There is nothing particularly shocking, gruesome, or intense about Kathy's story, and yet it leaves you with a sense of being a part of a nightmare.Īfter reading quite a few reviews of the book, I can say that I loved the aspects of it that many abhorred. As Kathy is getting ready to make her first donation while being a carer for other donors, she recounts her life in Hailsham and on her own, mostly in a form of anecdotes about herself and her best friends Ruth and Tommy, their rivalries, jealousies, and affection for each other. All education in this school is geared towards conditioning its student to accept their 'special' destiny as a given. Hailsham is a school for kids with special purpose. Kathy, now 31, is a former student of an English boarding school Hailsham. So if you look down on literary fiction and consider books written by authors like Ian McEwan, Margaret Atwood, and Jose Saramago pretentious, this is not a story for you. This novel is literary fiction at its finest. This is why so many readers end up disappointed I think.

The beauty of this book is not in the plot, but in its execution.Īnother friendly warning: Never Let Me Go is for some reason often classified as science fiction.

However I personally don't think that knowing the plot in advance will in any way diminish the enjoyment of this story. Let me start by saying that my review might contain some plot spoilers. In 2017, the Swedish Academy awarded him the Nobel Prize in Literature, describing him in its citation as a writer 'who, in novels of great emotional force, has uncovered the abyss beneath our illusory sense of connection with the world'. In 2008, The Times ranked Ishiguro 32nd on their list of 'The 50 Greatest British Writers Since 1945'. His novels An Artist of the Floating World (1986), When We Were Orphans (2000), and Never Let Me Go (2005) were all shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature 2017. His latest novel is The Buried Giant, a New York Times bestseller. His fourth novel, The Unconsoled, won the 1995 Cheltenham Prize. Ishiguro received the 1989 Man Booker prize for his third novel The Remains of the Day. His second novel, An Artist of the Floating World, won the 1986 Whitbread Prize. His first novel, A Pale View of Hills, won the 1982 Winifred Holtby Memorial Prize. Ishiguro obtained his Bachelor's degree from the University of Kent in 1978 and his Master's from the University of East Anglia's creative writing course in 1980. Sir Kazuo Ishiguro (カズオ・イシグロ or 石黒一雄), OBE, FRSA, FRSL is a British novelist of Japanese origin and Nobel Laureate in Literature (2017).

Never let me go book sparknotes