Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

From the Booker Prize-winning author of The Remains of the Day comes a devastating new novel of innocence, knowledge, and loss. As children Kathy, Ruth, and Tommy were students at Hailsham, an exclusive boarding school secluded in the English countryside. It was a place of mercurial cliques and mysterious rules where teachers were constantly reminding their charges of how special they were.

Now, years later, Kathy is a young woman. Ruth and Tommy have reentered her life. And for the first time she is beginning to look back at their shared past and understand just what it is that makes them special–and how that gift will shape the rest of their time together. Suspenseful, moving, beautifully atmospheric, Never Let Me Go is another classic by the author of The Remains of the Day. @goodreads

MY REVIEW:

5 STARS

--->EXCERPT<---

My name is Kathy H. I'm thirty-one years, old and I've been a carer now for over eleven years. That sounds long enough, I know, but actually they want me to go on for another eight months, until the end of this year. That'll make it almost exactly twelve years.

I own this movie and have watched it many times (including today). I always thought it was so very sad and I never knew there was a book about it until friends on Goodreads had it listed. The book is just as sad and of course has more things added in that the movie did not. The book shares a lot more about the donors childhood at Hailsham.

The main characters are Kath, Ruth and Tommy. They all grew up together at Hailsham and were together later at the cottages and later at the end. Well, at least Kath was with them at their end.



Kath and Tommy seemed to be having a little thing start up with them as kids but Ruth pushed in and took over with Tommy. I'm not sure why Kath or Tommy never pushed Ruth away. You really know in the movie and maybe a little in the book that Ruth wanted it that way. But she later apologizes for it.

These poor kids are growing up in this place thinking things are so normal. Until finally one day a teacher tells them what they truly are, they are donors. They were raised as a sort of clone of someone else and when they grew up they were to be used as donors for other people. Their lives were to be nothing. This didn't really bother them too much when they found out because I guess they thought that was just life. They never really knew about the outside world until they went to the cottages at age 16. They stayed there until it was time to donate or unless they signed up to be a carer like Kath did. This means she just goes around and gives the donors comfort. But they were all together for a while at the cottages trying to live a normal little life there.




Later on when Kath finds Ruth again when she's in the hospital and on her second donation, they go and find Tommy. Ruth apologizes to them for keeping them apart for all of those years. She tries to help by finding them information to see if they can have a few more years together since they are in love.


This really is a very sad story for these people. If you watch the movie you will see how much more sad it can be, showing one of them dying on the table after the last donation. It's just disturbing and just the thought that the world COULD actually do something like this to people.

Either way, I loved the book and the movie.

GOODREADS REVIEW:

 https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1654673691

AMAZON LINK TO THE BOOK:

https://www.amazon.com/Never-Let-Me-Kazuo-Ishiguro/dp/1400078776/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1464814271&sr=1-1&keywords=never+let+me+go+in+books