I finally finished my re-read of The Giver. It's been a long time since I've read it, and I'm glad I decided to read it again. 
 The world Lowry created is an interesting one. Everything is very precise and very controlled- to the point that there is no color, and there are no choices. Everything seems perfect, and then you start to realize that things are not as perfect as they seem. One person with the burden of all the memories, in the history of ever? I certainly wouldn't want that. 
 When the previous receiver fails, and everyone receives the memories she received, they are unable to handle it. That is really interesting, because you realize they've done everything everything they can to get rid of emotional pain. They're just not able to handle it, which is really interesting. 
 We seriously need to talk about release for a minute. It went over my head when I read it as a kid. It wasn't until sometime in the last couple years or so that I realized what release really was. It was the hardest scene to read this time around, knowing that it was the society's way of letting people go. I think this time around, I had a much better understanding of release. So reading it as an adult was really weird but also really cool. 
 It's a pretty simple and straightfoward story, and yet there's a lot there. I really like that the ending was ambiguous, because you get to think about how things might have turned out for Jonas and Gabe. 
 I give it a 4 out of 5. It held up pretty well, and it's a pretty good story.