Never Let Me Go

By: Kazuo Ishiguro

Narrated by: Rosalyn Landor

Length: 9 hrs and 40 mins

Publisher's summary

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.

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.

Critic reviews

• National Book Critics Circle Award Nominee, 2005, Fiction
• Alex Award Winner, 2006

"Stunningly brilliant fiction....A masterpiece of craftsmanship that offers an unparalleled emotional experience." (Kirkus Reviews)

"Ishiguro's elegant prose and masterly ways with characterization make for a lovely tale of memory, self-understanding, and love." (Library Journal)

"So exquisitely observed that even the most workaday objects and interactions are infused with a luminous, humming otherworldliness.....Ishiguro spins a stinging cautionary tale of science outpacing ethics." (Publishers Weekly)

"So exquisitely observed that even the most workaday objects and interactions are infused with a luminous, humming otherworldliness. . . . An epic ethical horror story, told in devastatingly poignant miniature. . . . Ishiguro spins a stinging cautionary tale of science outpacing ethics." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"Perfect pacing and infinite subtlety. . . . That this stunningly brilliant fiction echoes Caryl Churchill’s superb play A Number and Margaret Atwood’ s celebrated dystopian novels in no way diminishes its originality and power. A masterpiece of craftsmanship that offers an unparalleled emotional experience. Send a copy to the Swedish Academy." —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"Ishiguro’s provocative subject matter and taut, potent prose have earned him multiple literary decorations, including the French government’s Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres and an Order of the British Empire for service to literature. . . . In this luminous offering, he nimbly navigates the landscape of emotion—the inevitable link between present and past and the fine line between compassion and cruelty, pleasure and pain." —Booklist

Fabulous Book read by fabulous reader

This would be an excellent book regardless of who read it but Rosalyn Landor is the perfect match for this story.

Delectable literary work, read with great skill

This is a delectable work of literary genius. It's not a pulsing thriller, but the weaving of the story certainly elicits enough thrill. Rosalyn Landor reads the prose with deft and captures the voices of each character with great skill.

Lovely

I am impressed with the respect the other reviewers pay toward the key plot point in this compelling story. Like them, I was drawn in, yet fearful of the ending. Ishiguro has a keen knack for revealing his characters inner souls, such that we often see glimpses of ourselves. Ms. Landor's narration was superb, allowing we "readers" to barrel on "distraction-free." The themes presented here are powerful not because of the potential moral conflicts of the future, but because of the undiscovered moral conflicts among us presently. An excellent book, indeed.

Haunting

This was my first audiobook and I found it compelling and haunting. It left me wanting more when it was over.

Engrossing to the end

Beautifully written first person tale. Farfetched story but a pleasure. The narrator is truly outstanding.

Well crafted but...

As a matter of personal taste, this isn’t my kind of story. I do applaud the writer’s narrative skill and the excellent performance.

Languid story telling

I tried to finish it since it was already in my library( my daughter bought it), but i just couldn’t. Good premise, but the story just couldn’t take me with it.

Big waste of my time

If I had to describe this book, it'd be between Remothered and The Silenced.
Five stars seemed fitting for a book o neither like nor dislike. The characters are grating, they never really grow up, they say stupid things so often. The plot sent nowhere slowly.
I did not enjoy this book at all. Would recommend, there's a kind of solidarity when one has a friend trapped in book purgatory.

He gets me every time...

Somehow Ishiguro captures all the things you can never express about love and loss and memory and regret and suffering and death. And it’s always beautiful and thoroughly heart-rending.

Well, that was bleak!

A dystopia, sci-fi "romance" if there ever was one! I didn't like the author's style of talking about an event in some detail before then backtracking to talk about the actual event occurring. So annoying.