Book: Never Let Me Go
Author: Kazuo Ishiguro
Published: 2005
Publisher: Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc.
Date Read: 3 October 2014
Format: Movie Tie-in Paperback
Source: Borrowed from Pulaski County Public Library
First Line: "My name is Kathy H."
Genre/Rating: Science Fiction (Dystopian) / 3
GoodReads Rating: 3.78
Awards: Man Booker Shortlist 2005, Arthur C. Clarke Award Nominee 2006, James Tait Black Memorial Prize Nominee for Fiction 2005, ALA Alex Award 2006, National Book Critics Circle Award 2005
Other Books by Author: A Pale View of Hills (1982), An Artist of the Floating World (1986), The Remains of the Day (1989), The Unconsoled (1995), When We Were Orphans (2000), and The Buried Giant (2015)
Review: I picked up a copy of Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go because it is the October 2014 selection for the Writers of Color Book Club Group on GoodReads.
I am certain there are many people who love Never Let Me Go as evidenced by the many awards it has been nominated for and awarded, but for me, the story fell flat and failed to make me invest myself in the narrative. From the weak opening sentence through the small, isolated vignettes that run throughout the narrative, to the lack of plot, character study, or study of time and place, my reading of Never Let Me Go left me unsatified as a reader. I expected great things from the narrative because Ishiguro is a proven writer of substantiative prose but, to me, his brilliance was not evidenced within the pages of this publication.