Review Detail

Reader reviewed by Laura

This is a wonderful book that is a page turner from the start. This story is about a 12-year-old boy named Jonas who must choose between the world he has always known filled with sameness or one that is filled with emotions, including the joys and pains of life.
Jonas lives in a perfect, utopian community, where there are no choices. Everything in Jonas's world seems to fit in order. Each family has a mother, a father, and two children, one of each sex. The families are chosen by the Elders. No child is biologically related to their parents. The elderly, as well as the newest members of the community, are all lovingly cared for. Despite the sameness in the society, there is happiness. There is no crime, no disease, no pain, no rudeness and no unemployment. The community lives in a peaceful existence. He later has to decide on wether he want to run away and let the momries free on the community or to continue his asigned role.


Every person in Jonas's community is assigned a role, or job, which he or she is suited for emotionally, physically and mentally. When Jonas turns 12, Jonas is given his life assignment as the Receiver of Memory. As the Receiver of Memory, Jonas will be the one person to bear the collective memories of a society that lives only in the present.