Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

BOOK REVIEW: Never Let Me Go

Release Date: April 5th, 2005

Genre: Science Fiction, Dystopia

288 Pages, Paperback

Published by Vintage Books

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ My Goodreads Rating

BOOK BLURB:

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.


MY THOUGHTS:

“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.”

I had to wait a couple of days before writing this review, because I needed to actually evaluate how this book made me feel (all the feelings)... I enjoyed reading it and was really interested in the whole plot and mystery behind it. But then the whole mystery is revealed and I was angry, but I wasn’t angry at the author. I was angry at the human race. At how history can so easily repeat itself and become acceptable by all. Justified by the necessity to save a few lives...

The beauty of the book is how the author approaches the subject of what makes us humans? How can we define being human? Is it because we have memories? Express emotions? Feel Love? Maybe it is the ability to differentiate right from wrong, but that can get all twisted when the world you live in is unethical, by removing the ability to choose one’s own purpose.

I can’t wait for my book club to discuss this book later on this year!

“All children have to be deceived if they are to grow up without trauma.”

I know the book was made into a movie but I'm not even sure if I want to watch it, because I have a feeling it will be nearly impossible for the story to translate well into the screen...