Well, shit. As I got to the last 20 or so pages, (view spoiler)[I was hoping for a eucatastrophe, maybe a little deus ex machina mumbo jumbo, but no dice. (hide spoiler)] 
 Still, that doesn't mean this is a bad book. I flew through the last 165 pages. I thought I would read it over the weekend, but I read it all in one night. Sounds like I was rather engaged, and I certainly enjoyed reading it. Then when I got to the back flap, I saw that there are 3 others after it, so now I need to read them. I see that the fate of some of the characters is resolved in one of those, and that's what I crave right now. Course, I just finished it a few minutes ago. Maybe that desire will fade. But why do I have to be out of money right now? Oh well. Oh wait, there's a library down the street... 
 The book certainly isn't without flaws. There are holes galore in it, and several things that don't make sense, especially since they're not explained. There's high science, yet there's also supernatural stuff that can't be explained by any kind of science of which I'm aware. Those could work well together, but in this book it was just confusing. Everything about this world could be explained by advanced science except the memories and their transference. Whose memories were they? How are they passed along without a pensieve, or something? How do they fall back into the community when the receiver moves on? Why must they? The Giver never explains that the memories are another part of the system of control, and that it can all be explained by science, so I'm left to assume it's magic, and it just doesn't work well. It's like ground beef chocolate fondue. I love ground beef. I love chocolate. But they don't complement each other. Same with the science and whatever that memory thing was. Just one paragraph of explanation to link the memory bit to advanced science (or science fiction) could've removed that tremendous distraction. I have no idea what the explanation could be, but surely there's something. 
 The book raises a lot of questions about the morality of sameness for the sake of peace and order versus just being a human being, failings and all. The peace comes at quite a cost, but so does feeling feelings. Which would you choose? 
 This reminds me of the end of an SNES game I really liked called Illusion of Gaia, though I admit it wasn't the greatest. One part of it always stuck out in my mind. Something about a bad comet preventing mankind from evolving, and it staying stuck in the beforetimes when there were no modern machines, and the grass was green, the sky blue, no smog, yadda, yadda, yadda. The main character is granted a glimpse of what the world is supposed to look like, which is something like Earth as we know it in the 1990s. He sees the paved streets, skyscrapers, cities, and is repulsed by all the grayness, but the oracle (or whatever it was) says "but the people like it that way." Good guy destroys bad guy, and we get to the modern world, the end. That's what ran through my mind regarding the utopian/dystopian community. The denizens are missing out on the things that supposedly make life worthwhile, but that's apparently how they want it. Apparently stuff happened in the past that showed it needed to be this way now, and the Giver alone keeps those memories to advise everyone else when important decisions must be made; he shoulders the burden of feeling all the emotions, good and bad, for the entire community. The feelings everyone else feels are but shades compared to real feelings as you and I (and the Giver) understand them. 
 There was also room to amp up a lot of the story. Some of the scenes regarding the emotions being felt pale by what they could be, but this is a young adult story, and stopping short of some horrors and some passions is prudent lest the writer should push her tale into a different demographic. After all, most 6th graders aren't mentally prepared to handle things the way Stephen King or George R. R. Martin would present them. I think this was well done for the target audience. 
 Neat book. I really liked it, but be prepared for disappointment if you like everything neatly explained. This warning applies to both the world in the story and the ending.