Son (The Giver, #4) in Pop Sugar's Annual Ultimate Reading Challenge

Sep 30, 2012 Madicken added it

Shelves: opl

This review is a work in progress, because I'm quite certain I'm not going to finish writing it today.

Overall, I thought that Son was a really great stand-alone novel. After some consideration, I decided not to reread The Giver, Gathering Blue and Messenger before starting Son. I was really curious about how Lowry would remind me of each novel, while also giving me enough detail as a reader so that I could enjoy Son on its own.

As a conclusion to The Giver, I felt like Son did everything I had This review is a work in progress, because I'm quite certain I'm not going to finish writing it today.

Overall, I thought that Son was a really great stand-alone novel. After some consideration, I decided not to reread The Giver, Gathering Blue and Messenger before starting Son. I was really curious about how Lowry would remind me of each novel, while also giving me enough detail as a reader so that I could enjoy Son on its own.

As a conclusion to The Giver, I felt like Son did everything I had hoped that it would. It gave me more detail on Claire, Jonas, and Gabriel's community (which I had always wanted. I'm a sucker for world-building), and it also brought all three of the previous novels together. It was beautifully written, and as I recalled from The Giver, incredibly serious for a children's book. I loved The Giver, and I think that Son was my next favorite in the series.

Issues:
I really recall how profoundly shocked I was in elementary/middle school when I realized that Jonas first saw color around year 12. I could understand--while it is a terrifying idea--that a community might suppress emotion to achieve some sort of peace and contentment. The idea of suppressing color, though, seemed so completely foreign that I had no idea how to react. Keeping this in mind, I was really shocked when I saw Claire describe the "glistening pink [fish] eggs" under "dim red lights" on page 23. I'm not really sure if this was intentional or not, but I would venture to guess that it wasn't, as Claire "learned" color later in the novel.

I noticed a lot of reviews complaining about the length of the novel, specifically how long the 'between' segment of the book lasted. Personally, I felt this was justified. As a reader, I felt that this segment really enforced the physical, emotional, and mental challenges that Claire had to continue overcoming to find her son. I don't think any of us can really fathom the magnitude of a parent's love for their child, but I think that this segment was particularly important in at least attempting to quantify it. That said, I did feel like the pacing of the novel was a bit awkward. 'Before' and 'Between' both seem to have a flow rate like a meandering stream, but then 'Beyond' is like a class-5 whitewater rapid. I think that this was intentional on Lowry's part--perhaps underlining how slow and painful time can pass without a child, and how fleeting it is when you're together. But it still left me feeling a bit out-of-sorts.
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May 27, 2014 Nadya rated it it was amazing

I've enjoyed how each book in this series is a standalone book but overlaps the other stories. This book brought them all together and wrapped them up. There were some story lines I would like to have seen developed a little further, but perhaps they will be future books? Overall, I enjoyed the whole series! ...more

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Aug 11, 2017 ☼Shannon☼ rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 3-stars, unputdownable, own-physical, pop-sugar-challenge-selection

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Nov 09, 2020 Andrea rated it it was ok

An anticlimactic ending to this series.

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Aug 07, 2014 Jo rated it really liked it

Brought all of the books together. I enjoyed it.

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Nov 29, 2012 Karen Gibson rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 2012-112-book-project, young-adult, 2020-200-book-project

This was an amazing sequel to The Giver. I am so glad that Ms. Lowry decided to write the book to let us see the end of Jonas and Gabriel's story. I LOVED it. ...more

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