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

Book of the decade?

There just isn’t much here. It’s a great story but you’re barely TOLD much of it. Thin and kind of pointless.

Wonderful world building

Wonderful world building leading gradually to a crescendo of an ending that caused me to ponder deeper meanings of how we live our lives

Fascinating and Entrancing

The characters pulled me to them. Cathy &Tommy in particular were so beautiful &inspiring. Their courage and nobility, kindness and goodness, lack of resentment and bitterness place them among the finest of beings.

Unforgettable

The combination of calm voice and horrifying story creates a surreal experience. I really enjoyed it.

Excellent read

I loved this book. I was captivated immediately and it held my attention for the whole time. It's true that there are some unanswered questions, like why didn't the students revolt or run away, but for me that adds to the thought-provoking nature of the book. The narration was also excellent. Highly recommend.

A good metaphor for modern life

While the basic premise is somewhat cliched, the author handles it with surprising care and adds much needed depth.

Powerfully compelling book!

As other reviewers have said, impeccable narration of an amazing book. The less you read about the plot points of the story, the more you will enjoy the unfolding of the narrative. Don't order this expecting a mystery or thriller, though; the point is the way the story moves fluidly from memory to memory, back and forth in time as it unfolds. The situation of the "students" in this story is unique, and yet has much to say about our humanity in general. I look forward to reading the rest of his books!

interesting, but not really much of a mystery

I really liked the premise of this book but didn't feel like it went anywhere. Although it's billed as a "mystery" that "mystery" becomes pretty obvious after the first few chapters. What I found most bothersome is that once the "mystery" is revealed, there is no revolt or outrage, only a quiet resolve and annoying complacency on the part of the main characters. I found that really hard to stomach, especially for a novel that centers around such young protagonists. In most science fiction stories of this nature there is an event that throws the whole system off-kilter, then causing the main characters to question everything and rebuild society. This doesn't happen here and I just keep thinking: why does no one care? It's an intersting read, but not a great one. Other novels do a better job with character development in the face of conflict, and the issues facing future societies.

One Wrenching Question

Within this novel is the perfect gem of a story. Unfortunately, you really have to dig until you find that gem. And by digging, I mean you had to listen to a whole lot of Kathy's introspective thoughts. Much of which does little to advance the story line. There are parts of the book where the narrator (Kathy) actually says "I want to tell you an event, but before I can I have to tell you about a conversation that occurred three weeks before the event." To me that means the conversation will have some direct bearing on the event. In most situations, it does not.

I think the purpose of the first two sections of the book is world-building. Creating an environment for the characters that allows the reader to ultimately accept the unbelievable direction of the characters adult lives. A detailed explanation of the environment the children were raised in, might be helpful in understanding the adults they became. But it isn't. A timely explanation of why they were raised in that environment, an understanding of the arbitrary decision to move them to a new location at a certain age and a little more explanation of the experiment would have helped as well. Instead adult readers suffer through two thirds of the book being nothing more than meandering through a child's then teenager's thoughts. Never very interesting.

The last third of the book is worth the slogging the reader has to go through in the first two thirds - at least I think it is. Many loose ends are never tied up. Many hints are never elaborated upon. Because of the subject matter it obviously cannot have a traditional HEA. Yet I found the part of the book that focuses on the experiment these children are subjected to, the part that focuses on the actual results of this experimentation - how it actually affects those involved - fascinating. For the last third of the book, I highly recommend this novel.

Finally, after thinking about this story a few days I am left with one question - Why didn't they just leave? I assume the reason they didn't was to point out that few of us ever stray to far from the path we start down - even if we know it likely ends poorly for us.

A Haunting Portrait of a World Just Like Ours

It's obvious, when you think about it. We participate in horrible things like war, yet we manage to live as if it was not unspeakable. It takes a great writer like Kazuo Ishiguro to twist our world enough out of recognition that we finally recognize it. What's next -- people who watch TV while guiding the killing machines they are watching? Oh, too late -- reality has alrady stolen that plot, and it is playing in afternoon matinees in Pakistan.