Never Let Me Go Review

4.5 stars
It’s difficult to articulate exactly what this book is to me, or how well-written it is. On the surface it’s a very simple story, and the plot is not exactly complicated. The best way to see is to read it for yourself. Perhaps its highest recommendation is that those snobs at CollegeBoard actually allow you to use this book for the open essay question, and that is almost a miracle. (And a rant for another day.)

Reading Never Let Me Go is similar to going to the optometrist. You go in and sit in the chair, and the eye doctor moves this enormous cold contraption in front of you and covers your eyes. At first you can’t see anything, and then there’s a click and a very blurred image of light. The doctor keeps clicking, switching lenses until he gets to where your eyes were the last time you visited, and that blurry image gets clearer and clearer until there it is, you see whatever’s in front of you. For those who have never had that particular experience, this book is also like a beautiful old masters Renaissance portrait. There is the painted person before you, but it’s not just them. There are layers upon layers upon layers of oil paint that color the person, until they look golden and warm and real like your roommate next to you. Certainly the person in the portrait would be the same person without the layers, but the layers are what really make the painting art. They color your interpretation of the person so that it’s not just some random person on the canvas, it’s that person beyond a doubt.

The point that I’m attempting to make is that Never Let Me Go is a wonderful book that you have to appreciate the depth of. No, the plot is not complex, but that’s not the point. This is a character book. An event or conversation will be set up, and then Ishiguro will take you back and relate several other stories that happened before. When you get back to the original event and read it, you have a different understanding, and you can see all the factors that went into how the event unfolded. It’s a beautiful way to write a book.

Furthermore, while I would not call this book a page turner, it nags you. There’s something you don’t get. You sort of figure it out, and you’re fed little tidbits along the way. As one Guardian puts it to the Hailsham students “You’re told and not told.” And so you keep reading. At the end, what you think is confirmed. However, it’s not the confirmation you expect; it’s exactly what you thought but there’s a sickening thud because it came at you in a very unexpected way. I would have liked to see a bit more of the dystopian element that’s hinted at, but at the same time this would be a very different book if that were there.

I write all this about the experience of reading Never Let Me Go because I think the experience is half of what makes this book so good. It’s the way it’s written and the way you figure things out that make what is a relatively ordinary story transcend mediocrity and teach you things that you always knew but never realized about people. And that, too, is part of what makes this book so good: the people. The characters are wonderfully vivid and hopelessly flawed, and you love them and hate them because you know them. Ruth is a fantastic example of this: she is authoritative, almost ethereal at times, selfish, vain, creative, funny, but always Kathy’s friend.

Finally, one quick note about Ken Ishiguro’s writing. It’s lovely. It’s beautiful and evocative and clear, like reading nostalgic poetry. That’s the other part of what makes the book so good, because the author can transform the most normal scenes into the most gorgeous prose.

Truly, it’s impossible to get a sense of this book from a review, and you should really just read it for yourself.

This review may also be found here on Goodreads.