Book Review: Never Let Me Go

Never Let Me Go

This was my cover, I wish I had the cooler cover with the close-up of the girls face. But, mine is a former library copy that I ordered used and this is what came. No complaints, it was worth the $1.50 or whatever. This is the preferred cover:

Book description: It's really hard to describe. It's late 1990s England. The book follows around Kathy H. and her two best friends Tommy and Ruth. We don't know much about their circumstances, other than they reside in a boarding school of sorts called Hailsham. There is talk of donors and carers. The children are clones (though from whom we are unsure) being cloned and raised for the sole purpose of organ donation.

My rating (if books were movies): PG-13

My review: That description makes the book sound pretty interesting, right? Not. People LOVE this book, LOVE IT. It's basically hailed as a modern classic. I'm not saying I didn't like it, because I certainly did. But, with such an interesting basis for a book, why did the author rarely touch on the topic? He should have ran with it, this could have been a kick butt dystopia. However, basically the entire book was about the mundane lives of Kathy, her snooty friend Ruth, and Ruth's boyfriend/Kathy's friend Tommy. This is another angle the author totally missed to give the story some oomph- a love triangle. I'm not saying that I don't think love triangles are cliche, because they totally are, but sometimes they can work. However, was I the only thinking "what in the world does Tommy see in Ruth??" or better yet "why is Kathy even her friend?". We're told by Kathy, the narrator, that Ruth is an amazing friend and they really love each other, but she's pretty reminiscent of Cordelia from the Margaret Atwood novel, Cat's Eye, or Regina from the movie Mean Girls.

Actually, I'm pretty sure Ruth, Cordelia, and Regina are all the same person.

I can't believe I just put a bad word on my blog. For shame!

Anyways, where was I? Ruth. Yeah, didn't like her. So, I had a few other minor problems with the book. It started off with me thinking this should definitely be receiving four stars out of five from me. But, by part three, I was having none of it. It got really long-winded even though my copy was only 288 pages it seemed to be dragging and I felt like it was going nowhere. It really all the sudden just went flat. I realized it was really not going much of anywhere. It was still good, I reckon. Just I thought there'd be this big reveal this A-HA moment and it never really came to that. Sure, there were some questions answered, but it was in a "really, that's it?" kinda way. Also, the author only casually mentions the whole "donors" and "carers" thing. It's told from the perspective that you already know what's going on. Of course, you don't because oh yeah this is work of fiction and you don't live in it.

Other than the few minor annoyances, I still relatively enjoyed the book. the author (a man) was able to portray female friendship very well. Maybe, he read Cat's Eye a few times, who knows? Either way, he did a great job. Ladies know how awkward it is to run in a circle of two girls and one guy. Even if the guy is butt ugly there's always that thing where both girls want to be the one getting the attention from a guy who they're not even romantically interested in, because women are competitive creatures especially when it comes to male attention. Except, Kathy remained fairly flat on the subject. The book description on Goodreads states that Kathy had a crush on Tommy, but I never got that feeling. Ruth was always scared Kathy was going to steal her man, because let's face it Kathy and Tommy were better for each other, but I never got the feeling that Kathy actually liked Tommy in that way. Even as an adult when she had her chance, I was never convinced she was actually interested.

But whatever, I gave the book three stars out of five stars. I think my expectations for this book just weren't met like I expected. Doesn't that happen a lot with books that have so much hype and that everyone likes?