Reviews

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

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alexf7's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious reflective sad medium-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? Yes

3.75

alannathellama's review against another edition

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3.0

Overall a quiet book, with an idyllic beauty. It’s fine, I didn’t hate it, but I think I just wanted more from it.

It’s more about interpersonal relationships and introspection than anything else. The first 25% has a couple good moments, although it does seem to drag by while repeatedly foreshadowing many things. Overall light tone, although it is very clear something is supposed to be revealed later.

However, when we get to the reveals, they’re not very dramatic. I know this book is told from the narrator’s memories, so things have kind of faded emotionally, but I was expecting it to be more poignant. The emotional aspects that really stuck out to me had to do with the title, as its referenced more times than I can count.

Such a take on serious topics is interesting, and certainly goes up against the norm. It’s an accumulation of small moments over time rather than a very eventful, dramatic short climax. Which, I think is meant to reflect the thoughts of someone reminiscing on things they have no ability to change, and realizing they could have never changed them to begin with.

It’s generally ambiguous, which I normally do not mind, but I really like the idea of the world-building surrounding human cloning, and I wish it could have been explored more. I think it would have been possible to do this while keeping the narration style.

My main issue is with the romance that the story is supposed to center around. It just felt unnatural. For something that was supposed to drive the story and should have meant so much to the characters, it didn’t seem like it was built up enough. I guess maybe they didn’t realize it until it was very late? Personally, I think romantic relationships tend to receive too much emphasis over plantic relationships (both in media and society), so I think the work could have been just as meaningful if the relationship had been kept platonic? And with the dynamics of the characters (or maybe just the influence of the single point of view?) it seemed kind of one-sided? It just struck me as strange and kind of unnecessary, as a different, possibly more unique and intriguing commentary could have been made about dynamics of different personalities had the relationship been kept platonic.

anyways i have no brain cells left and this is not proof read but i wanted to remember my raw thoughts about this book