if you have ever wondered what a dystopian novel really is, here you are: the giver, a story in the style of the classic dystopias like ray bradbury's and george orwell's. it is a bit weird to read this book now, after having read so many of those so-called YA dystopias, because i could pick out all the details of lois lowry's work that these other dystopias borrowed. And there are a lot of them and it was distracting... 
 all in all, i did like the story. it may not have much action, but there are very interesting reflections that helped to build jonas' world without too many descriptions. it was kind of scary to see how the logical explanations about the functioning of this community made sense. 
 i don't know, though, if i want to continue the saga. i did like this book, but it didn't impress me much or arouse my curiosity (only perhaps in the aspects about how this world came to be). perhaps in the future... 
 nevertheless, the giver is a dystopian story in the classical sense without much action, but deep and meaningful thoughts.