I finally finished The Giver, and I absolutely loved it! The community was an interesting idea, and the idea of sameness was carried out so thoroughly throughout the book. However, a few things caused me to stumble over what I was reading, and just seemed too far-fetched to allow me to completely immerse myself into the novel. One such example was the disappearance of color from their lives. While it was a great idea, I needed a LOT more explanation on how it was possible to remove color without doing some sort of surgery on each individual's eyes. Color is simply a byproduct of light. If he was able to see color in the apple under normal circumstances, then theoretically the circumstances were right to see color. This means the lack of color differentiation would have been the perception of each individual, but not actually a byproduct of the setting.

Also, why would they not be able to hear music? Their hearing organs worked, because they could carry on verbal conversations, and they always heard the speaker announcements. I can understand that the rulers of the community just removed all "music" in the form produced by instruments or singing, but music would not have disappeared. Just the everyday beating of our hearts can become a rhythm for music. They would have had a natural music (the sound of bike tires spinning, the sound of balls bouncing, etc.). So while it would not have been what we call music, it would have been the origination of music in general (natural beats and rhythms).

These are a few of the reasons that I found it difficult to continue quickly through the novel, because I felt myself becoming hung up on issues like the aforementioned. Also, I was personally disappointed with the abrupt ending. I desperately want to know what happened to the boys after they slid down the slope. Did they just release the memories and then die, or did they find homes (since they were only one and thirteen)?

Still, even with these problems, I thoroughly enjoyed the book, and I would immediately read a sequel to this book if one existed.