By: Vincent Liu

In The Giver, the main characters are Jonas and The Giver. Some supporting characters are Jonas’ family unit, Asher, Fiona, and Gabe. The conflict is that in Jonas’ community, people have left their memories of feelings, color, snow, sunshine, love, death, and so forth to a single person. However, while these memories make people feel pain, without these memories, the people have no idea what feelings are and do bad things. The problem is solved when Jonas, after learning much during his training, runs away to elsewhere as the memories go back to the people. They remember everything and the Giver helps them through the pain of these memories and everything is restored.

When Jonas was not called at an initiation ceremony, it gives a feeling of curiosity and suspense which makes books great. As proof: “But she had skipped him. He saw the others in the group avert their eyes quickly. He saw a worried look on the face of his group leader.” The author writes in Jonas’ point of view. He tells about Jonas’ nervousness when he wasn’t called. The way the author writes, all the events he creates, are excellent and make The Giver an excellent novel.

Jonas is a very likable character; he is very dynamic and has lots of human-like qualities that make him a good character. Some bad characters might not have very realistic reactions to something. Like: “Jonas felt a terrible concern for the man, suddenly.” Jonas is created expertly by the author. The author gives him lots of emotions like fear, nervousness, and things like that that make him relatable. When characters are not very relatable or do not have emotions it sometimes makes the story a little bit boring. Having good characters in the book are also important to if readers will like the book or not. The characters cannot just be dull and boring.

The author writes in a descriptive and vivid way so that you can visualize everything that happens very clearly. The dialogue and everything are also very realistic. Overall, this book is very sad except for the end which is still sad but happy at the same time. But just because it is sad doesn’t mean it can be a great book; actually, lots of great novels are kind of sad and deep. For example, “He was in a room filled with people, and it was warm, with firelight glowing on the hearth. He could see through a window that outside it was night, and snowing. There were colored lights: red and green and yellow, twinkling from a tree which was, oddly, inside the room. On a table, lighted candles stood in a polished golden holder and cast a soft, flickering glow. He could smell things cooking, and heard soft laughter. A golden haired dog lay sleeping on the floor.” The author is very good at describing and gives very descriptive words that help you visualize everything crystal-clear. Being able to visualize a situation is also an important part of writing, giving details and describing what Jonas hears, sees, feels, smells, and tastes very clearly is very helpful for that to. Details are key. Visualization can help the readers see what the characters are seeing and are an important part of a good book.

This book is expertly written and is a very good story. The author is very descriptive and you can pretty much visualize everything crystal-clear. The story also has an awesome main character who is dynamic meaning he changes throughout the story. This is a great book and I recommend that you read it.