Jonas' life assignment is as the Receiver of Memory, where he will apprentice the Giver and become a storehouse of all the things humanity left behind when it entered utopia: color, emotion, and even more complicated secrets.

"A woman lives alone in a small house situated in a tidy yard surrounded by a seemingly impenetrable wall. She spends her days reading, swimming, and watching TV. She eats regular meals and keeps her house clean. But the simplicity is deceiving, because the woman has no idea how she came to live in her house, and--most importantly-what exists beyond the wall. Her only source of information is a talking TV monitor in her living room called Shiatsung....