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Rhea's Reviews > Son
Son (The Giver, #4)
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Son is made up of three parts: Before, Between, and Beyond. If I were to name them, I would gather them into one book and name it Boring.
WHY THE HELL WAS THIS NOVEL 400 PAGES LONG!?! The previous three were about 200 pages. If you delete the double spaces, this book would be 300 pages, and from there, pointless descriptions and subplots would be easily cut down to 200 pages. Yes, I'm serious.
I mean, we spend 140 pages with Claire JUST TRAINING TO CLIMB THE F*CKING CLIFF!!! I DON'T GIVE A SH!T LOIS LOWRY!!!
Pointless sub-plots/ contrivances:
- Tall Andras storyline. Why was this necessary? Plus, at the beginning, before I knew he was 17, I was getting pedo vibes.
- Too many characters. They bog down the story, and it's a chore to keep them straight. And this is coming from someone who likes to remembers things as a habit, like 100 digits of pi and the periodic table.
- Why was Claire beautiful? Why can't I read about about a normal person?
- Claire forgetting all her experiences. Contrived much?
- Einar speaking about his father:
"I cooked for him like a wife and washed his clothes and was a wife in other ways too terrible to mention." O___O
Thank goodness this book is ages 10+, I'd hate to have a 9-year-old ask me what this means.
- Claire has never seen colors before. When Jonas from The Giver started seeing colors, he was like, "Whoa, what's wrong with that apple? It changed! But Claire was like, "Oh look, colors. Whatevs."
- Why didn't Claire just go around the cliff? "She was afraid of the water" is the only explanation we get. WTF?
- What's with Gabe being so Speshul? I mean in The Giver he had pale eyes, he lived with a Nurturer, the community wanted to release him, AND Jonas stole him. But it was still somehow believable. But now his Birthmother wants him, too? Dude, that WAY too much attention on one baby, and my belief was becoming so suspended that it broke.
- (view spoiler) Stupid idiot.
Recommendations: You should read Son if you:
a) want to see what happens to Jonas/Gabe or
b) want to fall asleep.
Other options: If you're desperate for a good children's utopia book, reread The Giver or Gathering Blue. Son is like a little song, off-key and meandering around, compared to a symphony. It feels too much like Lois Lowry was either half-heartedly trying to satisfy her fans or trying to make more $$$.
WHY THE HELL WAS THIS NOVEL 400 PAGES LONG!?! The previous three were about 200 pages. If you delete the double spaces, this book would be 300 pages, and from there, pointless descriptions and subplots would be easily cut down to 200 pages. Yes, I'm serious.
I mean, we spend 140 pages with Claire JUST TRAINING TO CLIMB THE F*CKING CLIFF!!! I DON'T GIVE A SH!T LOIS LOWRY!!!
Pointless sub-plots/ contrivances:
- Tall Andras storyline. Why was this necessary? Plus, at the beginning, before I knew he was 17, I was getting pedo vibes.
- Too many characters. They bog down the story, and it's a chore to keep them straight. And this is coming from someone who likes to remembers things as a habit, like 100 digits of pi and the periodic table.
- Why was Claire beautiful? Why can't I read about about a normal person?
- Claire forgetting all her experiences. Contrived much?
- Einar speaking about his father:
"I cooked for him like a wife and washed his clothes and was a wife in other ways too terrible to mention." O___O
Thank goodness this book is ages 10+, I'd hate to have a 9-year-old ask me what this means.
- Claire has never seen colors before. When Jonas from The Giver started seeing colors, he was like, "Whoa, what's wrong with that apple? It changed! But Claire was like, "Oh look, colors. Whatevs."
- Why didn't Claire just go around the cliff? "She was afraid of the water" is the only explanation we get. WTF?
- What's with Gabe being so Speshul? I mean in The Giver he had pale eyes, he lived with a Nurturer, the community wanted to release him, AND Jonas stole him. But it was still somehow believable. But now his Birthmother wants him, too? Dude, that WAY too much attention on one baby, and my belief was becoming so suspended that it broke.
- (view spoiler) Stupid idiot.
Recommendations: You should read Son if you:
a) want to see what happens to Jonas/Gabe or
b) want to fall asleep.
Other options: If you're desperate for a good children's utopia book, reread The Giver or Gathering Blue. Son is like a little song, off-key and meandering around, compared to a symphony. It feels too much like Lois Lowry was either half-heartedly trying to satisfy her fans or trying to make more $$$.
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Reading Progress
Finished Reading
April 11, 2013
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i think anoher pointless subplot (scene) is Claire talking to fish hatchery friends for many pages.
I was so disappointed in the book. I hold The Giver as my favorite, and it just pains me to see it finished in such an awful way.
Mary wrote: "I was so disappointed in the book. I hold The Giver as my favorite, and it just pains me to see it finished in such an awful way."I agree! This series had a lot of potential. It felt like Lowry was building a solid foundation with the early books, except when she came to the final book she didn't continue and build to a poignant climax; instead she bulldozed the foundation, set it on fire, and threw some rubble on top.
If you read it as an allegory of her life, it makes a helluva lot more sense. Otherwise, it just falls flat.
Tasia wrote: "If you read it as an allegory of her life, it makes a helluva lot more sense. Otherwise, it just falls flat."Hmm, now that you mention it, I agree. It's about tolerance, hope, and fighting for those you love. I still believe Son was poorly written, though, with lazy storytelling.
if you love to read and u r a middle grade reader maybe u would like it more!this book was made for middle grade reader's
Ok. I'm glad to hear you enjoyed it.
Completely agree. The endless training scenes were painfully boring. I saw Rocky. I'm good. And if she were so determined to get to her son, the fear of water seems like something worth facing instead of spending five years in training for a perilous climb. Implausible and silly.
I disagree with some of you about the training part. It showed that her love for her son was strong enough for her to overcome any pain and obstacles. Over the years Claire had turned into a real human with emotions and love for a man. She was the happiest while she resided in the fisherman village, being loved and cherished. I don't like the part after she became an old woman and hid for eight long years... one to two years was more understandable but why this long I can't quite comprehend.Plus, right from the beginning, Einar knew about the Trademaster who seemed to have mysterious powers. He knew this Trademaster would be able to help Claire at the top, so he helped train Claire, even if it took years for her.
About the young farmer character, I never like him either, but he was there to give us a contrast to Einar, who also loved Claire but asked nothing from her all these years. I love Einar and Alys a lot and wish the author would have let us know what happened to them near the end.
Why the anger?!! I liked this book and thought it was good
Connor wrote: "Why the anger?!! I liked this book and thought it was good"Same here. I don't understand why people were angry. Guess the book didn't turn out as expected?
While there were places in the book that I wanted differently, I still enjoyed reading the book and actually re-read most of it twice.
I love "bloated" worlds and "too many" characters, so I understand where you are coming from, but I don't agree. My only real bone to pick (sorry about the cliche) with your analysis is the section about the colors. Claire is shocked by color; I will admit that Claire shouldn't be able to see them at all, but we have to assume that the inability to see color is somehow involved with the environment of the Community, as everyone else in the world can see color and Jonas has not trouble seeing color Elsewhere, even after giving memories to Gabe. Anyway, Claire is falbergasted by color, having never even realized that her own eyes were green before leaving her home. That's why she names the bird Yellow-Wing, so she can remember yellow.
Tristan wrote: "I love "bloated" worlds and "too many" characters, so I understand where you are coming from, but I don't agree. My only real bone to pick (sorry about the cliche) with your analysis is the section..."Thanks for your comment!
Rhea wrote: "Tristan wrote: "I love "bloated" worlds and "too many" characters, so I understand where you are coming from, but I don't agree. My only real bone to pick (sorry about the cliche) with your analysi..."Tristan wrote: "I love "bloated" worlds and "too many" characters, so I understand where you are coming from, but I don't agree. My only real bone to pick (sorry about the cliche) with your analysis is the section..."
In The Giver they do mention the whole color thing. When the Giver was explaining to Jonas about his gift he mentioned Jonas' friend Fiona and how her hair stood out. I don't remember exactly what he said but he told Jonas that Fiona's hair must be quite the frustrating thing to those controlling the Sameness.
So anywhere else where Sameness isn't present colors are just seen normally. There was no need for Claire to be gradually introduced to them since they were suddenly all around her. She just had a hard time identifying them.
I'm glad I'm not the only one who go the pedo vibe from Andras before finding out his age. I also agree with everything else in your review.
Clair never took the pills...not even before she became a birthmother so it stands to reason that she could always see color. She wasn't shocked by color, she just didn't have a name for the individual colors so it was confusing for her when Alys would ask her to pick a specific color of flower.
Clair never took the pills...not even before she became a birthmother so it stands to reason that she could always see color. She wasn't shocked by color, she just didn't have a name for the individual colors so it was confusing for her when Alys would ask her to pick a specific color of flower.
Clair never took the pills...not even before she became a birthmother so it stands to reason that she could always see color. She wasn't shocked by color, she just didn't have a name for the individual colors so it was confusing for her when Alys would ask her to pick a specific color of flower.
Clair never took the pills...not even before she became a birthmother so it stands to reason that she could always see color. She wasn't shocked by color, she just didn't have a name for the individual colors so it was confusing for her when Alys would ask her to pick a specific color of flower.
Clair never took the pills...not even before she became a birthmother so it stands to reason that she could always see color. She wasn't shocked by color, she just didn't have a name for the individual colors so it was confusing for her when Alys would ask her to pick a specific color of flower.
Wow, I'm not sure why that posted so many times. Sorry! O_O
Becky wrote: "Wow, I'm not sure why that posted so many times. Sorry! O_O"If memory serves well, in The Giver it said that no-one in the Community could see color (except for the Giver and Jonas). Jonas was surprised by it, which probably means even before the pills, he couldn't see it. I doubt they would let anyone see color due to reasons such as keeping uniformity in the Community and so on.
No problem about the posting, thanks for the comment, Becky! I have the ability to delete comments from my review (and you can probably delete them as well), so, if you want to, either you or I can delete the extra ones.
I so relate to you about this training to climb and then climbing a cliff! Like, what the fuck?! I mostly skipped these sections, because they were awfully boring
Rhea wrote: "Tasia wrote: "If you read it as an allegory of her life, it makes a helluva lot more sense. Otherwise, it just falls flat."Hmm, now that you mention it, I agree. It's about tolerance, hope, and f..."
I tend to agree about the lazy storytelling. The series (books after The Giver--I love and was haunted by so many things about that one) left questions to ponder, sure--that part is fine. What I find problematic however, is that a lot of the questions left were not about substantive concepts that challenge and force one to think, but were instead just loose or dead ends.
There was so much room in this book and the rest of the series to delve deeper into the complexities of good, evil, greed, charity, forgiveness, human nature, cruelty, and compassion, and not doing so was a missed opportunity in my opinion. The flatness and singular purpose of most of the characters, especially in the absence of a strong counterpoint to that, read to me more like partially finished writing than something intentionally meant to inspire thought-provoking discussion or reflection.
Katie wrote: "I loved the first 3 books.however I agree with the fact that it was painful to get through some parts and the ending fell flat. The cliff chapters were forever long. I was so disappointed in the e..."
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. Now that I think more about it, maybe Lowry's publishing company insisted she write a sequel. It does feel like she lost interest in her own story :(
"Why didn't Claire just go around the cliff? "She was afraid of the water" is the only explanation we get. WTF?" Seriously W.T.F. And the training to climb the cliff was a bit much.
Guys, Claire's not shocked by color at first because she /couldn't remember/ she couldn't see colors before.
Agree about the ridiculous pages-chapters! devoted to training for the climb and the climb itself. Boring, boring. I skimmed it. I also got a really icky feeling when Einar strongly hints at being molested or something when he says he was a wife in other ways too terrible to mention. Really Lowry? I mean, really gross.
Claire doesn't doubt colors because she doesn't remember before, when she never knew them.
I thought the same thing about tall Andras! The initial description of him made him seem like an adult, and she took way too long to reveal that he was actually the same age as Claire.
Becky, it isn’t the pills that control colors. That’s the Sameness. However, if you take the pills, you do not want anything. It was the color that was diluted from the lives of everyone in the community.
Thank goodness this book is ages 10+, I'd hate to have a 9-year-old ask me what this means."
Haha! I was thinking the same thing.... Great review