Reviews with content warning for Grief - Never Let Me Go

This is a very interesting book that I personally interpreted as an allegory for the course of life. The main question it focuses on is: why do we do anything if there's no hope, or at least nothing more than this life, in the end? It's basically a reflection on the absurdity that characterizes our existence through the experiences of three very, very human characters. They are all very flawed, sometimes even to an aggravating extent, but I found it kind of comforting how openly their flaws were explored and how they kept being connected, not despite these flaws, but even alongside them.

What I personally realized through this book was that we keep on living life because that's the core of our humanity: to create and to exist, no matter how absurd our existence might really be. We're not different from the students at all -our existence is a path straight towards death, just like theirs. But we keep carrying on, because what matters is that we live until we die.

I think that the only thing that I didn't enjoy very much was the writing style of this book. I do understand that it is designed to reflect that the story is told orally, but I found it repetitive. Sometimes, there was foreshadowing that was too obvious or even repeatedly mentioned, which made me feel that the set ups the writer wanted to create were a little not too strongly built. At times, I also found the narration somewhat emotionless, especially in the beginning of the book, but even though this bogged me, I have to admit that it did contribute to the general morose, yet hopeful, atmosphere that the book had.

Content Warnings

theres_claire's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

God, I love this book. Emotional, dark, reflective, character-driven - all good things as far as I'm concerned!

Never Let Me Go follows the unwinding memories of Cathy, focusing on her relationship with Ruth and Tommy, through school, early adulthood and their time as carers and 'donators'.

Minor spoilers ahead!

What I loved:

I adore science fiction that's very grounded. It's a world that feels so similar to ours, maybe even a bit closer to something we would recognise from the past, but there's one sci-fi element that has changed everything. The sci-fi elements are explored and unveiled so well throughout the book.
Thematically, this book explores heavy topics. It asks what exactly makes humanity, what makes someone human, what's equivalent to a soul. What I love most about it is it doesn't force an answer, it never moralises at you, it just gives you the space to explore these characters and through these characters come to a conclusion about their humanity.
The characters are fantastic. Cathy's POV voice is clear and specific, but Tommy and Ruth too feel so real. They're intensely flawed people and they regularly hurt each other, they're regularly thoughtless about each other or selfish about each other, but you can feel how much they love each other and how intensely close they are to each other. I found them so compelling and beautifully written.
I personally loved the writing style, the way events unfolded slowly and the feeling the prose evoked of being in a classic coming-of-age novel.

What you may not love:
This is a 5-star for me; I loved everything about it, but there's definitely elements I can see being not for everyone!

The pacing and structure. This is a slow-moving story and it unfolds mainly as memory. Like real memories, Cathy's point-of-view tends to slip from one thing to another fairly tangentially. She'll be remembering a conversation she had with Tommy in childhood, but then something from a later time in their teenage years will be relevant and she'll go through that and then back to her conversation with Tommy. I loved this style it felt like real memory, but I could see it also being frustrating.
The ending. This is absolutely a sad ending, and not in a bitter sweet, maybe hopeful sad way. Just unapologetically, hopelessly sad. If you hate a sad ending or have to be in a particular mood for it, leave this one!

I loved everything about this book!

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."

Content Warnings

hayleighg's review against another edition

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emotional reflective sad tense

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

5.0

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