Reviews

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

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jerigayle's review against another edition

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dark slow-paced

3.0

acolossalzebra's review against another edition

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sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes

After reading my second Ishiguro book (first was Buried Giant), I think I’m starting to understand and appreciate the author’s style a bit more.

Most books I’ve read (and which I find easier to read and more engaging) are driven by plot, so it was harder for me to understand these.

But after finishing Never let me go, I feel like I have much more appreciation of the character inner monologue style, because I feel like I almost got to know the chaeacter in real life, which is a real treat.

mattstokes's review against another edition

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reflective sad slow-paced

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

2.5

So character driven it feels like there isn’t a plot

stavoosh's review against another edition

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emotional mysterious reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character

4.0

All I knew about this book before reading it was that it is a devastating story. I do agree that the ending leaves you with an inescapable sense of doom, but the thought that it could've been better lingers.

First of all, the writing was worthy of five stars alone. Ishiguro has a gift of imagery and nostalgia that is woven through the pages. I will definitely read his writing again.

The idea about raising clones to harvest organs is definitely an interesting one, but putting it on the backburner in the story made it kind of boring. The story is mostly taking us through the innocent friendship dynamics in a boarding school called Hailsham where a trio of children get their education to later become carers and then donors. Let me explain why it didn't completely interest me as much as the writing did:

I felt that the characters were bland and not very argumentative in a way that main characters are. The only interesting things was Tommy's tantrums but that didn't seem as big a mystery as it was made out to be. I understand that it was meant to show three different people coming to terms with an inevitable fate, but it was pretty lackluster. Coming from quite a diverse dystopian reading background, it felt kind of pointless that these people don't care to ask, research, or look for information. It may be a comment on how they were programmed/engineered, but I still think it took away from the plot. Additionally, I felt that the ending wasn't that devastating, it was more disconcerting. I think it would've been a lot more interesting to me if all the meaningless childhood stories were replaced with the ones that enforced the weirdness of this world (because they didn't really give the reader a reason to love Hailsham the way the students do) and the mystery of the story was in the forefront more (because the gallery thing wasn't as high stakes as literally being a human organ farm).

Overall, I think the writing is exquisite and I can see why the author made all these choices- to make a story more about human nature than about this terrible dystopian world. I think personally, I experience enough ordinary humanity and would've liked if Ishiguro delved into more of the mystery with his electric writing.