They called her Water Claire. When she washed up on their shore, no one knew that she came from a society where emotions and colors didn’t exist. That she had become a Vessel at age thirteen. That she had carried a Product at age fourteen. That it had been stolen from her body. Claire had a son. But what became of him she never knew. What was his name? Was he even alive? She was supposed to forget him, but that was impossible. Now Claire will stop at nothing to find her child, even if it means making an unimaginable sacrifice.
Son thrusts readers once again into the chilling world of the Newbery Medal winning book, The Giver, as well as Gathering Blue and Messenger where a new hero emerges. In this thrilling series finale, the startling and long-awaited conclusion to Lois Lowry’s epic tale culminates in a final clash between good and evil.Customer Reviews
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94 of 103 people found the following review helpful.
Remarkable end to a award-winning series
By E.M. Bristol
While I was thrilled to see "The Son" by Lois Lowry, the final book in the "Giver" series available through Vine, I also felt guilty, having rated "The Messenger" more harshly than it perhaps deserved, having believed all along that the series was a trilogy, not a quartet. It didn't really explain what happened to Gabe, whose fate was left ambiguous in the first book. So that was one question I thought would remain a mystery."The Son" starts with the birth of a "Product" to a fourteen-year-old girl named Claire, who has been chosen as Birthmother in the same community where Jonas originally lived. Something goes drastically wrong, and although the child survives, Claire is left sterile, and relegated to a dull job at the Fish Hatchery. She's also left in the dark as to what has happened, having been blindfolded throughout the procedure. None of her fellow community members can offer any enlightenment and do not share Claire's maternal yearnings (or any type of passion). (Fans of "The Giver" will easily figure out why Claire is different.) As a result, she is somewhat alienated but very determined to see her son again.From the hatchery, Claire gets a chance to view the incoming ships and a taste of what a different community might be like. She also begins volunteering at the center where the "newchildren" are and becomes friendly with Jonas' father, who works as a nurturer there. As she figures out that Gabe (or the fractious young "Number Thirty-Six") is indeed her son, the series reader is on familiar territory and knows ahead of time what's going to happen. Eventually, Claire sets off in search of Gabe, which brings her to a community which tolerates far more individuality in its members, although the people there are puzzled at the gaps in her knowledge of things such as colors and music. Although Claire is accepted there and finds a mentor, she decides to move on. Her quest for her son will lead her into danger, both physical and supernatural. Her story then overlaps with Jonas', Kira's and Gabe's. Is there a happy ending? I won't spoiler it, but will say that once done, you have more satisfying answers than you did at the end of "The Messenger.""The Son's" main theme is choice; as in "Harry Potter," the characters are forced to decide between doing what is right and what is easy. What is sacrificed may wind up causing unexpected pain, and attempts to put things back the way they were may not work. As any fan of fairy tales knows, being granted your heart's desire is often the path to misery, regardless of how it appears beforehand. Is a world whose inhabitants are basically content really worth it, or does it wind up creating people who feel like outcasts anyway? What then are the options for those who don't, or can't fit in? How do you develop a gift if no one in your community can conceive of what you're capable of? The "Giver" series goes far in ably exploring these questions and prompting the reader to do so, as well.
97 of 108 people found the following review helpful.
The best of "The Giver" sequels, but oddly unsatisfying
By Suzanne Amara
Like so many others, I loved "The Giver". I finished reading it and started right out reading it again, something I have done with almost no other book in my life. I felt like it was a near perfect book. I eagerly read "Gathering Blue" and "Messenger" and was rather disappointed with both of them. They contained good enough reading, but felt far more ordinary than The Giver---like books that had been written before about fairly primitive societies with mild supernatural elements. They didn't have the stunning oddness of the society in The Giver. I had high hopes that Son would loop back to where it all started and revisit that world."Son" does indeed start in the same society as "The Giver", but it is set during the same time period as the first book, and in a lot of ways, simply retells that story from a different perspective. The story then moves to a new society, a seaside world set at the edge of a cliff seperating it from the rest of the world, and then to the world of "Messenger". The story follows Claire, a birthmother from the Giver society, on a quest. I won't give away any plot points, but the book works to tie everything up, and in a lot of ways, it does. However, in the ways I truly wanted, it didn't. We really have no more idea than when we started as to the whys of it all. How did this world come to be, split in small odd societies? How did the strange world of The Giver get planned and started? Why is technology so different in each world? Most of all, I would just like to find out more about Jonas and Claire's original home, the planned, sterile world of The Giver.The writing is skilled here, and the emotions portrayed are dramatic. There is more than I would like of long detailed descriptions of physical journeys, and the somewhat misplaced Trademaster from Messanger, a sort of jarring supernatural element, plays much more of a role than I'd like, but overall, the book is well plotted and well paced. It just feels a small amount like a cop-out to me. Or more accurately, like yet another attempt to perfect an already near perfect literary achievement, "The Giver". Some books don't need sequels, although you might want one. I did, but now I realize perhaps I should have left well enough alone, and maybe Lois Lowry should have too.
55 of 63 people found the following review helpful.A disappointing end to The Giver.
By David Becker Jr.
Before I begin, allow me to say that I read an advance copy, so there may be changes to what this final book became. No matter the changes, it is clear the direction that this book was going. And it is a disappointing end to this series, one whose quality declined with each successive book.The Giver itself, of course, is wonderful. It is everything that young adult fiction should be, from start to finish. Even now, with technology being what it is, the book holds up perfectly well and will probably hold up for a great deal longer. If you've read Lowry's acceptance speech for the Newbery Award for The Giver, you know how much of her life went into this book. It shows. It's crafted, with precision. I enjoy The Hunger Games series, but they're about as far apart as possible while both still being Young Adult fiction. I get the sense of time spent with The Giver, and it's both in how the book was written and how it is presented. Watching Jonas digest his world in the bits and pieces he is fed by the Giver is spellbinding.Lowry's acceptance speech in 1994 has always bothered me, however. Her insistence that she won't tell you the true ending ("There isn't one," she says. "There's a right one for each of us, and it depends on our own beliefs, our own hopes.") of course was eliminated with the two previous sequels, Gathering Blue and The Messenger. We know what happened at the end of The Giver, or at least what did NOT happen. A great deal of guesswork was eliminated, and that flies in the face of that first book and what ending was published. We actually DO know what happened with Gabriel and Jonas on that sled at the end of the Giver.Gathering Blue and The Messenger are not bad books (I enjoyed Gathering Blue more) but they are inferior to The Giver, and I think by far. Knowing the personal touches Lowry put into The Giver, it's not a surprise. But that Newbery speech always bothered me. Why the change in opinion to something so important?When a librarian friend offered the chance to read Son, I said yes without a bit of hesitation. As far as the quality of writing, it's on par with The Giver, for the most part. There are some parts that aren't as good, but the level of detail, and the attention to detail, are make this book well-written. Seeing the published interviews in the past few days ahead of this book, there's no doubt that the loss of a son affected Lowry just as powerfully asher upbringing did. The proof is in this book.And yet, the promise lost from The Giver is part of the problem. If I were to speak to Ms. Lowry, I would want to know: how far into the future did you expect this series to go? The Giver has always seemed like it was meant to stand alone. Would it have been better if it did? If you didn't add the connections to The Giver in the next two in this series, could they have stood on their own? Is it the George Lucas "syndrome", where revisionist history attempts to erase the proof that it was meant to stand alone, that there was no way of knowing how much the world would love your work and how much the world would beg for more? Any reasonable fan knows how much evidence there is that "Star Wars" was something no one could have imagined would become as big as it did...and the clumsy attempts to erase the proof make it that much more obvious. No, there never were Jonas action figures, but the point remains. What caused the change?However, my personal bias aside, there are other problems. Is the book rooted in science, or fantasy? The attempts to include elements of fantasy or religion here seem to greatly take away from the overall, noble premise of searching for someone you have lost, and still may never see again. The endurance training here is even more realistic (because we see it) than Jonas' mental preparation in The Giver, though the difference between the two is shown in the two books.The biggest problem? Well, here it is, without spoilers. The book had me. I enjoyed it, and thought it was going well. The various surprises all fit and made sense, and I felt that I hadn't seen them coming. And then Claire gets to the top. From that point on, the book falls off the rails and adds things from out of left field. Again, is this the same world that practiced eugenics and had the ability to control the weather? It can't be. How could it be?I understand and appreciate the pain that Ms. Lowry felt losing a child, and I hope that this book proved cathartic for her. I'm sure it did, because this book has quite a bit of craft in it as well. However, the end is tacked on from another book by another author...it certainly seems that way.So, Ms. Lowry says this is the end of the series. Will it truly be?
