Fact #1: I consider myself an avid reader.
Fact #2: I'm a highly emotional human being.
With that being said, however, it's not often that I notice tears springing to my eyes at the end of a book, no matter how much I'd loved it. But let me tell you, my most recent read just hit me in all the freaking feels!
Here's my take on Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go, as spoiler-free as I can make it:
The story revolves around a group of kids who are raised in what seems to be a boarding school, and their journey within the school and beyond. I can see you yawning, but hear me out. Very early on into the book, there's this increasingly poignant sense that something's off about the whole situation. Ominous hints are thrown here and there, with little scraps of information being given throughout the entirety of the novel until finally everything makes sense and your heart is shattered into a million and one pieces.
That's all I'm going to say plot-wise, because being given the info little by little is what made this novel such an enticing read for me. I was immersed throughout, and that - along with the fact that it's a relatively short book - helped me get through it pretty quickly (by my standards, at least). Ishiguro also played around with time in the novel, jumping from one episode to the next and back to a previous one without making it feel at all confusing. In spite of the mystery element within the plot, I found the writing itself pretty straightforward despite the shifts in chronology.
I think what got me the most about this novel is the way Ishiguro tackles the theme of loss and death. The way the characters handle the huge sense of loss they all undoubtedly feel is illustrated in a way which makes it all seem okay. Having recently experienced this feeling of losing someone myself, the novel's ending - with all it's simplicity - felt incredibly raw and real.
Overall, I gave this novel a 10/10 because I literally couldn't fault it. I'd definitely suggest picking it up, especially if you love a good moral dilemma - which is actually pretty central to the novel. But even more than that, just read it for a good thug at your heart strings
...and when you're done, you can go ahead and watch the movie adaptation - bonus: Keira Knightley's in it!
Thanks for reading, and feel free to share your own thoughts if you've read the book!
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