The Giver Right now

I first read this book five years ago, and just re-read it. It has a profound and emotional quality---and in parts is a great metaphor for the terrible psychological conformity of our society and world, and for the power and intensity and specialness of one who challenges that conformity by thinking outside the box. That is the strength of the book, and here Lois Lowry shows her creative genius as a writer. So many times she subtly and deftly spun a sentence or two that brought the community she portrayed into the most vivid, realistic life.

But some parts of the book left me questioning---and wanting more. Allow me to list two:

1) Weak ending. Without giving away too much information, I felt it lacked the power and immediacy of the first half of the book. I felt the same way when I read the book five years ago--and part of how I remember the weakness of the ending is that I couldn't remember it at all! I remembered the beginning---plot and themes---so well. The end just gets murky and semi-irrelevant, like she lost her focus.

2) Too much reliance on magic. When the Giver starts transmitting memories to Jonas in magical fashion, the book loses its strength of reality. Lowry did not need to jump into magic to make her point, and I felt this weakened her point---and the potential strength she could have accomplished.

So overall I felt the first half or so of the book was utter genius, and I think little could be added to improve it. Not so with the second half, and especially the last third...Get more detail about The Giver.