Never Let Me Go - [short] Book Review

Though relatively a short book, Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go took me a week and half to finish. The thrill of the novel engages its readers to continue reading and leave them wanting more when they finish one part of the book — the novel being divided in three parts. The first is concerning the students’ life in Hailsham, a boarding institution. The second when they leave the school. The final being about the students finally doing what they’re supposed to; their main aim in life.

Never Let Me Go is narrated by Kathy, who recounts her time in Hailsham with her friends, Ruth and Tommy, and the life that follows afterwards. The story follows the trio from childhood until they have grown to become adults.

There was a reason why it took me time to finish this novel. That being once or twice the book made you weary (or perhaps it is the summer heat, or both). While the writing is nothing too complicated and easy to follow, it sometimes made me want to drop the book. But I always came back to it because the mystery was biting me and I wanted to know more.

All the students at Hailsham are deemed as “special” by their guardians at school because they will become donors at one point in their life and that is the chief reason behind their specialty. It is evident then that Kathy and Ruth and Tommy would also become donors and they do. After their first or second donations, they would grow frail and tired. I was fatigued as well upon finishing the book as though I’ve been operated upon too. An odd sensation, which made me reflect on their pitiful lives.

The book also included very few humorous elements. For instance, when Kathy and Ruth were young children, Ruth created “the secret guard” where the primary reason for its existence is to “protect” a particular guardian of theirs at school. At one point, the members of the secret guard decided to abduct their guardian in order to protect her, which I found quite dark and funny considering they are just little children, and that to safeguard someone they had to kidnap them.

I found Kathy’s character more unbearable than Ruth’s. Certainly, Ruth is a terrible person and friend to both Kathy and Tommy. She insults Tommy’s drawings, knowing he is not as gifted as the other students with art or literature, and twists Kathy’s interpretation of his drawings, making it seem like Kathy didn’t like them. Furthermore, she pretends she is better than others or that she cannot remember anything from Hailsham in order to fit in with the newer crowd. However, how many of us have tried to fit in somewhere, anywhere? How many of us have not pretended before? We all pretend in our own way, thinking we know much better or we perform much better. And is it so wrong to forget a disturbing past?

It felt as though readers were supposed to hate Ruth from the beginning because she’s “bad” and root for the protagonist, that is Kathy. But Kathy is all the same. She bullied, along with other students, a timid classmate who asked a guardian a question she wasn’t supposed to. She made Ruth feel terrible for pretending and called her out jeeringly. While Tommy is also a main character, he was written like a flat character. His only characteristic is that he has no talent and he is friends with Kathy and Ruth.

While the book does successfully achieve in making its readers intrigued with its premise, it also leaves them more confused than ever. For instance, all the students’ last names are a singular letter (e.g. Kathy H., Tommy D.), which tells a lot about their identity as “special” people. They are not treated the same as ordinary individuals because common people have jobs in offices, they have proper last names, and they are not born specially to become donors.

Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go is a novel that makes the reader question their own life. As I was finishing the book, I pitied the lives of these students. They are born and educated in a boarding school away from ordinary people, and then go on to become carers for other donors, and later become donors themselves and soon die. However, upon reflection, the lives of common people are also somehow similar. In a society, we are born and get educated and then get a job and/or have a family only to die later. But just like Kathy, we shouldn’t forget all those bittersweet memories of the past that remind us of where we come from and what we have become. It’s a book I’d recommend you to read at least once to view life from a different yet somehow similar lens.