The Giver by Lous Lowry

The Giver is a book I really enjoyed, but there are people who just did not like it.  It can really be 50-50.  This book is set in a dystopian world, where babies are born to be taken away and given to a random family when they turn one. And no one knows what rain, joy, colors, or Christmas are.  At the ceremony of twelve, when all of the 11 year olds turn twelve and receive their jobs, one boy is skipped over. his name is Jonas. At the end of the ceremony, he is finally called up and he is told that he is going to take on the job of the giver.  turns out no one really knows what that job is, only that it is important.  Jonas learns to love, and to see things that his friends can't. He experiences great pain and suffering, but also joy and happiness.
This book is maybe for 11-13+ but the older you are, the more you get from it, an 11 year old may hear the story and not think about it, a thirty year old may have a similar response, but maybe not.  I almost a teenager, felt like I was there, because I was 12 when I read it, I felt like I knew what it was like to be different from other kids, and not like the game war because I knew what it really was.  Bottom line, I felt connected with this book.