Kazuo Ishiguro

A reunion with two childhood friends draws Kathy and her companions on a nostalgic odyssey into their lives at Hailsham, an isolated private school in the English countryside, and a confrontation with the truth about their childhoods.

Never Let Me Go

*Kazuo Ishiguro's new novel Klara and the Sun is now available to preorder* One of the most acclaimed novels of the 21st Century, from the Nobel Prize-winning author Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize Kazuo Ishiguro imagines the lives of a group of students growing up in a darkly skewed version of contemporary England. Narrated by Kathy, now thirty-one, Never Let Me Go dramatises her attempts to come to terms with her childhood at the seemingly idyllic Hailsham School and with the fate that has always awaited her and her closest friends in the wider world. A story of love, friendship and memory, Never Let Me Go is charged throughout with a sense of the fragility of life. 'Exquisite.' Guardian 'A feat of imaginative sympathy.' New York Times What readers are saying: 'A book I will return to again and again, and one that keeps me thinking even after finishing it. 5/5 stars' 'I loved it, every single word of it.' 'It took me wholly by surprise.' 'Utterly beautiful.' 'Essentially perfect.'

Paola Fernandes

Comovente e real, mesmo em uma realidade utópica. 

Um ótimo livro para quem gosta de explorar um mundo diferente com assuntos do nosso cotidiano. Exploramos no livro a esperança, os sonhos, o amadurecimento e o amor em um mundo onde as escolhas não podem ser tomadas, já que o caminho já foi traçado. 

É muito comovente a forma que o livro flui fazendo o leitor caminhar juntamente com os personagens até o clímax onde entendemos o objetivo da existência de cada personagem, depois de se apegarmos. Sinto que o livro tem uma repartição como um muro do: antes da descoberta e o pós – passamos a sentir as perdas e a mesma esperança que existia durante todo o livro, passa a ser nossa, como se assim como cada um dos personagens, tivessemos a expecativa de que no final, realmente fosse funcionar. 

From the Booker Prize-winning author of The Remains of the Day and When We Were Orphans, comes an unforgettable edge-of-your-seat mystery that is at once heartbreakingly tender and morally courageous about what it means to be human. Hailsham seems like a pleasant English boarding school, far from the influences of the city. Its students are well tended and supported, trained in art and literature, and become just the sort of people the world wants them to be. But, curiously, they are taught nothing of the outside world and are allowed little contact with it. Within the grounds of Hailsham, Kathy grows from schoolgirl to young woman, but it’s only when she and her friends Ruth and Tommy leave the safe grounds of the school (as they always knew they would) that they realize the full truth of what Hailsham is. Never Let Me Go breaks through the boundaries of the literary novel. It is a gripping mystery, a beautiful love story, and also a scathing critique of human arrogance and a moral examination of how we treat the vulnerable and different in our society. In exploring the themes of memory and the impact of the past, Ishiguro takes on the idea of a possible future to create his most moving and powerful book to date.

Jiya

Has Keffers recruited you for his porn patrol? 

Clara Gauthier

I keep thinking about this river somewhere, with the water moving really fast. And these two people in the water, trying to hold onto each other, holding on as hard as they can, but in the end it's just too much. The current's too strong. They've got to let go, drift apart. That's how I think it is with us. It's a shame, Kath, because we've loved each other all our lives. But in the end, we can't stay together forever. 

nica

“It might be just some trend that came and went,” I said. “But for us, it’s our life.”

“I think of my pile of old paperbacks, their pages gone wobbly, like they’d once belonged to the sea. I think about how I read them, lying on my front in the grass on warm afternoons, my hair—which I was growing long then—always falling across my vision.”

Of course, the moment she was giving it to me, I didn’t know what sort of music it was, but I did know it wasn’t anything like Judy Bridgewater. Then again, almost immediately, I saw how Ruth wasn’t to know that—how to Ruth, who didn’t know the first thing about music, this tape might easily make up for the one I’d lost. And suddenly I felt the disappointment ebbing away and being replaced by a real happiness. We didn’t do things like hug each other much at Hailsham. But I squeezed one of her hands in both mine when I thanked her. She said: “I found it at the last Sale. I just thought it’s the sort of thing you’d like.” And I said that, yes, it was exactly the sort of thing.

“when we lost something precious, and we’d looked and looked and still couldn’t find it, then we didn’t have to be completely heartbroken. We still had that last bit of comfort, thinking one day, when we were grown up, and we were free to travel around the country, we could always go and find it again in Norfolk.”

Helen 

I was thinking about the rubbish, the flapping plastic in the branches, the shore-line of odd stuff caught along the fencing, and I half-closed my eyes and imagined this was the spot where everything Id ever lost since my childhood had washed up, and I was now standing here in front of it, and if I waited long enough, a tiny figure would appear on the horizon across the field, and gradually get larger until Id see it was Tommy, and he'd wave, maybe even call. The fantasy never got beyond that- I didn't let it - and though the tears rolled down my face, I wasn't sobbing or out of control. I just waited a bit, then turned back to the car, to drive off to wherever it was I was Supposed to be.

Because maybe, in a way, we didn't leave it behind nearva much as we might once have thought. Because somewhe underneath, a part of us stayed like that: fearful of the wotla around us, and - no matter how much we despised our selves for it - unable quite to let each other go.

Jillian Roberts

“I keep thinking about this river somewhere, with the water moving really fast. And these two people in the water trying to hold onto each other. Holding on as hard as they can. But in the end, it’s just too much. The current is too strong. They’ve got to let go; drift apart. That’s how I think it is with us.”

Anushree Taparia

that there are people out there, like Madame, who dominate our lives. don't hate you or wish you any harm, but who nevertheless shudder at the very thought of you - of how you were brought into this world and why - and who dread the idea of your hand brushing against theirs. The first time you glimpse yourself through the eyes of a person like that, is a cold moment. It's like walking past a mirror you've walked past every day of your life, and suddenly it shows you something else, something troubling and strange.

In one of the most acclaimed and original novels of recent years, Kazuo Ishiguro imagines the lives of a group of students growing up in a darkly skewered version of contemporary England. Narrated by Kathy, now thirty-one, Never let me go hauntingly dramatises her attempts to come to terms with her childhood at the seemingly idyllic Hailsham School, and with the fate that has always awaited her and her closest friends in the wider world. A story of love, friendship and memory, Never let me go is charged throughout with a sence of the fragility of life.

Stavros Kosmas

It was like when you make a move in chess and just as you take your finger off the piece, you see the mistake you've made, and there's this panic because you don't know yet the scale of disaster you've left yourself open to

I think of my pile of old paperbacks, their pages gone wobbly, like they'd once belonged to the sea. 

So you're waiting, even if you don't quite know it, waiting for the moment when you realise that you really are different to them; that there are people out there, like Madame, who don't hate you or wish you any harm, but who nevertheless shudder at the very thought of you - of how you were brought into this world and why - and who dread the idea of your hand brushing against theirs. The first time you glimpse yourself through the eyes of a person like that, it's a cold moment. It's like walking past a mirror you've walked past every day of your life, and suddenly it shows you something else, something troubling and strange. 

Denisse Garcia Ramírez 

Most importantly, we demonstrated to the world that if students were reared in humane, cultivated environments, it was possible for them to grow to be as sensitive and intelligent as any ordinary human being.

You said it was because your art would reveal what you were like. What you were like inside. That’s what you said wasn’t it? Well, you weren’t far wrong about that. We took away your art because we thought it would reveal your souls. Or to put it more finely, we did it to prove you had souls at all.

Emiley Jones

Soory but i read Klara and the Sun earlier :’)

ceren koc

 Kathy, Tommy, and Ruth are three friends who grow up in the English boarding school Hailsham, and we learn pretty early on that something is just kind of... odd... about everything: their upbringing, their circumstances, their environment, all sorts of information being withheld from them. And, since this whole novel is being told in past-tense and we're getting information about Kathy's present life as well, we also know by the first chapter that everyone treats people from Hailsham differently. 

 That's what the rest of the book goes on to explain :)

But, of course, you probably already knew that. I don't think it's an understatement to say this is one of the most celebrated books of the 21st century, and certainly the book that hooked me - and the literary world - on Ishiguro as a writer.

For those who have absolutely no idea what I'm talking about, I personally suggest you close out of this review and just pick up the book yourself, because the story is best experienced blind and headfirst.

Anyway, back to the premise: the whole mystery of the book REALLY comes to a head in the third and final part of the book, where the flashbacks are mostly over and we're sitting with these characters in the present, when they're actively coming back together and trying to discover (rediscover, perhaps?) what it all meant. This final 70ish page chunk is - for me, at least - the heart of the entire book; without it, everything falls apart.

I... have complicated feelings about this reread. While I still enjoyed it the second time around, I've begun to notice little cracks begin to spread in Ishiguro's writing; or, perhaps, I'm starting to become more aware of his consistent style, and my distaste for certain parts of it. The narration, and especially the dialogue, often felt very stiff and forced, like he was trying to fit his themes into a scene that didn't have the shape or the depth to fit it. This is, I'm sad to admit, pretty normal for Ishiguro based on the 4ish books I've read from him. One more main complaint: Part 3 of this book is simply too short. We get basically 10 pages worth of time for our main characters to fully process their findings, and there were scenes meant to hit emotionally that just didn't land for me this time.

That being said, I still really like this book. Despite the increasing visibility of flaws this time around, the discussion of humanity often makes this book - Ishiguro in general, really - feel less like a story and more like an exploration of humanity. An exploration of 

 human, of having to prove that you are, of having to prove that you’re in love and that you’re capable of love, and an exploration of friendship, nostalgia, and grief.

While I have issues with it after inspecting the novel more closely, I do think this book is one of the most interesting to discuss with friends. I’ve found myself going on and on about the themes, the concepts, and the characters, in ways that I never do with other favorites.

Edit: So I wrote this review the day I finished the reread, and about 6 months have passed since then. I'm not gonna go out and rewrite the entire review, but a lot of my criticisms have sort of lessened and the book has aged remarkably well in my mind. While it's hard to explain in a small amount of text, I think this book is especially fun to think about in the context of asexuality. This and Klara still remain my two favorite Ishiguro books. If I had to rethink my rating, I'd give it a 9 or 9.5 :) ok bye

smile

Super fast premise for the book! Kathy, Tommy, and Ruth are three friends who grow up in the English boarding school Hailsham, and we learn pretty early on that something is just kind of... odd... about everything: their upbringing, their circumstances, their environment, all sorts of information being withheld from them. And, since this whole novel is being told in past-tense and we're getting information about Kathy's present life as well, we also know by the first chapter that everyone treats people from Hailsham differently. Why? That's what the rest of the book goes on to explain :)

But, of course, you probably already knew that. I don't think it's an understatement to say this is one of the most celebrated books of the 21st century, and certainly the book that hooked me - and the literary world - on Ishiguro as a writer.

For those who have absolutely no idea what I'm talking about, I personally suggest you close out of this review and just pick up the book yourself, because the story is best experienced blind and headfirst.

Anyway, back to the premise: the whole mystery of the book REALLY comes to a head in the third and final part of the book, where the flashbacks are mostly over and we're sitting with these characters in the present, when they're actively coming back together and trying to discover (rediscover, perhaps?) what it all meant. This final 70ish page chunk is - for me, at least - the heart of the entire book; without it, everything falls apart.

I... have complicated feelings about this reread. While I still enjoyed it the second time around, I've begun to notice little cracks begin to spread in Ishiguro's writing; or, perhaps, I'm starting to become more aware of his consistent style, and my distaste for certain parts of it. The narration, and especially the dialogue, often felt very stiff and forced, like he was trying to fit his themes into a scene that didn't have the shape or the depth to fit it. This is, I'm sad to admit, pretty normal for Ishiguro based on the 4ish books I've read from him. One more main complaint: Part 3 of this book is simply too short. We get basically 10 pages worth of time for our main characters to fully process their findings, and there were scenes meant to hit emotionally that just didn't land for me this time.

That being said, I still really like this book. Despite the increasing visibility of flaws this time around, the discussion of humanity often makes this book - Ishiguro in general, really - feel less like a story and more like an exploration of humanity. An exploration of being human, of having to prove that you are, of having to prove that you’re in love and that you’re capable of love, and an exploration of friendship, nostalgia, and grief.

While I have issues with it after inspecting the novel more closely, I do think this book is one of the most interesting to discuss with friends. I’ve found myself going on and on about the themes, the concepts, and the characters, in ways that I never do with other favorites.

8/10

Edit: So I wrote this review the day I finished the reread, and about 6 months have passed since then. I'm not gonna go out and rewrite the entire review, but a lot of my criticisms have sort of lessened and the book has aged remarkably well in my mind. While it's hard to explain in a small amount of text, I think this book is especially fun to think about in the context of asexuality. This and Klara still remain my two favorite Ishiguro books. If I had to rethink my rating, I'd give it a 9 or 9.5 :) ok bye

Slow start with a quiet, uncertain ending that has no answers, but reflective.

Cassandra Tang

lauren

so haunting... i suspect i will never read this again 

Jordan Chan 

For the entirety of reading the book I was waiting for a twist, a moment that explains their “origins”, but reached the end with nothing ! Plot was promising, but the whole story was stagnant from beginning to end. All that character building for again, nothing. Did not see the point in the narrator telling all those stories. 

gishelle

This book is a whole lot of nothing. I never DNF a book and about 50% through, I was highly considering it. 

Alicia Evans

It’s a book that brings out many emotions- you never really know how to feel but there’s always something there 

it’s all about the love man !! about humanity !! and the love is always there there will always be love !! such a character driven novel but i really loved it. definitely weird !! i love some gothic scifi !! anyway gonna go think about norfolk now

Found the majority of this book somewhat irritating to read as I’m not a huge fan of stream of consciousness writing and there was a lot of ambiguity for 90% of the book. The “twist” was not that shocking - I wanted a lot more information about the cloning process and how they got to Hailsham, as opposed to pandering about a “love” story. I didn’t really see any of the characters in a romantic relationship so that all felt forced and redundant. Overall concept is interesting but just think it should have delved into it differently.

Paige Paul

really got me thinking towards the end but it took me 3 weeks to get thru the book (maybe im just not a fan of the writing style) 

the last 50 pages of the book was its only saving grace. 200 pages of tireless mystery that didn’t dangle any carrots for one to continue. I bought this book brand new with my hard earned money and that was the only reason why I pushed through…

The anecdotes were scattered & messy. Probably the author’s intention to realistically mirror human’s recollection that often is messy and non-linear, but 200 pages of this mess, i couldn’t care less for the characters. So much so that when it attempts to highlight grey areas or ethical dilemmas, its effect fell short. 

I appreciate the constant hopelessness that this book portrays which inadvertently made the ending very predictable but very well written, it tugged at my heart strings. The nuances that this author attempts to highlight, children as a means to an end to cure cancer - though clearly unethical, it speaks to the life we know where people are often a means to an end. I suppose if the goalpost of what society deems as ‘ethical’ constantly shifts, then we have let ourselves go as a society. 

Desyre Foo

the last 50 pages of the book was its only saving grace. 200 pages of tireless mystery that didn’t dangle any carrots for one to continue. I bought this book brand new with my hard earned money and that was the only reason why I pushed through…

The anecdotes were scattered & messy. Probably the author’s intention to realistically mirror human’s recollection that often is messy and non-linear, but 200 pages of this mess, i couldn’t care less for the characters. So much so that when it attempts to highlight grey areas or ethical dilemmas, its effect fell short. 

I appreciate the constant hopelessness that this book portrays which inadvertently made the ending very predictable but very well written, it tugged at my heart strings. The nuances that this author attempts to highlight, children as a means to an end to cure cancer - though clearly unethical, it speaks to the life we know where people are often a means to an end. I suppose if the goalpost of what society deems as ‘ethical’ constantly shifts, then we have let ourselves go as a society. 

Spoke to me in a deeply spiritual way. Does yearning very well and tackles so many great themes without the heavy handiness of many "speculative fiction" novels. Heart wrenching in a great way. Will be thinking about this for a long time.

Derek Graf

this type of writing style, stream of consciousness writing, is what i appreciate the most. my most favorite writing style. i adore the writing in this book so much because to wrap a story beautifully in this way is so difficult.

however, although i liked the way the story, the passages and the imagery, were stitched together even as it moves back and forth, i wanted something more to happen given the plot is something so big. but maybe that wasn’t the point of the book at all, maybe the point of the book is just to simply explore humanness (i think this was, in fact, the point). however, there were critical conversations, turning points in the story, that i felt should have been explored more.

this type of writing style, stream of consciousness writing, is what i appreciate the most. my most favorite writing style. i adore the writing in this book so much because to wrap a story beautifully in this way is so difficult.

however, although i liked the way the story, the passages and the imagery, were stitched together even as it moves back and forth, i wanted something more to happen given the plot is something so big. but maybe that wasn’t the point of the book at all, maybe the point of the book is just to simply explore humanness (i think this was, in fact, the point). however, there were critical conversations, turning points in the story, that i felt should have been explored more.

I read “The Buried Giant” a couple years ago and I learned that it was Ishiguro’s only book in 3rd person, so I thought to myself, ‘his other books must be better.’ This one wasn’t. Ishiguro writes incredibly staggered, with this quiet cadence I could not latch onto at all. His characters read like poor imitations of Wes Anderson creations, flat dialogue and no emotion (which was strange for a book lauded to be tender and all about relationships!). I liked Madam’s spider-vision, I liked Madam watching Kathy dance, what I did not like, and I’ll tell you soon what that is, was how every couple paragraphs out narrator would preface that they were about to say something and then say that  thing. It happened far too often to be enjoyable, maybe once is enough but even that is pushing it. Klara and the Sun has such a pretty, red cover I want to read it next but now I’m scared!

Eli Alvah Huckabee

Chris Dailey

Subtle and devastating novel that straddles coming-of-age confusion and horrifying dystopia. Set in two periods - late 80s and late 90s - in rural England, the story follows a group of friends in boarding school that reconnect "later" in life. The dialogue, conflicts and confusion are ostensibly banal and kiddish...until the small hints and intentional vagueness reveal a terrifying truth that our protagonist and her friends are in-fact clones being raised for organ harvesting. Their idyllic and beloved boarding school is actually a liberal endeavor to provide these children with a semblance of humanity before their demise. The build is slow and clues sparse except for a feeling that something is off. In the end, the normality and inevitability of their fates is the most upsetting. Slow and banal for large portions but ultimately worth the ride.

Mah Chuan Kai

Never written a review till now. This was my first Kazuo Ishiguro book and I was really moved towards the end of the book. I was so absorbed into the bleak, enclosed life, yet dotted with rays of happiness of the students as described by Kathy that the overarching themes of sci-fi and dystopia never really occured to me other than just hanging in the background. I have not read anything quite like this before, where the story just kind of flows with a lot of emphasis on mood and atmosphere rather than a clear plotline. By the end I was really attached to majority of the characters. 

I an sure to read more books by him in the future. 

"I was thinking about the rubbish, the flapping plastic in the branches, the shore-line of odd stuff caught along the fencing, and I half-closed my eyes and imagined this was the spot where everything I'd ever lost since my childhood had washed up, and I was now standing here in front of it, and if I waited long enough, a tiny figure would appear on the horizon across and the field, and gradually get larger until I'd see it was Tommy, and he'd wave maybe even call. The fantasy never got beyond that - I didn't let it - and though the tears rolled down my face, I wasn't sobbing or out of control. I just waited a bit, then turned back to the car, to drive off to wherever it was I was supposed to be. "

4.25. Ishiguro's style is quiet, subtle devastation. I enjoyed the confined exploration of what identity, friendship, and community mean for these clones at a seemingly posh boarding school. But at times, it can feel a little dry and slow. Though it takes patience to make it to the payoff, the themes are worth the exploration.

Katelyn Caillouet

damn good plot. i like his writing style too. i was pretty stumped for a solid 2 days after reading this. would definitely read more of his works.

sneha

Anjorin Molayo 

i went into this blindly, and i genuinely think it would be a complete miss if i went searching for specific things about the book. the point of this book lies elsewhere, and not where you’d think if you went into it with expectations 

i have just finished it and i feel crushed. not in an overly dramatic way, but in a more suppressed, empty kind of way. the sort of sadness you feel about something that "could have been".

what a book. I was so bored so many times(if not throughout). it was very slow paced, but by the end I think even that boredom served a purpose in this story. all the childish pettiness, all the fights, the delicacy of human relationships from childhood to adulthood, the simplicity of life, the complexity of it all at the end of the day. the contrast between the mundane and the tragic. everything worked its way up towards delivering a question to us in a subtle yet very clear way.

the reason why i gave this 4 stars and not 5, is because the narration felt a bit barren and detached. I understand the passivity of Kathy serves a purpose too for the overall tragedy of the story, but i would have liked a more colorful and sentimental description of the past, which i believe would serve well in the book for the dark reality to hit all the more harder. just because the events are mundane doesn't mean the characters have to be written in a boring way. 

all in all, i love this book, and i’ll definitely read more books from the author.

i went into this novel not knowing what it was about. i wanted to experience it blindly, so i didn’t read the synopsis or any reviews before. and i only plan on reading the reviews after i am done with my own.

at first, i was kind of confused, a lot of new terminology and concepts that weren’t at first explained at all. honestly, i actually loved it like that. it kept me interested and on the edge, to find out what was actually going on at hailsham and what was going to happen to all these students after their time at the school, and what were the donations all about. 

i liked how slow the pacing was, it fit the story well and i got so immersed into this world and i loved kathy’s voice and how she explained and reminisced about her life and her time from hailsham to the cottages to her work as a carer. it felt really raw, and it made me emotional more often than not.

it’s really thought provoking, emotional & beautifully written. one of my favourites for sure; i now want to read more of ishiguro’s works.

i went into this novel not knowing what it was about. i wanted to experience it blindly, so i didn’t read the synopsis or any reviews before. and i only plan on reading the reviews after i am done with my own.

at first, i was kind of confused, a lot of new terminology and concepts that weren’t at first explained at all. honestly, i actually loved it like that. it kept me interested and on the edge, to find out what was actually going on at hailsham and what was going to happen to all these students after their time at the school, and what were the donations all about. 

i liked how slow the pacing was, it fit the story well and i got so immersed into this world and i loved kathy’s voice and how she explained and reminisced about her life and her time from hailsham to the cottages to her work as a carer. it felt really raw, and it made me emotional more often than not.

it’s really thought provoking, emotional & beautifully written. one of my favourites for sure; i now want to read more of ishiguro’s works.

ghost girl in satin

I'm not sure I loved this book, but I found it interesting and captivating enough to keep me reading it until the very end.

No plot, no meaning, just empty, hollow and dumb. Hated every character so it's not a character driven book and there's literatly no moving foward in terms of "plot" so it's not a plot book either, so what even is it? It's not a mystery, it's got like 0.00003% touch of emotion in it, which I guess is the point of the book, but it was so meaningless, it felt so useless. Genuinely I do not understand how anyone could like this book? It's just so boring. It's so stale and reminds me of eating cardboard really. Would not recommened ever.  

surtified™

maitha mana

I rate this book a 2.8. This is one of the rare occasions where the movie is better than the book. I initially saw the movie first and fell in love with the story, and had high expectations for the book to meet the same standards; which unfortunately it didn't. The dialogue Ishiguro uses as with the character makes it hard to concentrate. It feels more like diary entries than a flow. There's constant back and forth between events from the past and present, and much more unnecessary bits where she drags on about a lake or a tree; and even then, it isn't done nicely. The only part I truly enjoyed was Part 3, where the suspense kicks in and we are given background on why the students came to be.

Never Let Me Go

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