Reviews with content warning for Ableism - Never Let Me Go

This book is unlike anything I have read before, and I definitely want to read more of Ishiguro’s work in the future.
Never Let Me Go follows Kath as past relationships are rekindled, leading her to remember the significant events of Halisham, her old school. Through these memories Kath begins to learn more about the dark truths hidden throughout adolescence, but also truths about herself.
For me, the writing style and formatting are what made the book so unique. Told in 2nd person and non-linearly, readers are only given surface level information until the resolution. Ultimately, this helps cultivate a mysterious mood and makes the payoff more worthwhile.
Still, some elements of the confusion made it difficult for me to follow, which is why I rated it 4.75. The ending was phenomenal and quite a tearjerker, but in a few cases I wasn’t as invested as I would have liked to be.
No shame on the author however, as writing a book is incredible on its own, especially one creative as Never Let Me Go
If you like gradual sad books with character driven elements, this is for you:)

Content Warnings

skudiklier's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

This book was really interesting, and for once I kind of guessed some of the twists/reveals ahead of time. I kept expecting the book to get suddenly more intense or sad, and though of course it was sad, I never came close to crying. It's almost like the mystery distracted me from how sad it was. But! Overall it was written well and it's a powerful book. Not sure I'd recommend it, but I definitely don't regret reading it.

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nialiversuch's review against another edition

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emotional mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

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booksthatburn's review against another edition

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dark mysterious reflective sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

NEVER LET ME GO is a quiet and circuitous reminiscence on a life lived which slowly unfurls into descriptions of an inescapable dystopian nightmare which proceeds at the ambling pace of ordinary existence, ending with a whimper.

As a dystopia it’s quiet, the disturbing details coming in drips and drabs with a sense that Kathy as a narrator assumes the reader knows the system already and so is only paying attention to find out what her place was in it, not to learn what it is altogether. The narrative style meanders in time in order to be mostly clear in thought. It’s not linear, sometimes frustratingly so, but it was usually easy for me to follow because each bit of information is told based on its relevance to some other piece of the past. It has the disconnected quality of a long reminiscence while being generally understandable.

Several of the characters were pretty unlikeable. I enjoy sometimes reading something where I just hate a main character so I had a good time, but Ruth is a consistently unpleasant person for much of the book, and I wish Tommy had room to be more his own person. That said, in a story about how none of them get to be their own people in a larger sense it works really well, but if you're irritated by it early on you should know it doesn't really get better.

Content Warnings

queenfury's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

"It had never occurred to us to wonder how we would feel, being seen like that, being the spiders."

"Maybe all of us at Hailsham had little secrets like that--little private nooks created out of thin air where we could go off alone with our fears and longings. But the very fact that we had such needs would have felt wrong to us at the time--like somehow we were letting the side down."

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