Never Let Me Go
Never Let Me Go, by Kazuo Ishiguro 
Blurb: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. My ReviewI always hate saying that I didn't enjoy a book that's been critically acclaimed and won prizes, it makes me feel as if I missed something, but there it is. That feeling is even worse when a friend recommended the book to you... And it's not even as if I hated this book, however, I feel very blasé about it. I thought the writing was 'meh' and I felt that even though we spend all that time looking at things through Kathy's perspective, we never really get to know her. She's quite a bland character, which in itself isn't a criticism, however, EVERYONE felt bland, as did the plot. This story is basically one long string of anecdotes and to begin with I enjoyed this writing style, but then, about half-way through, I realised 'actually this is the story, this is all it is', when I had been expecting some big twist, something more. I get that this book explores the depth of human emotions and the acceptance of things, simply because that's how they're done, but I was left feeling very flat and spent most of the book waiting for it to pick up and feeling bored... I feel like the faint sci-fi echoes could pretty much have been discarded, even though they were a central part of the story, the story wasn't about that at all, which again, in itself isn't a bad thing, however, I felt like so much more could have been done. And then there was the ending, which in a way I actually liked. The acceptance of fate and the fact that neither of them even thought of trying to fight it, or run away, was almost poetic in a way, because it reflected human nature so well. There are so many stories about the rebels who set out to change the world, which is great, I love those stories, but not everyone is a rebel; we can see it clearly in the world we're living in right now, so many people are willing to just accept what is happening to them, even if it's bad, and this story reflects that.Honestly, I think the thing I didn't like about this book was that I didn't feel for the characters. I don't think the easy plot and the skirting over the sci-fi element would have mattered to me at all, if I'd simply been able to feel what the characters were feeling...All in all, this is another one of Kazuo Ishiguro's books that I didn't particularly enjoy - I read The Buried Giant earlier in the year - and I honestly don't think I'll be exploring more of his work. :-( 
Blurb: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. My ReviewI always hate saying that I didn't enjoy a book that's been critically acclaimed and won prizes, it makes me feel as if I missed something, but there it is. That feeling is even worse when a friend recommended the book to you... And it's not even as if I hated this book, however, I feel very blasé about it. I thought the writing was 'meh' and I felt that even though we spend all that time looking at things through Kathy's perspective, we never really get to know her. She's quite a bland character, which in itself isn't a criticism, however, EVERYONE felt bland, as did the plot. This story is basically one long string of anecdotes and to begin with I enjoyed this writing style, but then, about half-way through, I realised 'actually this is the story, this is all it is', when I had been expecting some big twist, something more. I get that this book explores the depth of human emotions and the acceptance of things, simply because that's how they're done, but I was left feeling very flat and spent most of the book waiting for it to pick up and feeling bored... I feel like the faint sci-fi echoes could pretty much have been discarded, even though they were a central part of the story, the story wasn't about that at all, which again, in itself isn't a bad thing, however, I felt like so much more could have been done. And then there was the ending, which in a way I actually liked. The acceptance of fate and the fact that neither of them even thought of trying to fight it, or run away, was almost poetic in a way, because it reflected human nature so well. There are so many stories about the rebels who set out to change the world, which is great, I love those stories, but not everyone is a rebel; we can see it clearly in the world we're living in right now, so many people are willing to just accept what is happening to them, even if it's bad, and this story reflects that.Honestly, I think the thing I didn't like about this book was that I didn't feel for the characters. I don't think the easy plot and the skirting over the sci-fi element would have mattered to me at all, if I'd simply been able to feel what the characters were feeling...All in all, this is another one of Kazuo Ishiguro's books that I didn't particularly enjoy - I read The Buried Giant earlier in the year - and I honestly don't think I'll be exploring more of his work. :-(
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