I read this book for my first time in grade 7 and because the movie is coming out soon, I decided to read it again. I remember loving this book even though it was an assigned read but I found that I didn't really appreciate its true beauty until I read it again. This book was much shorter than I remembered and I finished it in less than 2 hours because I couldn't put it down. Overall I would rate it a 4 out of 5. 
 This book was one of those books with an amazing and intriguing concept but I felt that it didn't deliver thoroughly, it ended way to abruptly and there were too many unanswered questions for me to really enjoy it. I respected Lois Lowry's concept of this society were people were all the same. This 'sameness' made war, fighting, anger, fear and all the terrible things in life disappear. It made everything peaceful. It also made things very boring. It's great that they can make negative things go away, but the positive things go away too. Color, music, happiness, desire, and love all don't exist in this community that Lowry created. I was actually supportive of this community at first. While Jonas was receiving all these memories of terrible things in this world, I was remembering them with him. It made me agree that if I were living in that world, I wouldn't mind never having to feel pain. I wouldn't mind never feeling hunger, being worried about money or never having any war or conflict. I wouldn't mind not picking my spouse or occupation because I know that the choice of the Elders would be really accurate. 
 While I was reading I really wanted to know what "released" actually meant. The funny part was that I thought released meant getting to escape into the real world and I was shocked to find out that people who were slightly unusual in this society actually get killed instead. I thought that was really unfair of Lowry to add to the story. It forced the reader to answer the question they asked themselves the entire novel, whether or not this 'community' system is actually a good idea. No one would want a community that kills people for no reason at all. It really ruined the concept for me. 
 I'm a sucker for happy endings but in this novel I'm shocked to say that I actually didn't want one. I wanted this to be more of a classic novel, to be more realistic. It's great that Jonas and Gabriel escaped and found the real world but it just left a bunch of more unanswered questions. Why would some people in the world see only black and white? Why does the weather and landscape disappear in some parts of the world? When Jonas's sister said a group of kids visited from another community were the other kids normal people? What happened to the giver and the rest of the citizens after Jonas left? Did they get his released memories? It's all so weird to me. I would rather find out more of the concept of this community (and the history behind it) than see Jonas escaping onto the exact same hill he saw in his first memory. I hate saying this but that was a little cheesy. It was really sweet that he arrived during Christmas though. 
 All of this makes me sound like I didn't enjoy that novel and I really did enjoy it, I just loved it so much that I was disappointed about the ending and how short the book was.