Never Let Me Go is science fiction, British, and YA (even though it is frequently also read and enjoyed by grow-ups). It is also written by a widely lauded author (Kazuo Ishiguro) and seems to always be around, “your next read.” But while I expected to like this book as much as, say, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, I didn’t. There were things I have to admit I did like about it; the buzz about this novel isn’t all wrong or wayward. But there were things that I really didn’t enjoy and reminded me of my fated read of The Buried Giant, which is one of Ishiguro’s almost-flops. As with the other book, I loved the idea of Never Let Me Go, and what’s more, I loved the pacing and the slow release of information. However, I felt held at arm’s length with these characters and like various moments were not at all well-played.

Hailsham is a high-end English boarding school in a 1970s that is more like an alternative historical setting which feels slightly near-future. Told in jumps back and forth between Kathy’s upbringing at Hailsham and her current adulthood in the (alternative) 1990s, we immediately get a sense that not everything is as it seems. But we don’t know what is awry, exactly, and that is one of the main points of the book: a slow unveiling of the reality of Hailsham and of the students who attend, including Kathy and her two closest friends, Tommy and Ruth. I agree that it is best to read this book without knowing what it really is or having any spoilers, as the mystery is one of the best parts. There is romance. There is coming-of-age. There is a creepy chill, and consideration of society and the people in it through the lens of historical dystopia.

(I want to take a moment to explain why I have been absent from the blog for a month. When I returned from my second summer vacation, I threw myself and time wholly into getting my daughter ready to first go to Italy and then off to college. With my son also headed to his second year of public schooling, I had to put my work on pause, take a personal sabbatical, as it were. That’s all we need to know about that. Back to the review and back to work.)

Kazuo Ishiguro is, at least in literary circles, an author that is much admired and his books are spoken of with respect, his next books looked forward to with much anticipation. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2017, though that is only one of many awards for his novels, short fiction, and even collaborations. I would say that his most lauded book is The Remains of the Day, a book I have still not read, followed by Never Let Me Go. Until now, the only book I had read of his was The Buried Giant, though I felt guilty about this lack. Ishiguro, a British author (born in Japan), is a genre-jumper, which is pretty cool. The Buried Giant was something like historical fantasy. The Remains of the Day, I know from the movie, is historical fiction and maybe a little romance. As I said, Never Let Me Go is YA with a whiff of sci-fi and a romance. I didn’t know that going into it, but I was pleasantly surprised.

I understand why Ishiguro decided to speak in Kathy’s voice in the way that he did, but I didn’t like it and I felt very claustrophobic inside it. I felt like I was wearing a marshmallow suit and I never could get the full picture of the surroundings and people and even relationships. The voice was very wooden, very strange and sterile for the story that was being told (at least regarding the relationships). The pacing was the best part, especially the pacing of the revelations—which are central to this story. Again I will warn you: you should read this book without looking into it, really. (But if you already have, it would still be worth reading.) Another warning: there is lots of sex in the second half but it is almost completely sterile in its presentation (which you’ll have to read to believe, I think). Although there are a number of ways you could walk away from this book, my big thought was: are we supposed to ask if Kathy has a soul? The limited perspective makes me feel like I didn’t have enough range in the story to answer that.

I am so with the other reviewers who are like, why didn’t the characters try to change their situation or even ever entertain the idea? Because if Ishiguro wanted to get away with that reality, he needed to at least build in some reasons why they didn’t try to change their situation. It could have been as simple as expanding on the lore of kids trying to leave, or as thorough as mindsets/mind games nurtured into the kids and then the disappearance of kids who didn’t “take.” And I don’t mean from long before. Where are the methods used to keep someone as rebellious as Ruth in line? There was no indication really how the guardians, etc. kept these kids so compliant, but I found this to be a huge hole in the believability of the story. Either some would rebel or there would have to be some sign that they were unable to, even if it was just psychological.

Never Let Me Go is an excellent book and I imagine it’s read a lot in high schools and colleges, but I was also annoyed by the voice throughout: it was stiff, unemotional, and flat (lacking description) and frequently repetitive to the point that I was like, “Why? Why is she (he) telling me this again or using this phrase again? I’m sick of hearing it. I’m not stupid.” I also found Ruth’s character to be problematic, in that the narrator never shows us her attractiveness, which obviously must have been there. As a matter of fact, I found many of the scenes to be unrealistic for the ages of the kids involved. And because time bounced back and forth, it was really hard for me to keep the age-appropriate kids in my head for the current scene. Oh, and without physical, character description, it was even more difficult. I frequently lost track of secondary characters because they were never adequately differentiated until much later in the novel, and then only some of them. The story is so carefully written, to the point I accepted and even trusted that everything is as it’s intended to be, and yet I couldn’t enjoy it because it felt claustrophobic and dysthymic, the opposite of most speculative fiction. Though the writing is clear, the story images are cloudy, cottony.

Love-dislike. It’s not the first time and I can only assume it won’t be the last time. I would recommend this book, for sure, and in fact am currently bugging my husband to read it because I know he would really like it. I have yet to sink into an Ishiguro book yet, however. I find his writing to be a mash of both admirable qualities (writing style, beauty in language, fun ideas, surprises, reflection on society) and obnoxious ones (distant characters, lack of description, cloudy experience, failure to go the full mile with the idea). While the literary type and English teachers are all excited about Never Let Me Go, you’ll see that there are also many one-star, angry reviews out there and that Ishiguro’s online ratings all hoover below four stars. I know these reviews can’t always be trusted, but I would say that it makes sense to me. Love: 5. Dislike: 2. Just how much does each side of this experience weigh? I think I’ll give it a 4, wishing—as I often do—that half-stars were a thing.

(NOTE: I have never seen a cover for this book that is reflective of what is inside. I don’t know why, but they’re all terrible and misleading.)

QUOTES

“I remember a huge tiredness coming over me, a kind of lethargy in the face of the tangled mess before me. It was like being given a maths problem when your brain’s exhausted, and you know there’s some far-off solution, but you can’t work up the energy even to give it a go” (p195).

“It was like there was some parallel universe we all vanished off to where we [allegedly] had all this sex” (p97).

“Maybe all of us at Hailsham had little secrets like that—little private nooks created out of thin air where we could go off alone with our fears and longings” (p74).

MOVIE

I would put 2010’s Never Let Me Go movie on the same level as the book, so, good but not my favorite. Still pretty chill, but opened up way more, visually lighter and yet with a couple moments (one in particular) of real creepiness and some tears in the end. I still couldn’t figure out what the appeal of Ruth was for the people around her and seeing it on screen made their lack of rebellion even more bizarre, more obvious. So watch it after reading the book, knowing—as is almost always the case—there will be less depth, less nuance. Meanwhile, it was actually more clear about some things. A decent movie, especially for the YA crowd.