The Giver By Lois Lowry

One book that truly impacted my way of thinking is “The Giver” by Lois Lowry. Though it is a book about a fictional society, and the underlying message shaped the way I approach challenges that I encounter throughout life.

The main character of “The Giver” is a boy named Jonas who lives in an extremely structured society where everyone lives in a perfect world, and doesn’t know anything about pain or fear. It started when he was chosen by the head of the society to become the next Receiver of Memories. The Receiver of Memories is the only person in the society who knows all of its past memories—when it went to war, when it was overtaken by famine, and more. This is a very important job in the community, as the leaders believed that in order to have a better future, they need to know what happens in the past. But since some memories are very painful, no one in the community knows about all of them except the Receiver. When the society is in trouble or is facing a problem, they ask the Receiver for advice. The Receiver would then study the memories of the past and tell the leaders how to solve the problem.

When Jonas gradually started to become familiar with the memories of the past, he also started to discover deep dark secrets that the society had been hiding from the
The book made me realize that all events shape our lives in some way, no matter if they are good or bad. Furthermore, it is essential for people to experience pain and fear in order to experience true happiness. Jonas learned about true happiness after he experienced the memories about pain and suffering. He realized that the community was only experiencing very superficial happiness. Because they never experienced pain, they could never grasp the beauty of true happiness. That is when Jonas began to realize the flaws of a life that is completely sheltered and