Son

Ce quatrième livre clotûre la quadrilogie “Le Passeur” et est à mes yeux mon préféré. Il arrive à être touchant en parlant de thèmes extrêmement diversifiés et en abordant des dystopies extrêmement différentes bien que réunies au sein du même monde. Le combat de Claire est magnifique, puissant, et c'est une joie de recroiser une dernière fois la galerie complète des personnages aperçus dans les volumes précédents. La quadrilogie vaut le détour même si elle est d'une qualité en dents de scie, mais se clôture d'une façon vraiment magistrale. Une superbe perle des romans pour adolescents, pleine d'apprentissages.

This is not the series finale that I expected. On the one hand, it wrapped everything quite nicely. I enjoyed revisiting the first book from Claire's POV. I felt very sad for her, but at the same time I was excited to find out how she finds Gabe after they're gone. I expected to read about how the memories returned to the Community and what part it played in Claire's story. Apparently, none. Maybe explaining the memories conundrum would be too much, I understand the author making the choice to just extract Claire from the Community in such a way that the whole trauma of that makes her lose memory. All that was a bit underwhelming, but understandable. But the second part of the book...

Meeting yet another community that made part of this strange world was interesting. The people and their way of life made sense and seemed very life-like. The fact that Alys started taking Claire to visit patients with her just a few months after the latter arrived seemed a bit strange, but not too unrealistic. The old woman did get attached to Claire after all.
The romance between Claire and Einar was quite predictable, but I liked the way it was set up. Their whole story felt sad, but realistic. There was another thing about Einar that bugged me a lot. For the love of me, I don't understand why include “I cooked for him (father) like a wife and washed his clothes and was a wife in other ways too terrible to mention” in a book for teenagers! The things his father done to the boy were already awful. I hate this atrocity for the sake of atrocity. Plus this particular trauma should have messed the boy up way worse than he was.

The other thing that just drives me up the wall is how it took Claire SEVEN freaking years to finally have the bright idea to talk to Jonas. SE-VEN!!! I absolutely hate these fake “last moment” situations, when there is no real reason for things not to happen earlier. I kind of can understand that she didn't want Gabe to know her as an old person (but not really actually, it's stupid), but how in the world didn't she think of talking to Jonas before? At least to know more about Gabe's years that she missed.

I was promised that I'll need my tearducts for this book, so at the point when Claire told everything to Jonas and conveniently began dying, I was afraid that at least one of them dies in the process of killing the Trademaster. They didn't. It saved the book for me. It saved the whole series actually.

And yes, no crying this time. Too angry for that. And no one died anyway. All in all, it was a good ending of the series.

Are sequels ever as good as book one?

I can't think of a single time I have found this to be true.

And, consequently, I've formed my policy of Reading Only the First Book.

It is a policy that has served me well in my life.

With a few, rare exceptions.

Like The Giver series. Now, having read Son, I've read them all.

And, I say, they are all good. None of the sequels are quite The Giver (how could they be?!) but all are strong novels that stand alone, if necessary.

When I read the story of Lois Lowry's loss of her son, I knew I had to read this one. And, as you might expect, it resonates with the poignancy of loss. And, though the magic of fiction writing, with the joy of reuniting.

Summary: This novel spans the same timeframe as all of the other books in the series combined, and even extends beyond it. The story centers on Claire, the birthmother in Jonas’s city who gave birth to Gabe. Against the rules of her society, Claire figures out who her son is and realizes that she loves him. When Gabe is taken from the city, Claire leaves too, and, after a shipwreck, a new life in a more welcoming village, and a slow recovery of the loss of her memory, Claire dedicates her life to finding her son once again.

I first read “The Giver” over a decade ago when I was in junior high, and I was so excited to finally have the chance to read the conclusion so many years later. I think this is quite possibly my favorite book out of the four – Lois Lowry so masterfully and so beautifully united all the stories into “Son” and gave her readers the conclusion and the happy ending they always wanted. What an amazing, amazing end to the quartet.

Wow... That was a phenomenal conclusion to a fantastic series. Everything came together, and that ending... THAT ENDING WAS PERFECT. All the questions that were left unanswered from The Giver, Gathering Blue, and Messenger were finally answered in this joyride of a book. There were times when I nearly screamed at the revelations that occurred, and can I just say something? JONAS. JONAS WAS IN MESSENGER AND I DIDN'T EVEN KNOW IT.

Overall this was an impeccable conclusion to a wonderful series, and I would recommend these books to so many people.