I loved this book as a child. It made me fall in love with reading. I loved this book in college,  when I reread it.
I continue to love this book, but, after reading the other books in the series, written many years later, I am now slightly annoyed by the author because those stories ruin a piece of this book. 

Should be mandatory read for all!

The audiobook was really good especially as someone who has read this book previously. I loved the different voices although Jonas' voice was sometimes annoying. I think this is a great example of good dystopian storytelling and the length of it lends itself to those like me who have a hard time with sci-fi. Excited to finally read the rest of the series!

I picked up this book as a BookClub read, and it seemed that many of the other readers had read this book in school. I can see why a teacher might want to share this book with a teen audience. It is a pretty good science-fiction Dystopian story. When I first cracked the book I felt like it had a certain similarity to Logan's Run in the sense of quiet population control and comfortable systems that people would not question.

My only issue with the story is that the pace suffers a little. I feel like the story creates a relatable town, that makes sense, and the whole suggestion of the story is that as young people we should be critical of the systems of control in our communities and lives. There are some slightly disturbing parts of the story that might come as a shock to sensitive readers, but this is often the way with Dystopian novels.

This is the first of a series of novels and functions just fine as a standalone.

The Giver is about a society that has strict rules and prefers 'sameness' over 'difference' and 'change'. Everything needs to be the same and everything gets assigned to you. Your professon, love interested even your children gets assigned to you. There is no freedom of choice as there is also no freedom of expression. Jonas receives memories from the Giver that no one else's holds.

At first I was excited to read this book, the premise sounded interesting and I saw that quite a lot have read this book. I liked many things, for instance how The Giver and Jonas formed a relationship that was characterised by kidness and understanding. They bonded through these memories they shared. Another thing that was interesting to see was how Jonas reacted to the memories he received. The way his mind and behaviour changed. 
I also liked how the new things (like seeing beyond) was described to us readers, giving the feeling like we experienced it for the first time as well. While I read about the things that Jonas and also the rest of the people didn't know of as they didn't have this memory and therefore knowledge I was shocked. I couldn't imagine how one could lose that much. While reading I learnt how selfish the society was to burden the Giver with all memories and not wanting to have these memories as well. That made the Giver feel very lonely, as he had no one to share his feelings about. I felt sad for him, especially as to how his behaviour when he was sad was described.

At some moments the writing style delivered the feeling one should feel while reading it good enough, but I was bothered how the book lacked any depth. The premise of this book made me think that there will be a lot of feelings, especially for the reader while reading. This didn't happen and in general I felt after I finished now this book, as if something was missing. I wished there would have been more to it, especially as the ending felt rushed too. The ending left me dissatisfied, I expected something else and I think that it was the wrong choice to end this book like this. 
+ the plot twists weren't shocking to me, as they were hinted on multiple times before they were revealed.

Even though the concept/idea behind this book had so much potential it wasn't executed. The writing style was beautiful and in some moments I did feel sad (mainly for the Giver), but I didn't enjoy it as much as I hoped for.

I just finished re-reading this book after I read it when I was maybe 11 or 12? 
It's good book with a unique idea and setting that is really timeless. 
This book is very interesting with is dialogue about emotion, pain and choice in feeling. It talks about how pain, sadness and anger - all those 'bad' emotions - and happiness, love and joy, - all the 'good' emotions - are intertwined and cannot be separated. There is no way to feel only the 'good' or 'bad' emotions. If you have emotions, you have to feel both. 
The people in this community, they don't feel anything, their emotions are dulled, their relationships unfulfilling, but they have no way of knowing that, because they have nothing to compare it to. 
For everyone, emotion is something that is so core to us, it is our drive and gives us reasoning and motivation to do things. This community don't have that, and it's very interesting to compare them and the way they live to modern society. 
Also brought up is choice. People in this society don't have serious choices. They can't choose their jobs, or their spouses or even their children. Everything is given to them, and they take what they get. Jonas chooses to have choice, but this comes at the cost of the stability, peacefulness and ease of his previous life. This fits alongside modern discussions of free will and responsibility of actions. 
Some things I think this book could improve on is length. This book is rather short, and if it was longer, characters could be more fleshed out and developed. Characters like Rosemary, who we barely learn about, could be expanded on, and we could see the actual impact of her actions. 
Jonas needs more time to decide he wants to defy the Elders and change the life the people of the community live. When I read about him deciding to do that, it didn't make sense to me, as he didn't really seem to have much reason or motivation to do it. 
But that is my only real issue with this book. Other than that, this book is a timeless classic that I would definitely recommend.