📚 Can you take memory for granted? That is the question that Nobel Laureate Kazuo Ishiguro grapples with in his 2005 modern classic Never Let Me Go. A Man Booker Prize finalist, the novel has been hailed as a piece of literary fiction that is hard to forget, and harder not to be absolutely swept away by. Wrapped in what seems like a coming-of-age narrative, Never Let Me Go unravels as an understated sci-fi story that explores larger themes of death, morality, society, and the bizarre workings of memory.

The plot: Hailsham, an isolated British boarding school, is where the story’s narrator Kathy anchors the reader — and where her mind lingers until the age of 31. She is introduced as a “carer” who looks after “donors” — a job and concept that remains unclear for much of the story. Her present is shaped by memory, as she keeps returning to her time at Hailsham, in an attempt to examine her life in hindsight. She moves through scattered recollections of the school with her former closest friends Ruth and Tommy often at the center.

Questions pile up as more is revealed. The story blends gothic undertones and a warped sense of nostalgia. Kathy’s narrative fully embraces childhood whimsy, but paired with her uncomfortable retrospection, a dystopia slowly unfolds as readers start to realize that Hailsham is not a normal school.

Through a non-linear yet bizarrely coherent progression of events, Ishiguro constructs a brilliantly crafted story. The narrator tells her story in the simplest and most candid of ways, engrossing us in the microsociety of Hailsham with all its nuances — its light, atmospheric moments, as well as its darker, more unsettling ones. The story’s impact hits you slowly, and you’ll find yourself fully immersed and stunned as you turn the final page.

WHERE TO FIND IT- You can place a special order for the paperback version at The Bookspot, and keep an eye out on Diwan for a restock. In the meantime, you can also get the eBook on Amazon and Kobo.

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