Never Let Me Go - Kazuo Ishiguro

Never Let Me Go
By Kazuo Ishiguro

Never Let Me Go is the only book that I have read by Ishiguro but I am totally going to change that. If I had to pick my favorite thing about the book, I think it would be how real the characters and their circumstances are.

The story is focused around Kathy, Ruth, and Tommy and how their friendships evolve and change in the strange and mysterious circumstances they live in. Although Kathy and Ruth are friends, Ruth can be a bit of a bitch but their relationship reminded me of growing up. The ups and downs of their friendship held the key to my connection because it was so perfectly realistic.

The story unfolds in a unique way, with Kathy telling the story in chunks of time. This could have been confusing or annoying but it was done so well it just makes you not want to put the book down because you have to know what is going to happen next. It is a bit like the way I tell my husband a story (only mine aren’t as engaging). I’ll be telling him something and then realize that to make the story more interesting he needs to know something else that happened years before and that will lead to something else that happened last week. I don’t know how Ishiguro manages to make it work but I loved it.

The entire story builds up to a dramatic end where the things you are guessing are confirmed or explained and the part that leaves you hanging is that if this were a true story this is exactly how I could imagine it all going down.

**Source: Library copy