Dystopian teen fiction is pretty hot right now, with blockbusters like "The Hunger Games" and "Divergent." But the grandaddy of them all was "The Giver." 
 And long before it became chic, Lois Lowry produced a hauntingly memorable story set in a world where emotions are suppressed, and only "The Giver" has the power to change it. It's a powerful little story -- whether read alone or with the three loose sequels -- with haunting prose and some very strong characters, as well as a message of compassion and acceptance. 
 A young boy named Jonas lives in a rigid, joyless community where people use emotion-deprivation pills and adhere to insanely strict rules -- they have no conflict, poverty or discrimination... but they also have no love, no fun, and no creativity. When Jonas is selected as the Receiver of Memories, he is suddenly flooded with feelings and memories of both the good and the bad from humanity's distant past. 
 And as he comes to realize what his people have lost in their quest to be the same, Jonas begins yearning for the world he knows must exist outside the Community. But his quest becomes a more personal one when he discovers another price for the Community's existence: the "release" of babies that they don't deem good enough. The only one who can change the Community is Jonas. 
 Pretty much all young-adult dystopian fiction owes a debt to the Giver Quartet -- it has young people discovering the cruelty and callousness of their societies, and finding different ways to rebel. But Lowry doesn't shy away from asking the serious questions in her story, such as lack of respect for life (if it's inconvenient or doesn't fit in), kindness, compassion, and the good AND bad roots of what it means to truly live. 
 Lowry's writing is simple but poetic, winding through with some quietly eloquent language ("Behind him, across vast distances of space and time, from the place he had left, he thought he heard music too"). And she fills the story not with bombast and battle, but with tragedy and quiet triumph -- and while we can see that Jonas' actions will have shattering effects, his rebellion against his cold, sterile society is an oddly quiet one. 
 And as this book is the quiet grandfather of current dystopian fiction, Jonas is the quiet ancestor of the Katniss Everdeens of today -- he's an innocent young boy who discovers what being really alive is about, and the joys and horrors that come with it. He's not an action hero, but an everyman... well, everyBOY hero, struggling with the complex questions of what he should do to make his world "right" again. 
 It's also worth noting that while "The Giver" is part of a loose-knit series, it can be appreciated as a standalone novel. However, the ambiguous ending is less ambiguous with the sequels that came some years later, which explain what happened to Jonas and Gabe -- which was rather controversial, since it "ruined" the ending that fans had decided was the real one. 
 "The Giver" is a powerful, haunting little novel, like a quiet song that resonates powerfully in your memory -- and conveys some powerful lessons about human nature and compassion. A true and deserving classic.