After a run of YA fiction that included Hunger Games,
Divergent and Legend series, I was suffering
a bit of dystopian YA fiction fatigue and decided to take a break.
The break has not lasted too long as I now find myself
engrossed in Lois Lowry’s YA series the Giver
quartet:
- The Giver (1993)
- Gathering Blue (2000)
- Messenger (2004)
- Son (2012)
I got interested in the books after seeing the preview of the film
(coming out in August 2014). The cast is stellar with Meryl Streep, Jeff
Bridges and Alexander Skarsgard and the story was intriguing.
The first book in the series, The Giver, introduces us to a
world that on the surface seems to be a utopia – life is ordered, comfortable and everyone is
assigned a role to play. But through the
main character of Jonas, a twelve year old boy who is assigned to become a ‘Receiver
of Memory’, that novel slowly peels away
the layers of this utopia to reveal a brutal reality.
The books are short, sharp and gripping. Lowry is a master
story teller and the writing style reminds me a lot of Patrick Ness’s brilliant Chaos Walking
Series.
Both these series are “Young Adult”, but with an emphasis on
the adult. Indeed, I can’t help but
compare the quality of writing, ideas and storyteller in the Giver quartet and
the more recent examples of this genre: Divergent, Legend series.
There is no doubt that books like Divergent are
entertaining, but that’s really it. What makes both Ness and Lowry’s books stand
out is their great depth. These books make you think afterwards about the
world around you and the nature of humans to repeat our own history.
I’ve just finished the third book, Messenger, which incorporated really interesting elements of fairy tale and fable genre like the evil enchanted forest. I also loved how the
characters grow and develop 'off stage', we only meet Jonas again in the third book.
I'm looking forward to the last book and finding out what happens.
Here's the trailer for the movie:
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