future United States.  Countries have come together to form a world government and regulations have been imposed to enforce population control. Ender was born a third (the last of three children) as a special circumstance to help breed a military genius that is supposed to save the world. The story takes place as they decision is made to take Ender into military training.

In Ender’s military training there are several different classes that he has to take, but that does not matter, all that matters are the games. Ender excels quickly, is put into advanced level training far younger than anyone before him. As officials see the advancement of his training go swimmingly they begin to propel their expectations that he is suppose to be the one to protect the earth from the expected third invasion against the buggers.

I couldn’t decide whether or not I liked the book until the end. It was an easy read, and entertaining enough which kept me going, but it was at the end at I was completely sold on the book and want to read the series. There were several different plot twists and the climax was remarkable. It ended on a small philosophical note that made me want to continue with Ender’s journey’s through the next books.