Never Let Me Go (edition 2005)

thanks to my awesome brother, this book is currently playing in my truck's new cd player. i'm confused about it, though. or rather, the back cover. why don't they tell the reader what it's really about?

it is not marketed as speculative fiction, and i wonder how many great books i miss because the back cover makes the inside seem like any old rosamunde pilcher falling in love in the english countryside kind of story. i've picked this book up a thousand times and read the back. and then i've put it back down again. well, thank god for the relatively slim selection at the public library.

it's a different book from remains of the day, to be sure.

so, despite the intentionally misleading back cover, i have to say not that it's not really that different of a book from remains of the day. it's written in a distinctly victorian manner, with all the richness and texture of place, nuanced conversation, important flashbacks consisting of nothing in particular. the isolation of the characters lent itself well to the form.

but i was tired, by the end, of paragraphs that began with "if i had only known then what i know now..." and so forth.

i think i'll think about it. it was a great truck book. ( )

thanks to my awesome brother, this book is currently playing in my truck's new cd player. i'm confused about it, though. or rather, the back cover. why don't they tell the reader what it's really about?

it is not marketed as speculative fiction, and i wonder how many great books i miss because the back cover makes the inside seem like any old rosamunde pilcher falling in love in the english countryside kind of story. i've picked this book up a thousand times and read the back. and then i've put it back down again. well, thank god for the relatively slim selection at the public library.

it's a different book from remains of the day, to be sure.

so, despite the intentionally misleading back cover, i have to say not that it's not really that different of a book from remains of the day. it's written in a distinctly victorian manner, with all the richness and texture of place, nuanced conversation, important flashbacks consisting of nothing in particular. the isolation of the characters lent itself well to the form.

but i was tired, by the end, of paragraphs that began with "if i had only known then what i know now..." and so forth.

i think i'll think about it. it was a great truck book. ( )

I actually saw the movie first and realized I had the book on my Nook. As soon as the movie was over I immediately started reading the book. I loved both. There was just something about the story that had me hooked. I wanted everything to work out for them. I honestly keep thinking about this book months later I just can't imagine growing up and knowing that my whole purpose in life was to donate organs to other people. ( )

3.5 stars ( )

I think I really liked this book. I hate to say it, because it sounds like much of what I had previously heard that threw me off more than anything, but it was like a dream. Well, like a dream on TV or film anyway. What I mean is that there seems to be all this going on that I could not quite grasp, so much that even how I feel about the novel is hard to pin down.

I have to imagine this is partly intentional. Much of what really clicks is shrouded in the beginning and it does not really kick it into high gear until late, and there is so much to it and so many powerful issues, be it science and progress or society or knowledge or love and friendship that it pulls you in and spins you around.

The writing is unassuming and while some facets of the characters and the very conceit of the story sometimes wears thin from a practical perspective, the astute reader will catch an undercurrent of something brilliant.

I guess this is to say don't expect to fall in love with the characters by page 5 and don't expect to know what is going on even if you do figure out what it is. It is both obvious and not, bear it out.

Finally, I guess I can call it a very successful book based on the idea that a book's purpose is said by some to be getting the reader to continue to the finish. This one seemed to falter at times, but ended with me anxious to read it again. A rare quality ( )