Never Let Me Go

This book is a surprisingly beautiful story but don’t look for happy endings. I once heard someone say that reading any of Ishiguro’s books is satisfyingly devastating. I find them emotionally jarring and deeply contemplative. Most of the intrigue lies in how Ishiguro’s narrative style draws you in. His protagonists are not omnipotent but their reflective lens gives their perspective that effect. Additionally, his choice of details in his world building make his books timeless. He gives the reader just enough so they know they are in some alternate reality but not so much that it can become dated. This approach gives his books a “too close to reality” feel. Ishiguro draws waves of empathy out of you and challenge you not to see yourself as one of the Hailsham kids. What I really wanted to know about them, and it never gets answered, is what took away their sense of agency to act in defiance of what they were made for. I could only assume that what made them incapable of reproducing also limited their independence. The plight of the Hailsham children is the backdrop for the critical assessment of society. Specifically, its inability to see the humanity in all people when it suits a purpose. The characters in this novel are agents who hope against hope in a cold society. That hope, like in Ishiguro’s other books, is often rooted in a fantasy spun for them that they pursue to its disappointing end. This book is science fiction in its purest form; wherein a deeply human story takes place against the stage of a society changed by scientific developments. In Ishiguro’s case it is interesting how the natural landscape itself is a key part of the story. As if he is saying that for all our technological advancement and built up environments, we always return to nature.

I watched the movie years before reading this book. I absolutely loved the movie. It's a beautiful but also very sad story about ones purpose in life. The book was very good too but honestly it would be quite hard to top the movie for me. (Carrie Mulligan, Andrew Garfield and Kiera Knightly are perfectly cast)

This book was easy to get into because of the intimacy created by the first person narrative. For me it took too long to get into explaining what some of the references were alluding to and get to the meat of the story. I liked it but I didn’t love it. The premise was really interesting and led to me trying to imagine other scenarios relevant to today’s world and technologies.

My brain did not need to read this right now. It's a brilliantly written book but I'm just going to go cry now

This book left a lot open to the imagination, as it wasn't so much about the world-building, but the building of characterization and relationships between the characters. The slow reveal of information is tricky for an author to do well, since I feel like it mostly ends just leaving readers confused, but the author of this book did it skillfully, slowly bringing information into the story until the readers figure out the full truth. Similarly, although not much actually happens in this book, since it's mostly told as flashbacks/reminisces of the main character's childhood and past, the writing flows beautifully and the book still manages to grab hold of the reader and point them towards something dark lurking jut behind the curtain.

The ethical implications of the book - medical experimentation, cloning, etc - were also very interesting, although not really expanded on. The author mostly just presented them as they were in the world of the story, without commenting on it one way or another, which I liked. I liked that it was ~just the way it was, and we as readers were supposed to see how awful it was and how it could reflect on our actual world we live in. I found this a skillful handling of this kind of subject material, especially compared to other books on similar topics I've read in the past.