{"id":4722,"date":"2026-09-12T14:40:51","date_gmt":"2026-09-12T09:10:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/food4thoughtfoundation.org\/journal\/?p=4722"},"modified":"2026-09-12T15:24:12","modified_gmt":"2026-09-12T09:54:12","slug":"what-if-a-perfect-world-cost-too-much","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/food4thoughtfoundation.org\/journal\/what-if-a-perfect-world-cost-too-much\/","title":{"rendered":"WHAT IF A PERFECT WORLD COST TOO MUCH?"},"content":{"rendered":"

THE GIVER: WHAT IF A PERFECT WORLD COST TOO MUCH?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Book Review | Lois Lowry<\/strong><\/p>\n

Imagine a world with no war.<\/p>\n

No hunger.<\/p>\n

No difficult choices.<\/p>\n

No heartbreak.<\/p>\n

It sounds almost perfect.<\/p>\n

That is the world twelve-year-old Jonas lives in at the beginning of Lois Lowry’s The Giver<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Everything in his community has been carefully organised. Families are assigned. Careers are chosen for citizens. Rules control behaviour. Painful memories of the past have disappeared.<\/p>\n

Nobody has to face chaos because almost everything has already been decided for them.<\/p>\n

Then Jonas receives an unusual assignment.<\/p>\n

He is selected to become the Receiver of Memory.<\/p>\n

Through an older man known as the Giver, Jonas begins experiencing memories that the rest of his community no longer carries.<\/p>\n

He discovers snow, music, colour, celebration and love.<\/p>\n

But he also discovers suffering, loneliness, violence and grief.<\/p>\n

Suddenly the world that once looked safe begins to look frightening for a different reason.<\/p>\n

The most interesting question in The Giver<\/em> is not whether pain is bad.<\/p>\n

Of course it is.<\/p>\n

The harder question is whether we can remove pain without also removing something important from being human.<\/p>\n

Jonas’s community has eliminated many sources of suffering, but people have also lost genuine freedom.<\/p>\n

They do not choose whom they love.<\/p>\n

They do not choose their work.<\/p>\n

They do not understand history.<\/p>\n

They cannot compare the world they have with any other possibility because memories of different ways of living have been taken away.<\/p>\n

That made me think about choice differently.<\/p>\n

Choice can create mistakes.<\/p>\n

People make terrible decisions.<\/p>\n

But if someone else makes every important decision for us, are we truly living our own lives?<\/p>\n

Another reason The Giver<\/em> is memorable is that it does not divide the world neatly into heroes and villains.<\/p>\n

The community was designed because people wanted safety and stability.<\/p>\n

That is what makes it unsettling.<\/p>\n

Bad systems do not always begin with obviously bad intentions.<\/p>\n

Sometimes they begin when people try to solve a real problem but sacrifice too much in return.<\/p>\n

Jonas gradually understands that protecting people from every painful experience has also prevented them from experiencing life completely.<\/p>\n

The book therefore makes freedom feel less comfortable than we often imagine.<\/p>\n

Freedom includes uncertainty.<\/p>\n

Responsibility.<\/p>\n

Wrong choices.<\/p>\n

Consequences.<\/p>\n

Yet it also makes love, discovery and individuality possible.<\/p>\n

So, is The Giver<\/em> worth the hype?<\/p>\n

Definitely.<\/p>\n

It is a short novel with an enormous question at its centre:<\/p>\n

If someone promised you a life without pain, how much freedom would you be willing to give away to receive it?<\/strong><\/p>\n

That question alone makes the book difficult to forget.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

THE GIVER: WHAT IF A PERFECT WORLD COST TOO MUCH? Book Review | Lois Lowry Imagine a world with no war. No hunger. No difficult choices. No heartbreak. It sounds almost perfect. That is the world twelve-year-old Jonas lives in at the beginning of Lois Lowry’s The Giver. Everything in his community has been carefully<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4723,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[575],"class_list":["post-4722","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-worth-the-hype","enable-dropcap","disable-2-columns"],"yoast_head":"\nWHAT IF A PERFECT WORLD COST TOO MUCH? - Food4Thought Journal<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/food4thoughtfoundation.org\/journal\/what-if-a-perfect-world-cost-too-much\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"WHAT IF A PERFECT WORLD COST TOO MUCH? - Food4Thought Journal\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"THE GIVER: WHAT IF A PERFECT WORLD COST TOO MUCH? 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