Books2Movies Club discussion

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This thread is an introductory one for the B2M Club's Monthly Read of February 2012, Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro.
The book discussion started on the January 25th and should have five different threads as follows:
I - Part One
II - Part Two
III - Part Three and Final Thoughts
IV - The Movie
V - Inevitable Comparisons between the movie and the book.
This discussion folder will be opened indefinitely as long as the interest for the book lasts, therefore it's not required that you post only while the discussion officially lasts. You are free to jump in whenever you desire.

A short description from the main page of the book:

From the Booker Prize-winning author of The Remains of the Day comes a devastating new novel of innocence, knowledge, and loss. 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. Suspenseful, moving, beautifully atmospheric, Never Let Me Go is another classic by the author of The Remains of the Day.

When I start reading any book, I usually ponder for a while covers made for it. Same goes with the movies, if posters impress me in any way, that means they managed to do their job.
I wanted to read Never Let Me Go since it was published, but somehow I always postponed the beginning, because even the look on the covers so saddened me. The first words my mind suggested of the story between the covers are melancholy, childhood memories, solitude, loneliness, grief, regret. It really took courage to start reading such a thing! I mean, just take a look at all these covers:

But now I started reading the book and I found myself quickly immersed in the story... And like it so far.

This one does seem to have quite the variety of covers and they do mostly look mildly depressing. I just started it, so we'll see how my impressions change as I get into the story and try to understand what the cover is trying to convey.

One book I did read recently, and knew nothing at all about it before starting it because I hadn't read the back of the book or anything, where my perception of the cover changed drastically by the time I finished the book was What Was Lost with this cover. It's not disturbing in and of itself at all, but by the time you finish the story, it's kind of creepy in an innocent way, if that makes any sense. I don't "judge a book by its cover" exactly, but I like looking at the cover of a book after I've finished it, to see if I have any kind of "ah ha!" epiphany about it afterwards.

Great to see someone else on this thread :)

This was my first book here and didn't know how to organize things, so this thread looks more like a diary. Which it was actually, till you showed up :D

I like too to have covers that give you some impression of the book before and after reading. Not every hits the mark, but some do. That book cover you mentioned, What Was Lost, combined with the theme, sends me shivers, how it is appropriate to the theme, won't know if not reading it myself, I guess ;)

It's a short read, but powerful. I would recommend it.