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Never Let Me Go: A Novel
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Never Let Me Go: A Novel
Unavailable
Never Let Me Go: A Novel
Audiobook9 hours

Never Let Me Go: A Novel

Written by Kazuo Ishiguro

Narrated by Rosalyn Landor

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

4/5

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Currently unavailable

Currently unavailable

About this audiobook

From the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature and author of the Booker Prize-winning novel The Remains of the Day comes a devastating 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 modern classic.

LanguageEnglish
Release dateApr 12, 2005
ISBN9780739317990
Unavailable
Never Let Me Go: A Novel
Author

Kazuo Ishiguro

Kazuo Ishiguro nació en Nagasaki en 1954, pero se trasladó a Inglaterra en 1960. Es autor de ocho novelas –Pálida luz en las colinas (Premio Winifred Holtby), Un artista del mundo flotante (Premio Whitbread), Los restos del día (Premio Booker), Los inconsolables (Premio Cheltenham), Cuando fuimos huérfanos, Nunca me abandones (Premio Novela Europea Casino de Santiago), El gigante enterrado y Klara y el Sol– y un libro de relatos –Nocturnos–, obras extraordinarias que Anagrama ha publicado en castellano. En 2017 fue galardonado con el Premio Nobel de Literatura.

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Reviews for Never Let Me Go

Rating: 3.826186836795252 out of 5 stars
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  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    The only reason this is getting two stars instead of one is that it is well-written, from a technical standpoint, and it kept my attention (if only in the way that I couldn't wait to get it over with rather than putting it down and not bothering to pick it up again). I found the characters very difficult to care about, essentially because they exist and behave in complete service to the literariness of the novel. There are three main characters: Kath, the narrator, who is somewhat of an amorphous nothing, personality-wise; Ruth, a classic toxic female friend, whose manipulations I had very little patience for; and Tommy, the only character I found both unique and sympathetic.

    I took issue with many things that came and went, but aside from the characters, the thing that was prevalent throughout (and I will try to avoid direct spoilers) was that I could not believe these people would let this be done to them, or would willingly participate in the system of it. Not in the aghast way of being shocked at some strange human behaviour; I mean that the author utterly failed to convince me that these people had any reason for accepting what they were expected to do and endure and be. Somehow I don't think his intention was that the characters be seen as less than human, but that's exactly what they became to me, since one would have to sever some very basic elements of a character's humanity for this to be acceptable (either to the characters or the reader). This can be done either within the text itself to make it believable to the reader, or the author can simply pretend people aren't the way people are in order to say what he wants to say, and I believe Ishiguro did the latter.

    Perhaps this is because I'm missing something from the first part of the book, which takes place at Hailsham. Kath tells us about having a sense of always knowing what its students were meant for, that it was revealed gradually to them in a sort of oblique manner so that when the truth is told to them point-blank it's rather anticlimactic. I think this is meant to pass as an indoctrination, but it simply doesn't work. While the Hailsham students' upbringings have an element of strangeness to them, the fact is that they are still growing up with a certain western sensibility that encompasses individuality and autonomy and all the things that make a person not feel like they're, you know, oppressed. In the end, Hailsham is a quirky boarding school, and if I was meant to be especially disturbed by it, it failed spectacularly.

    In less of a fundamental disagreement with the premise and more a narrative note, I quickly lost patience with the way the story skips around. It often intentionally gets ahead of itself and then goes back to explain past events, which I have no problem with in principle but could get so convoluted here that a few times, I literally thought the author had mixed up his timeline.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Never Let Me Go is essentially a fictional memoir with dystopian undertones. It’s a coming of age story, and possibly a metaphor for life. Unfortunately, I hardly ever cared about anyone or anything in the entire book.Right off the bat, you know there’s something strange going on in Never Let Me Go. The narrator, Kathy, talks about being a “carer” and mentions “donations.” However, the majority of the book is her reflections on her childhood Hailsham, a boarding school in the English countryside, with her friends Tommy and Ruth.Never Let Me Go is conversational in tone. It feels like listening to a distant and drifting monologue, maybe of one of your elderly relatives who’s obsessed with telling you stories about their childhood. I may be making this sound worse than it actually is. Despite the emotional distance, I didn’t have much of a problem with the way the book was narrated.Actually, the emotional distance was an all over problem with the characters. The main characters never consider trying to change their own fate or even seem to find it unfair. Instead they placidly except their future with a sort of emotional numbness. In a way, it’s interesting and quite probably a commentary on how culture can convince you to accept all sorts of things. On the other hand, it’s baffling that there are no mentions of anyone ever trying to rebel.A related problem is the weakness of the science fiction concept. It’s very basic, and really only exists to provide a framework for Kathy’s life. If you think about it for more than five seconds, there are all sorts of holes (like would people really accept this in the first place?). One of the only things I found interesting in the entire book was the question of the Gallery. At the school, the children were encouraged to be creative and their best artwork was collected into the mysterious Gallery. I had a guess as to what was going on, but I was completely wrong. The real explanation was disappointingly simple.My main problem was that this was a character based book where I don’t care at all about the characters. There’s nothing in the book that makes me like or root for Kathy, Ruth, or Tommy. When the threat of death hangs over them, I think “whatever.” Take dull characters, add a bland plot and zero action or humor, and you’ve got a boring book.Never Let Me Go is literary and probably a metaphor for life. I found it completely pointless, which might actually have been the point of the metaphor. Life is pointless! We all die in the end!Again, whatever. I still don’t care about this book and would not recommend it. Honestly, I’m sort of surprised I finished it in the first place. Originally posted on The Illustrated Page.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I'm torn. On one hand, I felt that the book was a slow read, and the connection to the characters was always out of reach. At the same time, that's kind of the point, right? They're a bit socially awkward compared to today's standards, and for good reason. The premise is dark and and can haunt you if you think about it for too long. I think what I struggled with the most AND what later has the most effect, is how it feels so calm and casual while you are reading it, and it isn't until AFTER you finished, maybe even days or weeks later, that your imagination and sense of just how wrong this situation is hits you. It stays with you well beyond the last page. You should read it. LOL
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I didn't love it when I read it (4 stars not 5). But in the months between reading it and writing this review, I've recommended it to friends several times. It is compact, compelling, and provocative. Very enjoyable.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    This starts out looking like a straightforward boarding-school novel, but we soon get hints that there is something seriously wrong with the world in which it is set. Ishiguro is careful only to feed us information only through his narrator, Kathy, who is clearly earmarked to become a victim of the bad stuff, but who lacks a lot of the information and self-awareness she would need to make sense of what is going on around her and put it in some sort of context. And she's also not the most articulate of storytellers, frequently stopping and starting and looping back on herself. Ishiguro manages to play his hand quite brilliantly within these self-imposed constraints but it's still a frustrating exercise for the reader to live through. We get to empathise closely with Kathy and the moral issues she half-unpacks, and probably also to draw some (Dickensian) parallels with our own world - it's not hard to think of schools where most kids have even fewer options in their futures than those at Hailsham - but we're left actually knowing very little about the world in which Kathy lives and how it got to the state it's in. Interesting, but not really the sort of book that I'm likely to get excited about. (Which is perhaps why it spent so long on the pile...)
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    This is an interesting book, but I didn't find it compelling. The writing is a bit slow, but it is also misleading. At first, the way the narrator talks around the subject makes it seem like she's hiding something, and there's going to be a big reveal, or a twist ending. But this is not a thriller. Thanks to heavy foreshadowing, the reader will have realized any revelations within the first chapters. The twist, perhaps, is the mundanity of the story–that there doesn't need to be a twist, because everyone has been suitably socialized and they accept society and their positions within it. Should that be affecting? For me, it wasn't because I'm not sure that much changed in the novel's second half.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    An odd story set in a slightly alternative universe, where the English are still very English but they also have farms where they raise children whose organs they can harvest when need be- and the organs are always needed, and the children all die painfully. The narrator, who is one of the donor children, overthinks everything, so that gets annoying at time, but overall it's beautifully written and laid out. But very depressing and creepy.
  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    I really wanted to enjoy this book as it was recommended to me by a senior student who declared, "It's good. It's really, really good". Unfortunately, I can't agree with her. Whilst I thought the concept was compelling and downright disturbing - cloning and the farming of humans for their vital organs, the plot itself was a huge disappointment. I kept expecting something to happen but nothing ever did. What could have been a fabulous story about the social, moral and ethical issues surrounding medical science was nothing more than a dreary, long winded story about three children growing up at Hailsham and their romantic love triangle which had little, if anything, to do with the dystopian setting of the book. There was something fundamentally lacking throughout, maybe it was emotional depth. I wanted to feel anger and sadness and horror and disbelief, instead all I was doing was wishing this book would hurry up and come to an end. I found Kathy's narration dull and unimaginative. Her memories jumped all over the place and her repetition of various words and phrases was irritating. In fact, I found none of the characters likeable. Even the ending, which should have had me in tears, failed miserably.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This book I need to process a bit. It's definitely sad and even sick when you think about it, esp when you think about the ethics of human cloning. I kept wanting them to run away.
    Don't get me wrong it was a good book almost like you were reading a letter or talking with the author as she lay dying or completing as they called it in the book.
    It was hard for me to accept that how these kids/people were treated was acceptable just b/c they are clones. The fact they are just expected to donate their vital organs as other "real" people need them..... Totally sick!
    I'm not sure how people would treat clones it's definitely something to ponder
    Anyways it was a good thought provoking read!
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I both love and hate this book. There are many unanswered questions, such as why? I also find the passiveness of the characters not realistic; but some have said Ishiguro writes just short of the magical realism realm. There is also no plot resolution. That being said, the provocative language is the plus of this book. It was at times a boring, at times an emotional read.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    Dithering between 2 and 3 stars. I read this because I heard the author on the radio and he sounds like a really nice man, and he is obviously well regarded. However I was pretty disappointed. You can guess the direction and the central point of the book as soon as the word 'donation' is used - which is page one. So no mystery there. He writes well but it's pretty repetitive and the tone never varies. Yes the protagonist is looking back, from a single point in her life, but you'd think her mind would be a bit more than a dull monotone. The worst problem is that he does not construct a world that is believable in any way and even within the bounds of what he does construct you keep yelling at him that the characters wouldn't behave like that. And the worst worst problem is that there is no politics. You can't center your book on this issue and get away without that.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Within the first few pages of this book, I knew who was important to the narrative. I also knew I would probably be crying by the end of it, that there would be feels. I kept reading anyway. The story did not disappoint. It is a beautiful yet brief story. It doesn't attempt anything fantastic or anything that really requires suspension of disbelief, and in fact was very grounded in a kind of solid reality. I had a few hang ups, but those were minor and can be overlooked. In terms of depth, I feel like this book was wanting just a little bit-- I feel it could have gone deeper into the exploration of the societal set-up and what it really meant, but what was mentioned was very well-handled and relevant to the plot, so I can't complain too much.

    The tone of this book is very conversational, like the reader asked the narrator a question and the book was the answer. Absolute genius, and never once did the style take me out of the story.

    I highly recommend this book. 5/5. The feels will get you in the end though.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    As I was reading this book I wondered why I was continuing to read it. I did finish it and I must admit that the ending was far better than the body of the book. Perhaps it was that the story was told by the one person Kathy H, reminiscing on the past and putting events together, that made it flat. It seemed to lack a dynamism that a story told forward would have. Nevertheless, the story generated suspense about what was going on, and the circumstances of their lives, that provided much of the momentum of the book. In the end it did highlight the book's basic message of the role of memories in making us human. At the start of the novel Kathy H appears as a successful 31 year old carer that is facing a change in here working life. She starts to tell us her life history to explain how she has come to be what she is. Immediately more questions arise - a carer to whom and for what? Caring for donors; but for what? In the idyllic private school she went to there is no contact with the wider world, no mention of parents or families. Teachers are called guardians. Its all rather mysterious and the situation is slowly revealed episode by episode. This method does give you the perspective of trying to understand the world from the limited amount of knowledge you have and with the skills you have at that age of your life. Its enough to keep you reading but it never overcomes that feeling of dissatisfaction with the story and the writer. There is some sense of Ishiguro's earlier successful novel The Remains of the Day - going over the past and making connections you could have made at the time but didn't and realising how your life was a little poorer for it, but nevertheless, you are here in the present, coming to terms for whatever shortcomings you had in the past, standing on confident ground and ready to move forward. Never let Me Go is not in the same league.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I posted this review on Amazon. Even though I hadn't written a review since 2006, I felt compelled do so with this one!

    I won't rehash the book's plot - or lack thereof, as some reviewers complain - because to do so would reveal too much that would detract from your enjoyment of the story. The story is mysterious and confusing and eerie, but it's completely captivating. I found that the author dwelled for a long time on seemingly insignificant details, but these details are relevant, even necessary, to understand the characters and how they're reacting to the situation of their lives.
    This book may not appeal to everyone, but I was completely enraptured with the idea of Hailsham and what it means to be considered a human being. It's the most introspective book I've read in a long time. I was hesitant to read it after reading so many reviews that said the book was "boring" or "tedious." This couldn't be farther from the truth for me. I usually need plot-driven fiction and cringe at books that center around character development, but this book is original and far from banal. There is just as much story in what is said as in what is not said and it takes some pondering to hash out what your personal take is on what is happening to these children.
    I finished the book two weeks ago and I'm still thinking it about it every morning when I commute to work. If you like books that stay with you, this one is the best.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Atmospheric. Partially freaky when u think about it. Heartbreaking. Spooky. Goosebumps
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I'm not going to say much about this book, but WOW ... what a powerful, thoughtful and insightful way to think about what it means to be a human being.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Ik zie hier lovende besprekingen, maar dit boek kon mij maar matig boeien (dat kan ook best aan mijn stemming liggen, of aan de vertaling). Voor mijn gevoel verliep het verhaal traag, soms niet goed te begrijpen. Natuurlijk is het gegeven wel interessant, gekloonde kinderen die opgroeien in een instituutachtige omgeving.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Mesmerizing. A must read.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Kazuo Ishiguro's NEVER LET ME GO is speculative fiction at its best. Ishiguro contemplates an alternate reality where clones are raised for spare parts. Do I hear groaning? Relax, this isn't yet another rehash of a tired old science fiction troupe: step one, clones are blissfully ignorant; step two, clones realize they're only spare parts; step three, clones rebel. No, instead Ishiguro uses the premise to look inside the lives of the clones and explore what it means to be human through the lens of this particular dystopia. I don't think I'm spoiling anything if I tell you there is no rebellion. This is a hopeless situation and Ishiguro offers no pat solution for a happy ending. His story is about finding the spark of life within the hopelessness.

    The story begins with the clones as children and follows a linked trio as they progress all the way to the ends of their lives. It is a slow and mournful symphony that gets under your skin and stays there. No essay on bioethics could make the point better: there are consequences to our societal choices that run deep. He offers no solutions, just makes it impossible to turn a blind eye. Literary speculative fiction like this is rare. I guess this reflects the market, which caters to our ever-decreasing attention spans with a glut of fast paced, easy to digest fare. Too bad, because more speculative fiction like NEVER LET ME GO would elevate expectations and perhaps allow SF publishers to deliver more than the literary equivalent of blinking lights and loud noises. In the meantime I'll keep on spelunking for gems like this.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    It works so well as an allegory for the death that awaits us all, the impossibility of coming to grips with it, the impossibility of hiding anyone we love from it, of never letting them go. It works less well in its particulars--the science fiction angle is full of holes, and while that's not precisely the point, the world it evokes is also sketchy and there's not too much to hold the interest in that sense, and it places a kind of lattice over the allegory with its force. But at its best this book makes you feel something really pure.
  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    sadly by some premonition I figured out what it was all about half way down the first page and never recovered from that. Was sorry I kept with it by the end.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    At first, I cannot totally grasp the notion of the story as it was written simultaneously from past and present, and its pace is lethargic for me. I thought I will never like it but I've grown to love the characters and their flaws. This book left me forlorn.

    ***some spoilers***
    I like Kathy with Tommy, I was rooting them since the beginning of Tommy's bonkers state. I just wish Tommy love Kathy. I hate how he chose to have a different carer. But I think he can't stand remembering Hailsham and his lost hope whenever he sees Kathy. And maybe he can't picture her knowing that he's dying. There was no direct thing about Kathy loving Tommy but the way I see it, she did.

    I also like how Kathy was so loyal to Ruth even if she was pain in the behind most of the time.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I think the effect of this book might have been lessened for me because I already knew about the secret/mystery? So if you haven't read this book just go ahead and do it. It's a good book and a great example of speculative fiction. An English woman named Kathy, working as some kind of nurse, recounts her childhood at a boarding school with a focus on her friendships with a girl named Ruth and a boy named Tommy.This book was okay but as I mentioned above I think I lost out because I already knew that the kids were clones bred for organ donation. I didn't care for Ruth because I thought she was too aggressive and mean; I didn't care for Kathy or Tommy because I thought they were too passive (mostly in their reaction to Ruth's rudeness). Because of this the book dragged for me in the middle because I wanted to know more about cloning and organ donation but all I got was melodrama between the 3 characters. But in general it's a well-written book and I'll definitely pick up more Ishiguro in the future.I think it's notable that it never occurs to any of the self-aware clones to run away or try to escape their fate. They have a ton of freedom while at the cottages and as carers, and they think about all kind of other things like falling in love and getting deferrals and finding their clone-parent. How do they not at least think about running away? Is it proof that they do not have souls?A quick note about the final page of the book: Kathy drives off in a random direction in Norfolk, gets out of the car, and walks to a ploughed field surrounded by an electric-wire topped fence. Am I wrong in interpreting this as her actually finding Hailsham? It seemed so perfect that she would find Hailsham by instinct right after losing Tommy, and also that it would be located in Norfolk. That would explain why the school did not have a proper map of Norfolk (to prevent kids from figuring out where they are), and it would be very poetic that the place where all the lost things go was where the kids were to begin with. But I went back and re-read the page and I don't think there's actually any textual evidence for my interpretation.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Can't say I loved this story. It was a bit weird but sometimes you just need to enjoy something a bit out of your comfort zone.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This book starts out with the narrator Kathy reminiscing about her schooldays in a boarding school, and nothing is initially out of the ordinary, but gradually a sense of unease creeps over the narrative. It is so cleverly done. You notice, for example, that nobody ever mentions their parents or going home for the holidays. You begin to suspect what is going on, but you have to be patient and let it play out. I could see, while reading it, that it might irritate some readers. For example most of the time it consists of Kathy referring to some apparently important event, building it up, giving chapter and verse about the lead up and then it turns out to be something innocuous or something only important to overwrought adolescents. But I loved it. The description of the trip to Great Yarmouth in particular was some of the most perfect prose I've ever read. It's a highly original book written with skill and subtlety.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    "Never Let Me Go" is a character study par excellence. Ishiguro digs deep into the intertwined lives of three students, peeling back unending layers of their friendship through the honest tugs-of-war between loving, liking, trusting, hurting, and hating that exist in truly intimate relationships. Yet realism seems too harsh a word to describe the author's style, which seems to drift over the reader like clouds. As we discover the shocking fates that await the characters, we see that Ishiguro's choices have been profound: he draws us into a close circle of friends to remind us of everything we know about relating to others, only to show us how easy this is for society to forget when we expand our field of vision to larger groups. This poignant novel is both a timely and a timeless read.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I figured it might be a book I would enjoy because I have had it on my shelf waiting to be read for a long time now. I was right. It was the first book in a while that I could not put down until the very last page was read. It s not that it would s so quick-paced. It just slowly rolls off the tongue, gaining momentum in a subtle but deliberate manner and just plain engaged me. Hailsham and its students you will never forget...and then s book will hold onto you for a long time. Loved It!
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    I'm not sure what I think about this. It certainly captured my attention and I was keen to find out what happened, but I thought it was trying rather too hard to be heart wrenching. It is a very interesting premise and well worked out. I guess I was waiting for some big twist and it didn't really happen, in fact it ended rather predictably.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    5506. Never Let Me Go, by Kazuo Ishiguro (read 12 Oct 2017) I read this because the author has just been awarded the Nobel prize. I read his The Remains of the Day on 6 Jan 1999 and gave it five stars. As I read Never Let Me Go I was increasingly dismayed since it talked of carers and donors without telling explicitly what they were and so one had to guess though gradually one learned . The "I" in the book is Kathy, who lives at a school and one notes the kids there are super-sensitive and have no life except at the school and one gradually learns that they are being raised to give parts of themselves away and they somehow are resigned to that though why they do not revolt against their handlers is never clear. I felt we should have been given some foundation as to the dream-like setting and frankly till I got within 30 or 40 pages from the end of the book I was determined to give the book only a single star. But the closing chapters quite aroused my interest, somewhat against my rational feelings, and so I felt maybe the book should not be condemned and maybe I was to be blamed for wanting to have a clearer view of what was going on. Another annoying as pect of the book I read is that the letter "a" is printed so it looks like an 'O' almost and I had to from the location of the letter in the word become aware the letter was a, not o. I think this had something to do with my thought the book should have only a single star. Admittedly, the prose is clear and the language is free of foul words (though the characters are utterly amoral--but they live in a world unlike the real world). I have little interest in fantasy and this book asks one to accept the non-real life portrayed as if it is real which I had trouble doing.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Very good about nontraditional forms of humans from the recent Nobel prize recipient. Ishiguro treats abstract questions about the human condition and what should count as humans in this appealing novel mostly set in the English boarding school Hailsham. Recommended.