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Never Let Me Go (Vintage International) (Paperback)
Staff Reviews
There’s nothing I love more than a book that makes me cry, and no matter how many times I read Never Let Me Go I am always left with tears streaming down my face by the time I reach the end.
The story follows Kathy H., who is now in her early thirties and reflecting on her past, including the time she spent as a child at Hailsham, a boarding school in the English countryside. The children at Hailsham seem to have a special purpose in life, but that purpose isn’t revealed to us at first. Kathy says that the students are “told and not told” about their ultimate purpose and why it is that they’re different from their teachers, called Guardians, and those who live outside of Hailsham. As readers, we are also “told and not told,” slowly receiving hints and gaining understanding as the story unfolds. Each piece of information is revealed in a way that makes you feel like you already knew it on some level.
I think this book is better enjoyed the less you know about it, but I will say that it is a story that haunts me and that I think about long after reading. Ishiguro writes with such subtlety that the tragedy of the story slowly sinks in as you read until you finish feeling like you got punched in the gut (at least that’s how I always feel). It is so wonderfully written and deals with topics of what it means to be human, how we face and deal with death, and the complexities of love and friendship. If you like wallowing in a sad book, this one’s for you.
Description
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.
About the Author
Kazuo Ishiguro is the 2017 winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature. His work has been translated into more than 40 languages. Both The Remains of the Day and Never Let Me Go have sold more than 1 million copies, and both were adapted into highly acclaimed films. Ishiguro's other work includes The Buried Giant, Nocturnes, A Pale View of the Hills, and An Artist of the Floating World.
Praise For…
ONE OF THE ATLANTIC'S 15 BOOKS YOU WON'T REGRET RE-READING
"A page turner and a heartbreaker, a tour de force of knotted tension and buried anguish.” —Time
“A Gothic tour de force.... A tight, deftly controlled story.... Just as accomplished [as The Remains of the Day] and, in a very different way, just as melancholy and alarming.” —The New York Times
"Elegaic, deceptively lovely.... As always, Ishiguro pulls you under." —Newsweek
“Superbly unsettling, impeccably controlled.... The book’s irresistible power comes from Ishiguro’s matchless ability to expose its dark heart in careful increments.” —Entertainment Weekly
