This is a short YA tale written, in my opinion, not so much to tell a good or even an interesting story but to (in the same vein as Shirley Jackson's The Lottery and Other Storiesor Ursula Le Guin's The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas )get young students to think...to discuss...to answer "what would I do?" 
 This is the story of a young boy named Jonas who, sometime in our far future, gets picked to "receive" and keep all of his community's memories both good and bad so that they don't have to, so that they can continue to live their lives of uneventful but peaceful blandness. The community has no war, no starvation, no crime but they also have no color, no change in seasons, no happiness, no love. The current Receiver is getting old so he goes about the job of transferring all of the memories to Jonas. During the year of his apprenticeship, Jonas learns some harsh realities about the how and the why his community operates the way it does. He, with the help of the old Receiver, concocts a scheme to do something that has never been done, to run away. This would have the effect of transferring all the memories that were transferred to him back to the community as a whole, something they believe is right and should be done for their own good and happiness. 
 The ending of the book leaves it open as to whether he made the right decision or not, or even to whether he survives or not. It doesn't give a clue either about what becomes of Jonas' community...do they survive being bombarded with all the memories that the Receiver has in the past held for them? There are two more books to the series which probably clear some of these things up. But, really it isn't important that we know. The importance of this book is just in the questions it asks and whether it will get the young readers of this book to ask of themselves, what would I do?