Reviews

Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro

sam_vimes_75's review against another edition

4.0

Like Stevens in Ishguro's classic [b:The Remains of the Day|28921|The Remains of the Day|Kazuo Ishiguro|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1327128714l/28921._SY75_.jpg|3333111], protagonist Klara has a motivation to serve that's pushed by both duty and naivety. It's a sweet trait that makes the perspective endearing, but at other times I found it annoying. As when I read that book, I just wanted our hero to do one selfish act for their own good.

noel221200's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Loveable characters? It's complicated

4.0

carinarm's review against another edition

reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character

3.75

madi_anne's review against another edition

emotional reflective sad slow-paced

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

3.5

bryanzhang's review against another edition

3.0

Disappointing. I decided to read this book as I did Never Let Me Go earlier this year, all at once on a plane ride, but I arrived at my destination feeling not as impressed as I did the last time I flew with Ishiguro. In many ways, this book feels like a cheap rehash of the aforementioned one: a vaguely dystopian sci-fi setting providing the backdrop to a muted narrator reflecting in some mildly sentimental end-of-life way on some potentially philosophical stories of humanity and love. But this time around, Klara and the Sun falls flat.

Some concerns:

- Klara's voice is reminiscent of Kathy in NLMG, but where I found Kathy's voice to be an accomplishment in quiet interiority, I felt that the repetition of that same voice combined with Klara's naïveté only made me feel like Ishiguro had laid bare his magic trick, and was ineffectually manipulating the same strings to cloying effect.
- The characters and dialogue felt surprisingly weak for Ishiguro. I think the story relied too much on the actual plot to move it forward (yet even that was fairly lacking), and the dialogue suffers as a result. There were instances where I was unconvinced that Ishiguro could have written what I was reading: when the ethnically mysterious housekeeper Melania gives an ominous warning to Klara, for instance, or when Miss Helen's former lover Vance dramatically goes over all the times she hurt him. The writing generally felt a step beneath what I expected.
- The speculative fiction habit of naming things to reify them in the context of the book. Why do random things get proper nouned as if they matter? And I'm a little tired of the trick of making up terms with somewhat dystopic meanings that don't get revealed until later in the book.
- The story itself, to me, just doesn't actually say anything important or worthwhile. The underlying sci-fi premise is fairly interesting, but I felt like Ishiguro's use of the concept was surface level, and any emotional payoff was rather basic. He didn't say anything that anyone else couldn't have said, and what he did say, he didn't do a very good job of saying.

Overall, it's a fine distraction that kept me turning pages throughout the five hours it takes to get from San Francisco to JFK, and for part of the excruciating series of trains I then had to take to get to Jake's apartment. And it's fun to get away from the heavier stuff I've been reading lately and have something to poke a bit at on Goodreads. But Klara doesn't compare with Ishiguro's previous works, and I wonder if I won't try to lighten my luggage and leave my copy somewhere in New York this weekend.

isabellabruno's review against another edition

mysterious reflective sad slow-paced

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

2.0

mahiswara's review against another edition

emotional hopeful lighthearted medium-paced

3.75

zennypenny11's review against another edition

emotional mysterious reflective relaxing slow-paced

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

4.5

Beautiful story, gives a new perspective on life.

r_doumit's review against another edition

emotional reflective

4.0

eren2003jaeger's review against another edition

3.0

Meh
I feel like I should have felt more but there was not a strong emotional story for me as the story is being told by a robot who is still figuring out the world. Her naïveté was consistent throughout the book and that kind of bothered me because I don’t think we got any real insights into he human condition and what does it mean to the human or any of the big questions that were being poised at the start. Josie and her mum are complex people and I don’t think Klara ever fully grasped that.

I pushed through the book, despite never really enjoying it, because i had hope it would go somewhere but it never really did for me.. there were some “wow, the mother is crazy” moments but nothing beyond that.

I wish we got explicitly told what it meant to be “lifted”

I’m giving it three stars because although it was severely underwhelming, I didn’t feel like I lost brain cells reading it