Prior to reading its entirety, I already find it interesting based on its summary and the reviews I've been reading from the net. The book focuses on Jonas who lives in a community they call Sameness. Here, everything is in order - from the creation of a family unit, the educational system, the jobs and even deaths. It's a seemingly Utopian world where everything seems to be running fine until Jonas was selected to be the receiver of memories. They are memories of the world's past - color, emotions, animals etc... 
 After learning / receiving these memories from the Giver. Jonas gained the wisdom to really see beyond his eerily orderly community and decided to seek changes. Knowing this is close to impossible, Jonas asked the help of The Giver - but the only way he could create change was to escape from his community. 
 The book was surprisingly fast paced and thoroughly concise. The idea of this utopian society was well dissected. Published several years before The Hunger Games, I could say that there is some sort of similarities or at least a feel of similarities between the two. For one, you could easily compare Sameness to the Capitol and its Districts. Perhaps, it's the strict compliance of its law? The advance technology? And even the distribution of jobs. And what's so profound about the two is the fact that in The Giver, the community was made to forget the memories that they deemed unpleasant or unnecessary whilst in The Hunger Games, people in the districts were always reminded of a revolution against the Capitol's oppression through a cruel game - and its people were deprived of something that they have "the right to" in the past. There is some sort of ironic parallelism between the two that ultimately symbolizes a lot of things that's happening then and now. 
 Incidentally, the book has three accompanying novels entitled Gathering Blue, Messenger and Son which are all set in the same future [eer... time] 
 It was a nice read that will make you eager to learn more, to continue with the journey with Jonas and Gabriel and see what has become of them. 
 I fervently wished that this book would find its way to the schools here in Pampanga (my province) because this could really set out a great deal of discussions amongst our youth here.