Book Review : Never Let Me Go by Ishiguro Kazuo

I had high expectations of this book when I started reading it. It wasn't a book that I had heard of ages ago and had been wanting to read ever since. I heard of it purely by accident. My current obsession with British actress Carey Mulligan resulted in me coming across the trailer for the movie adaptation of this novel in which she plays one of the lead characters. The trailer intrigued me enough and it had splashed the words 'Time Magazine's Best Novel of the Decade' across the screen. I was soon determined to find this book.

I bought it only a few days afterwards. I was interstate and had left the book I was earlier reading, The Lord of the Rings, at home, so I began to read 'Never Let Me Go'. Next thing I knew, I was simply immersed in this morphed contemporary England that Kazuo had created. I would like to point out now that there may be spoilers ahead so please stop reading now if you don't want the story ruined for you.

The story is narrated by Kathy and is a collection of her memories from childhood, school and life afterwards. She was a student at Hailsham, a fictional boarding school. Or so it seems. When you start reading, you think that it is a fairly regular school. Then the narrator starts to mention things that seem slightly odd, even though she doesn't consider it so herself. For example, the children there spend most of their learning time focusing on creativity such as painting, poetry and sculpture. It takes only a short time to learn all the new terms used in this fictional world, such as 'donations', 'completion', 'sales' and 'gallery.' Underlying this school environment is the twist that ultimately defines it: the students are clones and have been raised only to later donate their organs when needed til they die.  It's so hard to explain how Kazuo has managed to turn this rather commonly used idea into something so brilliant. The story is not about these students wanting to run away from the school or their future, as some would expect. They seem to just accept their fate with little struggle or, at very least, they do not resort to drastic actions to try to change their fate.

It is such a difficult task to describe this book without wanting to write out the whole thing. I'm still not quite sure what it is exactly that makes me love this book so much. And there are few books that I claim to 'love.' Yes, it explores the fragility of life and human emotions. I think there's a particular emphasis on the natural need to feel loved and important. To some extent the book questions what defines us as humans. It is not one of those novels that come up with one-liners every now and again that make you stop reading to think about what has been written. It is more so that feeling amplified when you finish reading the entire thing. You realise you've gone on a very special journey and it makes you question a lot of things.

The characters are wonderfully drawn.  I felt like I really knew them inside-out by the time I finished reading. I started to feel extremely attached to them. Even now I feel that.

I read a few reviews before writing this one and many complained that Kathy was too emotionless, but wasn't that the point? I think that having a narrator that couldn't experience what she should've been feeling was a key part to novel. I felt like I was going through the emotions that she was missing. Throughout the whole thing, you do not really feel that Kathy is different from your average human being. Actually, you don't really feel that about any of the characters. But it's not till the last few pages that you truly see how 'unhuman' they are in terms of natural emotions. It definitely left a strange sort of hollow feeling inside me.

Overall, I definitely recommend this book. As I said earlier I'm not quite too sure why I like it so much but I really do. All I know is that I could write about it for days on end and still wouldn't be bored of doing so.  I have a feeling it's one of those books you'll either love to death or passionately dislike so take a chance and read it. I'm certainly glad I did. :)

xx.