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Jun 18, 2011

Esteban rated it:

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26 comments like (88 people liked it)

Nov 30, 2007

Trevor rated it:

It is a pity that people are told this is a science fiction book before they read it. I feel the least interesting thing about it is that it is science fiction. I mean this in much the same way that the least interesting thing one could say about 1984 is that it is science fiction. As a piece of literature I enjoyed it much more than Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake and even more than Huxley's Brave New World.

The themes that make this book most interesting are to do with the socia More...

54 comments like (271 people liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

Michelle rated it:

I can see Never Let Me Go being great for book clubs because it will generate a lot of discussion.

That being said, I didn't care for the book, for a couple of different reasons. The writing style is very conversational -- very much like you're having a discussion with the protagonist. The thing that annoyed me the most about this was the fact that the things that happened (so bob and I went walking to the store and we had a fight about the tree at school) and then the writer would More...

21 comments like (125 people liked it)

Aug 25, 2011

Ian rated it:

Imagine a restaurant, London, mid-2003.

Publisher: Hey, K, we need another novel and we need it quick.

K: I know, I know.

Publisher: Another “Remains of the Day”. Something Hollywood can turn into a hit.

K: I’m working on it.

Publisher: Any ideas?

K: Well, I’ve been reading some Jonathan Swift.

Publisher: Who?

K: You know, “Gulliver’s Travels”.

Publisher: Oh, yeah, Jack Black. It's in pre-productio More...

35 comments like (68 people liked it)

Dec 07, 2011

Amy rated it:

I did not like this book, in fact I think I could say I hated it, I am sorry to say I even read the whole thing (except for all the pages I skimmed over because they were boring). The premise sounded interesting, intriguing... So I kept reading wondering when the author would drop the bomb, this is why I kept reading. Well it never came. For the most part he gave you bits and pieces the whole time but nothing really surprising. Maybe that is his style and his point but I didn't care for it. A More...

7 comments like (22 people liked it)

Sep 16, 2011

Paquita Maria rated it:

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13 comments like (20 people liked it)

May 06, 2011

K.D. rated it:

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15 comments like (15 people liked it)

Apr 23, 2008

Juushika rated it:

As a child, Kathy H. attended Hailsham, an elite boarding school where children were raised to be both healthy and artistic and taught to believe that both their health and creativity were essential to themselves and to the world they would one day enter. Now an adult, Kathy reflects back on her life. She charts the very slow progression of her growth, her friendships with fellow students Tommy and Ruth, and her knowledge, as she herself gradually began to learn about her role in the outside wor More...

6 comments like (54 people liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

brad rated it:

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2 comments like (39 people liked it)

Mar 02, 2008

notyourmonkey rated it:

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4 comments like (36 people liked it)

Nov 16, 2008

Krenzel rated it:

In "Never Let Me Go," a fictional story focusing on three classmates from a unique boarding school, author Kazuo Ishiguro deals with questions of loss and mortality that each of must eventually confront. As we get older, as we lose our friends and family, as the environment around us changes and things once familiar to us disappear or become unfamiliar, as we cling to our memories of how things used to be, how do we come to accept the fact that our lives are finite and attach some mea More...

1 comment like (26 people liked it)

Oct 02, 2011

oliviasbooks rated it:

In short (maybe I find the time to elaborate later, maybe not): Right now I feel like I've got a wyvern in my guts - shredding tissue like mad. Not because of particularly graphic horrbile scenes, not at all, but because of the narrator's complete complacency and serenety while relating the - to us - nightmarish story of her life. All the while making it perfectly clear that to her no alternative life plan would have been thinkable.

Street Corner Bookers’ Pile Reduction Challenge 2011 More...

10 comments like (8 people liked it)

Dec 04, 2007

Louis rated it:

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0 comments like (11 people liked it)

Oct 17, 2010

Nikki rated it:

(You may consider this review spoilery, if you read all of it. I state something explicitly that is below the surface of the book, at any rate.)

This book is a bit like having a one-sided conversation with the narrator. In consequence, it kinda feels like it rambles a bit -- they digress to talk about something else and then a couple of pages later, wrench it back to the original point. In some ways that makes it feel very natural, like someone talking, but to read it, it gets irritat More...

6 comments like (14 people liked it)

Aug 16, 2010

Tatiana rated it:

Let me start by saying that my review might contain some plot spoilers. However I personally don't think that knowing the plot in advance will in any way diminish the enjoyment of this story. The beauty of this book is not in the plot, but in its execution.

Another friendly warning: Never Let Me Go is for some reason often classified as science fiction. This is why so many readers end up disappointed I think. This novel is literary fiction at its finest. So if you look down on literar More...

29 comments like (64 people liked it)

Jul 04, 2008

Stephen rated it:

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6 comments like (48 people liked it)

May 26, 2008

Rose added it

This book certainly made me think, but perhaps not quite as I was intended to. I like my fiction in line with Philip Pullman's view of things:

"...If I'm reading something I happen to know and gets it wrong, I just don't trust the book any more. What I ask of a novel I'm reading is that it should know a fraction more about the things I know than I do. When I'm writing...I ask myself: would I be convinced by this if I read it? If I knocked against this bit of scenery, would it fee More...

3 comments like (26 people liked it)

Mar 03, 2008

Shannon rated it:

It's very important, if you're intending to read this book, that you don't read any reviews or listen to any talk about it first. I had no idea what this book was about before I read it - and the blurb gives you a very different impression, actually - and so I slipped easily into a story that was as engrossing as it was revealing.

If you know something about what to expect, though, I don't think you'll enjoy it nearly as much. It's a bit like an art installation that requires audience More...

13 comments like (37 people liked it)

Apr 09, 2011

Amanda rated it:

This resplendent novel was set around three lives. Three that are everlasting together; through friendship. Made on the soul purpose of someday giving their whole lives away. They didn't know it from the start, but they figure it out soon enough. Doesn't it make you think that we all do not have this fear. We are afraid of death, because it's distant, it's close, it's the only way out, the only way we can say, this person lived a life. They lived it the way they chose to. it's the passing of our More...

9 comments like (6 people liked it)

Dec 31, 2011

Lavinia rated it:

Ishiguro's novel is totally different from everything else I've read before. It's quite handy to call it science fiction or dystopia, but somehow it's just not right. I could use adjectives like peculiar, interesting, delicate, disturbing a.s.o. but I wouldn't say reading it was an enjoyable experience.

The story is told from Kathy's perspective, when she's 31, in late '90s England. She's a carer and her two best friends are called donors. What puzzles and annoys the reader is that i More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Nov 26, 2007

Jennifer rated it:

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1 comment like (12 people liked it)

Jan 13, 2011

Isamlq rated it:

All that’s left is a third book and my holy trinity of slow-and-steady-as they go (but very deep and meaningful) reads will be complete. A third, and I’ll be worshiping at their altar. To the left of my trinity is The Giver. Front and center: Never Let Me Go. And to the right, is I don’t know yet (I rub my hands in anticipation for the book hunt that is about to ensue… suggestions anyone!) Once done, I will relegate my copies of Chaos to the second rung of my shelf and elevate my Trinity to the More...

26 comments like (7 people liked it)

Mar 11, 2011

Ryan rated it:

Of all the major awards given to novelists, I find the Man Booker Prize to be the most inconsistent indicator of a good read. I admit that I speak from a position of relative youth and inexperience, and I have certainly read fewer than a dozen Booker Prize winners, but perhaps I can get away with suggesting that Booker Prize winners tend to have a very strong voice.

When the reader can tune in to that voice, the Booker Prize winner is fantastic. For example, I thought that Arundhati R More...

22 comments like (10 people liked it)

Dec 08, 2010

Sarah rated it:

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7 comments like (13 people liked it)

Jan 17, 2012

Tanu rated it:

4.25 stars

There may be spoilers!

How would you feel if someone came up to you and very calmly started reminiscing about the time when, he/she had her fingers chopped off by this other person? There is no misery or fury or even regret in this person’s voice. He/she might as well be telling you about how someone spilled coke. I think that is what would make this person’s words more scary.

Kathy is exactly that kind of a narrator; she is excruciatingly calm and m More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Jan 30, 2012

prettybooks rated it:

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4 comments like (3 people liked it)

Nov 04, 2011

Jessi rated it:

Somtimes sad is ok. If you are looking for something "Ok sad", might I recommend Sad Keanu.

See it is sad, but kind of funny and people can have fun and have had fun for quite sometime.

Sad Keanu in a boat

Sad Keanu watching football

and my personal favourite Sad Keanu with panda.

With "Never Let Me Go" there is no fun to be had here,none. Not only is it sad and depressing More...

21 comments like (13 people liked it)

Aug 09, 2011

Julie rated it:

I enjoyed this book very much. I loved how pieces of information were slowly revealed as the narrator tried to piece together memories from her past. I loved how the book, in it’s own understated way, made me think about big things--like how the way someone is brought up can affect what they accept or don’t accept about themselves and their future and like the morality and issues of cloning and the human-ness of the clones. I loved how the book didn’t seem to make its own statements, but let the More...

5 comments like (6 people liked it)

Jul 14, 2008

Baiocco added it

I was really looking forward to this novel when it was recommended to me by a coworker who so far has had pretty a practically flawless record of recommendations concerning books, plays, music, wine, restaurants, or train schedule times and routes but The New York Times ruined Never Let Me Go for me. While someone in the Arts section was attempting to review the book 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die (why would you review that? its only one and a half steps up the officiality ladder from More...

0 comments like (9 people liked it)

Jun 09, 2008

Eric rated it:

A quick read, but one I never felt very enthusiastic towards. I remembered reading "The Remains of the Day" in high school, and thought another of Ichiguro's books would be equally gripping. Not quite so with "Never".
One great thing about "Never" is that, like it or not, it's over quickly. There are just enough hooks thrown in to keep the pages going, and Ichiguro's style is straightforward and rarely makes you double back on a line. Outside of a few British p More...

2 comments like (11 people liked it)