Review: The Novel, Never Let Me Go…

I tried to like this novel. I really, really did. As both a reader and a writer, I anticipated encountering certain elements, but unfortunately, they were absent, if not too subtle to even notice. Never Let Me Go, by Kazuo Ishiguro, has an excellent premise and a promising dystopian world, but plot lines and worldbuilding mechanics are left underdeveloped. Ishiguro acknowledges that this book can be classified as a "soft-dystopian" narrative, emphasizing the human condition and our tendency to accept—our inherent acquiescence—to our environment and challenges.

The dystopian premise is this: an alternate 1990s England where human clones are produced en masse and educated in isolated boarding schools purely to act as organ donors for society at large. However, numerous questions are raised and left unresolved by this idea. First and foremost, who are these organs for, exactly? I anticipate that this idea would manifest in a world divided between the privileged and the underprivileged, where only the elite class has access to these donors and their organs. The Have-Nots have not. This is not even addressed in the novel.  

The story follows Kath, Ruth, and Tommy, three “clones” who become friends at Hailsham, one of the aforementioned boarding schools. Much teenage drama ensues, dotted with questions of identity and one’s purpose in life, and there are specific memories that Kath, the unreliable narrator, mulls over. But Kath, along with Ruth and Tommy, is such a passive observer of the situations she encounters that the novel drags in many places. Imagine waiting for something that never happens. I found myself far too distracted to keep focusing on the prose, and that is not usually a good sign. 

Also, most dystopian novels and movies I have been exposed to always culminate into some sort of revolution, where the Have-Nots stick it to the Haves. That does not happen here, resulting in a flat narrative, with little or no plot building or inciting events. Kath’s memories are supposed to—designed to?—provide plot points and the rising action. They do not. There’s a little too much hurry-up-and-wait in this narrative for my liking. It truly illustrates the distressing and conflicting lives of the clone characters, who are compelled to hastily finish their harsh donations, only to endure a painful and passive wait for their unavoidable demise.

But nobody makes the point that this is inherently wrong. 

Aside from wanting to discontinue reading Never Let Me Go, I am glad that I finished it, yet far from satisfied. Which means takeaways. True, Ishiguro demonstrates how to subvert the science fiction genre. But to what purpose? Instead of focusing on themes of rebellion or oppressive governments, he highlights a more relatable emotional landscape, using speculative elements merely as a way to explore essential human experiences like mortality, love, and the limits of our control. His model for a dystopian novel is one that’s hard to follow, if not emulate. But there it is. For future reference and discussion. 

I do not recommend this novel for lovers of sci-fi and dystopian novels. If you want a narrative experiment, that leads to little or no conclusions, then Never Let Me Go is definitely for you.