[Welcome to the EL Book Introductions series. These posts are all short (<180 words) introductions/reviews of books in the EL library. They focus on telling you what we think will be interesting for you, a college student and English learner, so use them to help you find the right book for you. You can also use the tags to find books about topics you might be interested in.]
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The Giver was first published in 1993, and is now taught in schools in the United States. It was made into a film in 2014 (https://www.imdb.com/video/vi3018304537/?playlistId=tt0435651&ref_=tt_ov_vi) and this graphic novel in 2019. The story has many themes: memory, religion, family, death, adolescence and aging, society, and more. The Giver is about an SF world where all strong and negative memories are removed from society and everyone’s lives are governed by long lists of rules—except for one special person. This “dystopian” novel clearly fits in with other books you may have heard about, like George Orwell’s 1984 and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World.
The English in this book is not very difficult, and the chapters are short. Also, the art helps you understand the story, especially the use of color, as well as the design of the “SF” world (very different from the film adaptation). In addition, there are two short interviews at the end of the book. The first interview is with the author of the original novel; the second is with the artist and the process he used to adapt it to comic-book form.
My two cents: I was surprised at how many different ways I could interpret this story and the relationships between the characters in it. If you are interested in cults, for example, you may find this a particularly interesting read.
