A scientific poll of Mercury employees (sample size: three) reveals that the average adult remembers two things about Lois Lowry's novel The Giver: It's about a world where no one can see color, and... something about apples? Lowry's Newbery award-winner came out in 1993. Since then, dystopias have gotten sexy—because nothing short of utter societal collapse will suffice when today's tweens are looking for metaphors for their growing-up feelings. And so The Giver has been gussied up from a grim parable about apples (?) into another moody YA love triangle about passion and futuristic oppression. by Alison Hallett