Never Let Me Go

By: Kazuo Ishiguro

Narrated by: Rosalyn Landor

NOBEL PRIZE WINNER • From the acclaimed, bestselling author of The Remains of the Day comes “a Gothic tour de force" (The New York Times) with an extraordinary twist—a moving, suspenseful, beautifully atmospheric modern classic.

One of The New York Times’s 10 Best Books of the 21st Century • A Kirkus Reviews Best Fiction Book of the Century • A Los Angeles Times Best Fiction Book of the Last 30 Years

As children, Kathy, Ruth, and Tommy were students at Hailsham, an exclusive boarding school secluded in the English countryside. It was a place of mercurial cliques and mysterious rules where teachers were constantly reminding their charges of how special they were.

Now, years later, Kathy is a young woman. Ruth and Tommy have reentered her life. And for the first time she is beginning to look back at their shared past and understand just what it is that makes them special—and how that gift will shape the rest of their time together.©2005 Kazuo Ishiguro; (P)2005 Random House, Inc. Random House Audio, a division of Random House, Inc.

A little too glancing

Kathy is a pupil at a special boarding school called Hailsham, which trains its students to be "donors" and "carers". Though Kathy describes her work and education in casually vague terms, it quickly becomes clear that there's a more troubling purpose to it. However, Ishiguro shies away from explaining or examining the real issue directly (at least until the end), instead conveying the story's emotional tone through Kathy's reflections on small details of her life and her relationship with two close friends from Hailsham, especially as their roles approach a final decision point.

There's certainly some resonance to Ishiguro's understated approach to his story, but I found it a little too glancing. Once it was clear to me why Hailsham existed, which happened about a third of the way into the book, I wanted more directness. How could this have happened in post-World War II Britain? And why would the characters, who seem to be intellectually and emotionally normal people, and aren't too restricted in their adult lives, accept their lots so passively, rather than, say, running off to Mexico? To me, there were a few too many logical questions that Ishiguro didn't adequately address, and the main characters' relationships, though they are drawn with a poignant mix of adult and juvenile behavior, didn't have enough going on to carry the heavy moral questions that the book poses. I had trouble taking the premise seriously without knowing more about the political realities of the novel's world. All in all, though the writing is good and there is some power in a scene towards the end, I found this one to be a bit of a disappointment as a whole.

Haunting...it will never let me go

This book is not for everyone. It's a slow burn filled with pages of detailed descriptions of trivial things that at first make no sense. However, there is a big pay-off for the reader that sticks with the story. Eventually you begin to piece together what is happening and the reason behind all the detailed and trivial descriptions. This book was such a haunting tale of advanced science and the ethics behind it. This book will stick with me for years to come and most likely I will never be able to let it go.

A Wonderful Narration

Would you listen to Never Let Me Go again? Why?

Probably not because the story is depressing.

What did you like best about this story?

The dialogues between the central protagonists.

Which scene was your favorite?

No favorite.

If you could take any character from Never Let Me Go out to dinner, who would it be and why?

Cannot choose.

Any additional comments?

The narrator made in this into a wonderful listen.

Brilliant, devastating, but meanders in the middle

I've listened to this twice. The premise is intriguing. The characters are well-rounded and very believable. Sure, they're petty at times. But who isn't? My issue with the book, and this wasn't the case the first time I listened to it, are stretches of uninteresting parts in the middle. That said, there's a reason I wanted to listen to this a second time. I was completely engaged with the lives of Kathy, Tommy, and Ruth. The end really got to me. This is one of those books that stays with you long after you've read it.

Sparse elegant provocative

It’s a long haul to the shocking conflict of this story, but well worth the diligence to follow to the end. A great study for writers about the power of simple subject verb object progression toward resolution. There are so few embellishments and plot changes with vast plains between we lean more and more into this narrative to make sure we don’t miss some vital clue about where we are going. This work is truly as magnificent as authoring a cloud. We have so little to hold, and yet it is spectacular to behold. I will indeed Never Let these characters Go.