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When her father passes away, Evangeline is left with her cold stepmother and kind but distant stepsister, Marisol. Wrought with admirable skill-the emptiness and menace underlying this Utopia emerge step by inexorable step: a richly provocative novel.Īfter praying to a Fate for help, Evangeline discovers the dangerous world of magic. Ill-equipped, Jonas sets out with the baby on a desperate journey whose enigmatic conclusion resonates with allegory: Jonas may be a Christ figure, but the contrasts here with Christian symbols are also intriguing. Horrified, Jonas plots escape to "Elsewhere," a step he believes will return the memories to all the people, but his timing is upset by a decision to release a newchild he has come to love. The process is deeply disturbing for the first time, Jonas learns about ordinary things like color, the sun, snow, and mountains, as well as love, war, and death: the ceremony known as "release" is revealed to be murder. In the event, he is named "Receiver," to replace an Elder with a unique function: holding the community's memories-painful, troubling, or prone to lead (like love) to disorder the Elder ("The Giver") now begins to transfer these memories to Jonas. Father, a "Nurturer," cares for "newchildren" Mother works in the "Department of Justice" but Jonas's admitted talents suggest no particular calling.

In a radical departure from her realistic fiction and comic chronicles of Anastasia, Lowry creates a chilling, tightly controlled future society where all controversy, pain, and choice have been expunged, each childhood year has its privileges and responsibilities, and family members are selected for compatibility.Īs Jonas approaches the "Ceremony of Twelve," he wonders what his adult "Assignment" will be.