Reviews

This has been on my TBR for approximately 8 years now so as part of my mission to finally read my back-listed books I picked this up to provide me with a break from mystery thrillers. I would describe Never Let Me Go as contemporary fiction with a subtle dystopian sub-genre. The reason I say that is because it feels different to every other dystopian book I’ve read – it’s still set in a nightmarish world but it is very downplayed and pretty much just accepted by the characters. There is little to no resistance to what is happening to these characters and I feel this is quite unique in a story of this sort.

I don’t want to give away too much because the details of how this world is dystopian are slowly revealed throughout the book, so all I will say is that we follow our protagonist Kathy, a carer in her late twenties who is reminiscing about her past experiences mainly with her friends Ruth and Tommy.

I noticed that a lot of it is structurally repetitive in the sense that it often interrupts the flow of the story to describe the significance of a previous event, object, or argument before continuing the story, which felt a bit overdone by the end but I didn’t dislike it too much. I also found one of the main characters to be really irritating and I wished that they got called out more for some of their toxic behaviours.

This book had a strange “quietness” to it in that it’s not in your face with all the horrible things going on in the world, it’s very subtle and downplayed and I think that adds to sadness of this book. It did make me cry and it left me with a lot to think about after it ended.

joelhallifax's review against another edition

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5.0

4.5/5

A beautiful heart-wrenching and compassionate book. The characters - Kathy, Tommy and Ruth - are so fully realised, and so lovingly crafted, I feel as if I could reach out and touch them even when they're enigmatic and even when they don't make any sense at all.

This book unravels masterfully into a tragic tale of what it means to be alive, what it means to love and the ways purpose-driven lives surrender us to our fate and trap us. This book is science fiction on a technical level, but it's literary fiction at it's core. This book embedded it's claws into my skin and starting ripping at it from the beginning. It's very rare for me to shed a tear for words left on a page.

Thought-provoking, strange and loving, this book has reserved a corner in my mind for the foreseeable future.

# The only negative note I really have is the repitition of Kathy telling stories going "but before I tell you this!", this only started to get grating around the 200-220 page mark so fairly late on but still noticeable.

audrey2909'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? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

svillanu's review against another edition

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4.0

Understated and brilliant. I loved the conversational narrative voice; it felt like I was reading about the events exactly when I needed to and no sooner, as the narrator remembered important pieces of the puzzle and decided to fill you in. I do feel that the information dump at the end was too convenient and very tell instead of showing through actions or as the narrator learns more. Overall, I thought the book was a beautiful story depicting the lives of and relationships between these three students.

benstrawberryjamin's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious sad slow-paced

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

2.0

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