Jonas’ is a controlled and regimented society. Birth mothers produce children raised by Nurturers. The babies turn One in December and are assigned to a couple--one boy and one girl each--50 per year. At Eight a child’s comfort toy is taken from them. At Nine they are assigned a bicycle and at Twelve their life’s assignment. Anyone not conforming to societal norms is released. Although I realize this is a fictitious world the children seem severely genetically altered to mature in a rather accelerated manner--walking and talking in their first year of life, being selected for careers at 12. The horror of a world devoid of choice, of love and emotion where positive eugenics is the norm and euthanasia is given euphemistic innocuous terminology. As the receiver of memories Jonas becomes the vehicle by which we learn the menace that underlies this ordered society.
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