While I didn't enjoy this novel as much as I did Klara and the Sun, Never Let Me Go nevertheless left me haunted by the world Ishiguro created and the headspace in which the author lets us exist alongside our narrator.

It takes remarkable craft to tell this truly modern horror parable in a way that entirely disarms the reader and normalizes the immeasurable cruelty that faces the inhabitants of this story. How our narrator thinks about and processes a reality so bleak it is nearly unthinkable left me with a feeling of hollow unease bordering on anxiety, clearly by masterful and planful design. While the detached viewpoint of Klara and the world she inhabited was one I felt more drawn to, Kathy H has left a mark on my psyche that will certainly take a long time to shake.

Ishiguro's writing is beautiful, filling his characters and their relationships with heart and keen honesty. The setting, experienced through a sharp yet naive veil by these characters, is exquisitely realized.

This soft, thoughtful, coming-of-age a la almost hardly-there sci-fi explores themes of individuality, friendships, fate vs free will, science ethics, and health in unique ways without weighing itself down in the technicality of it all. In this constraint, Ishiguro is able to fully explore what he so brilliantly does time and time again, asking the question: what exactly does it mean to be human?

3.75 out of 5