So I finally made it through the 4 books that are in the Giver Quartet written by Lois Lowry.
The first book was written in 1993 and the way it ends it doesn't appear as though the next 3 books were actually in the plan to be written at all. They are all dystopian books told with different heroes or heroines (let's just say protagonists) but they all take place during a similar timeline but just in different parts of the same area of what is presumed to be Earth and how each section of society that we discover has gone about handling the apocalypse - which is not ever explained in any big sense - in very different ways.
Some are quite authoritarian and advanced, others have absolute freedom and have suffered a near complete absence of technology, and others have a mix of both that seem to do the best. It's all a matter of perspective and I don't think that Lowry is trying to convince any of the readers of any sort of political ideology, and that is good.
Considered for the most part as children's books, these are very easy to read but I will be honest and say that the difference in quality goes downhill a great deal after the first one.
There's Nadi posing with my 2nd generation Kindle, which has been in my possession for over 20 years. I don't know if they still make Kindles with this level of quality, but other than a broken "home" button that results in me needing to hard reset it after a finish a book in order to get to another one, it functions exactly like it did on day one. Perhaps no one got the planned obsolescence memo back then.
Anyway, the books are all about 150 pages in total if it was a real book and they are all page turners that skip a lot of the flowery and unnecessary detail that so many other authors pad their books with in order to make them longer. I do not like when authors do this and while yes, I get it, you are a famous writer but I am definitely looking at you, Stephen King.
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Son is the final book in this series and honestly, it was time to wrap it up and I think she did so in the best way that she possibly could. If you look above you will see that "The Giver" has an award medal on it and it definitely deserves that. The books that follow I would say that they are entertaining but certainly now award-worthy. In a way they kind of feel like they were "pressure-writes" in that Lowry was told by the publisher that if she makes these books we can sell them, and that is exactly what they did. All of the books are "kind of" good but only one of them really stands out as being amazing.
From "Gathering Blue" to "Son" I kind of got the feeling like Lowry didn't really know where to take the story and came up with an idea about a central character and then built the societal story around that one person rather than have a bunch of characters like she did in The Giver who was so profound that he kind of became the main character rather than it being forced upon us
Also, while there are hints of magical powers in "The Giver" The other books start to take on an almost "Harry Potter" lite sort of feel to them and a great deal of the magic seems forced and a bit stupid. This was meant to be a dystopian tale, not a budget Harry Potter series.
If I was to suggest any of these books it would definitely be The Giver which is just outstanding. The remaining 3 are easy to read but they kind of go off the rails and at times seem very contrarian to what you have already read, and at times they accidentally make certain aspects of previous books seem impossible by how the story ends up weaving the books together. Like I said, the last 3 books seemed forced whereas I fee *The Giver" was a labor of love for author Lois Lowry.
All of them are likely available in every single library in North America so you won't even have to pay a single dollar to give them a shot. You can buy The Giver for about $13 and it is free on Kindle Unlimited, which must be a Kindle subscription program that I am unaware of.
I recommend that you really dig into the first one, and if it truly floats your boat, maybe dig into the others. If you do like the first one but don't know if you are in for another 450 pages, I believe that "Son" would be the 2nd best of the 4 and it also uses a lot of the same characters and settings. The two in the middle I believe have a lot of filler and use entirely too much in the way of magical powers - most of which are not explained very well and are used out of nowhere.
All in all, these are all really easy to read and accessible and I therefore recommend all of them.
We still have our first kindle. It was one of the first ones that had the keyboard on it in the bottom half I think. My wife has since gotten a much newer one. I tend to just use my phone but she has been buying real books for me lately off thrift books. I just finished the fourth book in the Orphan X series.
actual books would be preferable but well, you already know
For sure!
Glad to see your doggo still looks healthy and happy, though I feel like you should have also mentioned her clear murder victim laying underneath the kindle.
Also, that hard reset thing would drive me absolutely fucking bonkers. Godspeed to you on having the patience for that, I guess, lol.
at first I was really annoyed about the reset button but I find that it encourages me to actually stick with a book even if it not exactly what I am looking for. You can't just keep bouncing in and out of books like you do videogames. well, I can't anyway.
I mean, I suppose that's good if your goal is just to finish every book you start to read. I also definitely can't really just jump from one book to another either. Though, at the same time if I'm not really vibing with a book I'm more than happy to drop it since there's an insane amount of books out there that I'd like to try and read at some point. I just enjoy hyper fixating on a novel and getting lost in it for like 9 hours without realizing it, and then slowly realizing I've totally fucked myself over because it's 5am and I have to be up in 4 hours.
That's what I call a good timeee.
I read The Giver twice, once in school and again as an adult. Solid story, really enjoyed it. I Had no idea the author came out with three more, but judging by your review I probably won't be getting around to them anytime soon. Nadi is looking well and cute as always. Its really cool you can still use the OG Kindle, they really did make technology better back in the early days.
the other 3 are good but it's almost like Lois intentionally made them themeatically very different on purpose. Part of what was so fun about the first one was how well the dystopian new world was designed and how almost all the people in the new world had no idea what the old world was even like and how they didn't mind... you can't miss what you never had.
Yes, I found that to be a great element to the storytelling. The old world becomes so important to the main protagonist, but everyone else around him could care less. It really is a perfect example of "ignorance is bliss"
The way "Son" brings together threads from the whole series really adds depth to the story. I liked seeing familiar characters from new perspectives and how everything comes full circle. It’s a touching end that left me thinking about the themes of love and sacrifice.
Yes, without spoiling for others the main thing I didn't like was the magical guy at the top of the tower that can grant any wish that you want in exchange for something else. I felt like the overall story was better back when the Giver was really the only person with any magic and that was just very basic memory magic.... if that makes any sense.
But the books were all very good and super readable. I regret nothing
Makes sense the quality drops off after the first book as that would have taken the most time and thought to put pen to paper. I think once you have written one then the rest would just be easier to complete as you have already done it and know maybe you spent too much effort on the first book. My brother has been researching and writing his book for 5 years already so the time it takes is crazy.
I can't even imagine the hardship that goes into making a first book. How about people like JK Rowling who didn't even know it was a talent that she had and just kind of accidentally discovered it? That's pretty awesome too
Some people never find their talents as we must all have one or two hidden away yet to be discovered. You just can't be terrible at everything you do.