Never Let Me Go

Beautiful, multi-layered and sad. Amazing piece of work. Glad to have finally taken the time to read it.

A word of advice - just read it. Don't watch the movie. Tried watching the movie after just finishing the book and it felt like ... pudding skin. Just a thin layer sitting on top of something much more satisfying underneath.

Ruth sucks.

This book will sit with you for a very long time. It is so masterfully written and drives you into an existential crisis of humanity. It will force you to question your morals.

As with other books written by Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go is from the perspective of a first person narrator, Kathy. And you will either love her or hate her.

That it is a book that can be so relevant to society is the reason it has automatically jumped up in my Top 10 greatest books of all time. I implore that you read this book.

I keep thinking about how to describe this book and the word that comes most to my mind is
“Quiet”. Even after the tragic ending of their romance the disposition of the main character is quiet. Just quietly accepting their fate. I wanted them to get angry and fight harder but of course their acceptance made it that much more heartbreaking. What was expected of them was so ingrained in them that even when they really understood it all, it didn't matter. It's the only way of life they've ever known. I have a lot more to say but the thoughts are very disjointed so I'll spare you

It's dangerous to reminisce. There are so many ways to get trapped in the past: “if only I had...”; “things were so much better then...”; and we all know people stuck in their imaginary what-ifs. Then there's reading someone else's reminiscences—there's so much that can go wrong there. In the right hands, though: wow. This was a masterpiece that kept me engaged and thinking; it will likely stay with me for a long time.

If you haven't read this, and are over forty: read it. Don't try to learn “what it's about,” don't read cover-jacket blurbs: this isn't a book ”about” anything, it's a journey; one in which you might find more than a handful of parallels with lives you recognize. Including perhaps your own. Ishiguro's language and insights are sublime. Most importantly for me, the narrator's voice was so perfect: he could've made her wistful, or bitter, or resentful. There is drama and cruelty in the story, both individual and societal. Loss and longing. It could've gone many ways, but what I got from it is a reminder, both sobering and refreshing, that this is the life we have. We can reflect usefully on our growth: the insecurities we had (and may still carry), how our unspoken assumptions wreck the possibility of communicating with others. The narrator's life has been set on a course that is likely harder than yours or mine, yet her voice is one of curiosity, thoughtfulness, never self-pity. She thinks back to choices and decision points, understanding that things may have gone differently, and she moves on. I suppose most of us wonder, from time to time, if we're wasting or have wasted our lives. We may never know, and some days it may feel more like it than others, but even in the deepest pits we still have some agency to do our best. Few of us will have the lives we've dreamed, but we can still make something out of what we have.

I'm not sure how I feel after reading this. I loved The Remains of the Day a ton, and I expected to like this one even more because of the added sci-fi layer to Ishiguro's writing. Instead, I feel a little cheated and let down; while the writing and story were certainly very good, it just didn't hit the same way for me as The Remains of the Day did.

Briefly (as there's many other much longer reviews here to peruse for detailed plot points), the story is written from two points: Kathy later in life as a “carer”, and Kathy early in life as a student at Hailsham boarding school. From the beginning hints are dropped from both points in time that something off-kilter is going on with the kids at Hailsham, and whatever that something is followed these students even after they left the school. We follow Kathy as she reminisces about her time at Hailsham and after, about the relationships she developed primarily between Tommy, Ruth, and herself, and how they developed and changed over the years, shadowed the entire way by the “something” hanging over them all.

I liked the first third of the book the best, when the kids were still at Hailsham and it felt like a reader-driven detective story in figuring out what all the hints dropped by the author meant. It honestly didn't take much, there's enough dropped to basically put the puzzle together fairly quickly, but I was led along the way in how the characters would react when they figured it out, and what would happen as a result. This was where I was primarily let down, and was also one of my biggest annoyances about the book: none of the players in this story felt like they had emotions at all about what they were revealing along the way. No curiosity, no “huh, that's weird”, no real drive to learn more. Mild ending feeling spoilers (no details): even when the author finally gets around to “the big reveal” far later in the book than felt necessary, the characters accepted it, talked about it briefly, and then the book ends. It felt incredibly anticlimactic.

It's a fine book and I can see why people rated it how they did, but ultimately it felt like a miss to me. Certainly interesting discussion questions are raised, but there's so much detachment felt by the main characters that it's hard for me as a reader to really get invested in questions that won't be answered or addressed.

All my reviews can be found at The Tiny Reader's Reference! Come on over and say hello!Short & Sweet: [b:Never Let Me Go 6334 Never Let Me Go Kazuo Ishiguro http://images.gr-assets.com/books/1353048590s/6334.jpg 1499998] is a novel of many facets, all of which will inspire discussion between whomever may read it. Where it lacks in action and engagement, it makes up for in emotion, all the way up to its heartbreaking end. This is not a happy book. I originally planned, while sketching out this review in my mind, to sit down and state plainly that [b:Never Let Me Go 6334 Never Let Me Go Kazuo Ishiguro http://images.gr-assets.com/books/1353048590s/6334.jpg 1499998] is weird. “How it won awards is beyond my understanding” and “I didn't quite know what the heck I was reading half the time”.But as I mulled it over, I realized my flaw was going into this novel with expectations. I expected a traditional novel structure. I expected overt action. I expected a ‘movement' based story that engaged me from page 1. [b:Never Let Me Go 6334 Never Let Me Go Kazuo Ishiguro http://images.gr-assets.com/books/1353048590s/6334.jpg 1499998] is none of these, and it doesn't pretend to be, either. The beauty in this story is not action, or movement, or the way the story is presented to you. It is in the subtleties, the mundane over darkness, a normal veneer over something sinister.In replacement of action, we get trickle truth to keep us reading - just enough information for our ‘this is weird' sensors to perk up a little bit, to metaphorically smell a rot under a beautiful bouquet of flowers. And you keep reading for snatches of information, while a small voice in the back of your mind is saying, what the hell is going on here? Even after the answers are given and the book closes on the last page, so many questions are left unanswered. The writing itself is very basic and conversational. I wrote in my notes that it is “very much a ‘hanging out with a childhood friend and reminiscing about old times' type of story”, and I still stick by that. In fact, that is the whole setup, where we meet Kathy, a ‘Carer', who is taking care of her childhood friend, Ruth. They wile away the days talking about their time at Hailsham, and we are teleported into Kathy's memories.Is this novel engaging? Not in the slightest. I can put this book down and it'll drift to the far back of my mind - it doesn't stand out in that regard. A lot of other reviewers have struggled to finish it, or rated it poorly - those reviews are absolutely valid. But if you're looking for a very quick story that is not among the norm, something different, pick this up. Just make sure to also leave your expectations at the door.

This book was vile. The very thought of something like this happening in our world made me sick, but maybe that was the point, to create a story that was morally and ethically wrong. I could not become emotionally involved with the characters because Kathy spoke in a way that was distant and nearly devoid of emotion. There was next to no background story and I was left with many questions a the end. I wish there had been more depth to the world surrounding these characters and explanations as to why certain events happened. Characters only hinted at knowing the truth half the time I don't even think what they believed was true.

Oh man. I don't know if this was the intention but Ishiguro really made me feel for these special specimens. (Are they even human? Who knows? What defines a human anyways??) Honestly, when I first read this book I thought it started out kind of slow and aimless. There were numerous anecdotes about Tommy and Ruth and their various guardians, but nothing about the gigantic elephant in the room. The main thing however was how this book touched upon a lot of prejudice towards the victims from the supposed saviors themselves. Though Miss Emily and Madame were avid supporters and “guardians” of these children, they themselves had been appalled by them. This shows a lot of the extent of altruism some people are willing to give.
They also thought of themselves as saviors because they tried. They tried so so very hard. But it didn't matter because nothing was solved. They got a good education and lifestyle and that was it; they still became donors and carers.
It frustrated me so much that they couldn't get their own life back and that everything they believed in was either a lie or filled with false hope. Tommy and Kath had been meant for each other but Ruth was determined to stop that from ever happening. Tommy and Ruth never had closure and that foretold Tommy's and Kath's lack of closure.
Everything in this book sucked but it was amazing at the same time.
Amazing. Af.

Ah, I loved this book so much, I rented the movie immediately after finishing the read. I was curious to see the story imagined on screen. This is one where the book conveys so much more than the movie. Wonderfully written with such raw emotions and the suspense hits you right in the middle instead of the end which is a surprise you are not prepared for.

I am 100% convinced that that best way to consume this beautiful, yet disturbing novel is through audio. The book is written in first person, very casually. The main character, Kathy, goes off on tangents or will start talking about an event and then remember she has to tell the reader about a prior event in order to give this current one some context. It's as if your friend is sitting beside you telling you the story of her early years and that's what makes the audiobook so much better than the physical book. It really feels even more like Kathy is talking to you, she's sharing something with you specifically. 

Kathy's reflections on her time at Hailsham and her relationships with other students and the guardians were all very interesting to me and the stories from her early childhood especially felt very realistic and even brought up some memories of my own childhood. As the children grew up at the boarding school, they learned bit by bit what it meant to be a student at Hailsham, but none of them fully understood until after they graduated, and even then some things were still murky. Kathy and her friends knew they were special, and the guardians even told them so, but what it truly meant to be so special was never clearly spelled out during their time at Hailsham. So much of what they really needed to know was hidden within their school lessons. Or in a rumor, a whisper, an overheard conversation. Their lives were puzzles they only got a piece of every once in a while but tried to put together anyway and it was heartbreaking to “witness.”

This was hard to rate. It's slow paced yet kept me interested, emotional yet sometimes too dry, thought provoking but sometimes too superficial...it was a strange mix, but I went into it pretty blindly and that's the best way for this book. Surely it can be a perfect read for a book club or a class, because it can generate some very interesting discussions

Ishiguro has shot up the list of my favorite authors. He is three for three so far with me.

As with his other works, this one is best read cold. I read this because it is his “sci-fi”, but as with The Buried Giant's fantasy setting, it's hardly even a backdrop. I could tell you about the premise but it unfolds so masterfully that there's no way I'd want to ruin it for you. The problem with a lot of science fiction is that it tends to be judged on its premise. I've definitely seen other stories with similar premises to this one, but Ishiguro's characters are so excruciatingly human that you've never read a book like this. At this rate I'd recommend any of his works to anybody. He's incredible.

4/5

i really enjoyed the writing and storyline of this book! where it was lacking for me is, i think, my expectations of it being focused on being dystopian when in reality that was such a small aspect of the book. ultimately, this book is about 3 friends growing up together with a side plot of dystopian. So if you go into it knowing it's mostly a coming-of-age story rather than a dystopian, you should enjoy it!

This story is intense, subtle, delicate. Its characters are flawed, obsessively so. The overlying plot is science fiction, but without the hopeful ending we expect from genre fiction. Definitely a literary piece, I'm debating whether I actually liked it. For you writers, however, read this for a good example of a first-person narration where the narrator is sensitive, passive, and suspicious without really knowing why. There is no real oppressor or antagonist, reflecting life. If you liked Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, which I did, then you will definitely like this book.

Originally posted at http://worderella.com/2007/10/book-never-let-me-go/

3.7

First of all, I don't understand the hype surrounding this book. Yeah, it's a good book... but it moves rather slowly. Ishiguro's writing was very pleasant, but I just found most of Part I & II quite boring. Part III was my favorite since the plot was progressing more clearly than the first two parts.

The story was predictable at some points, like Ishiguro's trying to make it not obvious when it's literally the opposite. I don't know that's just me. But it was really interesting to see the character development of his characters and how they shift from one event to another.

Overall this book was missing something that lovers of this book seemed to have not noticed, but it's still a fascinating read though. It lacks a lot of details, scientifically speaking, and there's not a lot of beautiful prose. Anyway, I'd recommend this to anyone who wants to imagine the unimaginable. It's not an easy-read, so be patient.