The Giver

"The life where nothing was ever unexpected. Or inconvenient. Or unusual. The life without color, pain, or past."

A superb story. Lowry has a strong and simple command of the language and this moral tale is one that should be required reading for all (never mind just schoolchildren). She portrays a society that, on the surface, has achieved a sort of utopia with elimation of war, hunger, disease, etc. But on closer inspection, it is a kind of hell, since all collective memory does not exist.

A very imaginative and thought-provoking read that helps define the sci-fi/fantasy genre.