Even though the book may start out as a fairly conventional novel, little by little you find yourself immersed in a sort of parallel universe, not so different from our own. The sheer horror and anguish of it all emerges slowly, making the reading experience even more powerful. A wonderful, moving read and quite a page-turner, too!

To think I picked this book only because I needed an author name starting with an "I" for the ABC Challenge! That's the magic of BookCrossing at work once again!

Synopsis (from Amazon.com):
In one of the most acclaimed and strange novels of recent years, Kazuo Ishiguro imagines the lives of a group of students growing up in a darkly skewered version of contemporary England. Narrated by Kathy, now 31, "Never Let Me Go" hauntingly dramatises her attempts to come to terms with her childhood at the seemingly idyllic Hailsham School, and with the fate that has always awaited her and her closest friends in the wider world. A story of love, friendship and memory, "Never Let Me Go" is charged throughout with a sense of the fragility of life.

Book sent to an unsuspecting bookcrosser today as part of the Wishlist Challenge. Who will be the lucky recipient??!!

In my mailbox today!

So the unsuspecting bookcrosser was me! Such a nice surprise to come home to after a couple of days away. Thanks. This has been on my wishlist for a long time. I'm looking forward to reading it. Will make a new JE when I have.

(I pinched the mailbox emoticon from you too, because I love it. Hope you don't mind. Thanks.)

Just finished reading. I must admit I was a little disappointed. It happens more often that I come to the conclusion, that a book that comes highly recommended does not live up to the hype for me. (The Time Travellers Wife for instance and The Shadow of the Wind). At first I'm always inclined to think that it's ME, that there's something wrong with me, or that I missed something, some hidden meaning maybe. Then I did a search in Book Talk and *sigh*, I'm not the only one that was disappointed. I read some reviews (I won't quote here) that are more or less what I thought too, especially the JE's of one other ringbook I came accross.

This book is on many wishlists, in fact it's #1 on Cliff's hotlist. I think I'm going to host a ring/ray too. Would be nice to read all those different journal entries. That's why I will not go into detail why I did not like it as much as I expected I would. Don't want to influence the others nor give away too much (spoilers). Maybe after you've read it you'd want to check-out this thread in Booktalk .

I loved the author's style of writing though. This was my first Kazuo Ishiguro. Maybe I should give him another chance and try one of his other books.

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July 28th update: Announced the ring in the forum. I decided to send this out as a ring, not a ray, as I may want to give it a second chance and re-read it.

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Please:

• make a journal entry when the book arrives
• try to read it within a month
• PM the next on the list to ask for his/her address
• make a new journal entry when finished (a short review)
• wrap it up well and send it to the next on the list (mention date in JE)
• PM me in case of any problems/unforeseen delay. (please don't skip anyone without letting me know first!)
Please sign my Guestmap if you joined this ray


shippinglist:

symphonnicca CAN => US/CAN
tiatia US=> US (INT if neaded)
geishabird CAN => anywhere
acountkel US => US/CAN surface mail outside
ajsmom CAN =>INT
iamagirldork US => US (INT if needed)
samulii Germany => pref. Europe
soleille Germany - anywhere
Griete Switzerland=>Europe
Fifna Netherlands =>INT
safrolistics UK=> Europe
Tournesol73 France=> France
biblioknoef France=> France
Back to me (bestfriends-France) <= 1/9 it's here COMPLETED


You can see the journey of this book on a map!

Closed for now.

RELEASE NOTES:


Happy reading from France

Caught! Just got this book in the mail, and I am very excited to get started. Just finishing up 'Headhunter', and then this will be on my night table. Thanks so much for sharing!

______________________

Update: started reading August 12th

Hmmmmm..... I don't know how much I liked this book, all things said and done. It was simple of language and of story, and yet not, at the same time. The words were simple, but the concepts they were trying to talk about were not so simple. So for me the larger issues felt kind of glossed over sometimes. Plus, I felt like there were lots of loose ends left hanging, and in the end (for me), it felt like nothing came of anything that happened in this book and nothing was resolved really--- there was no resolution or climax or message. Just a quirky story.

For me, in some ways it was VERY reminiscent of Margaret Atwood's "The Handmaid's Tale" and it tried to create that same sense of societal betrayal and inequality. However, unlike Atwood's book, this one did not really have a firm political message, nor (for me) the intense emotional and human reaction to the plight of the protagonists. I don't want to give anything away for the next readers, so I won't go into it too deeply...

Generally speaking, I liked Kathy--- she was very astute about the feelings and motivations of others. But I guess, while she felt other's pain and frustrations fairly easily, she never really seemed to feel any pain or frustration about anything outside of the small little world she inhabited. By this, I mean that she didn't really seem to care very much about the situation she and 'her kind' were in, and whether that was okay or not. For me, this is was a big thing for the story to be missing.

Anyway, I am feeling a bit like a broken record at this point. It wasn't that I didn't like the book--- i am glad i read it. But I felt, while it wasn't a bad book, for me it fell flat, and didn't capture the passion, urgency or betrayal that one might encounter in such a situation, nor the elegance or richness of Ishiguru's other book that I loved, "Remanins of the Day". Perhaps it is not fair to compare this book to others he has written, but there you go. I have done it. Shoot me. :)

I have tiatia's address, and will pop it in the mail to her this afternoon! Thanks for including me in this bookring!

___________________________

Mailed on Thursday, August 24th

Happy Days! A BC book in my mailbox. I have two books ahead of it but hope to read quickly as I have no work travel scheduled. This has been on my list for awhile so I am tickled pink!

The best laid plans of mice and men.... Multiple things have delayed my picking up this book. I'll check to see if I should pass it on unread.

I am so glad that I was able to get time extended to read this book. Fabulous!!! Reminded me of the the Handmaiden's Tale in that an alternate reality is so expertly crafted that you can imagine it. Or reading today's newspapers, you can see it evolving. Since I had read no prior reviews I had no expectations for the book and everything was a delightful surprise. Thank you for sharing this ring. Have not been able to contact iamagirldork and sending it on to geishagirl.

Off to geishabird. As with the rest of my out-of control life, I didn't get it together to journal the mailing on the day I did it.

Received; thank you! Looking forward to the read.

I finished this book several days ago but I've been letting it digest for a while. What a marvellous, terrible book - a sanitized, orderly, horrific dystopia. Far-fetched? Hardly. Throughout history, human beings have always designated some group of people as being disposable, expendable, less than human - whatever terminology you want to use. Some group - some "other" - has had to suffer in order that the rest of society can survive - flourish, even. Or just have a better standard of living. Or a nicer car. And we continue to allow this status quo to exist - in fact, we encourage it. Ishiguro does a brilliant job of showing us a world where this attitude is so deeply entrenched that even though it has become, to us, positively nightmarish, it is nevertheless accepted without question by those who are chosen to be sacrificed for the "greater good." I noticed one Amazon reviewer cited the "cow that wants to be eaten" character in Douglas Adams' Hitch-Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy - very good analogy. It's easier for us to allow others to suffer for us if we can somehow convince ourselves that they don't mind, or don't feel. And that's the very function that Kathy, Tommy, Ruth and the other "students" fulfill. Only Tommy's one brief howl of rage and anger hints at the truth beneath what we all try to ignore.

Thank you for sharing; I'm very glad I read this and think it will stay with me for a long time.

Mailed off today...enjoy!

Arrived safe and sound today.
Thank you geishabird for sending
Thank you bestfriends for starting this ray.

Once I finish the book I am reading, I will start this one.

Woah. This was something else. First of all, I would love to get inside this author’s head. This subject matter and story was very imaginative. The story is about clones. Humans produced to save other humans. Once they become adults, they either take care of doners or become doners themselves. The three characters focused on in this book are Ruth, Tommy and Kathy. During their childhood, they live at a school called Hailsham. The secret of their lives and their purpose is slowly revealed as they get older and ready to leave the school. But for the most part, they are sheltered and live the lives of students in a private institution. They question their purpose but they seem to accept it. This is a very disturbing and sad book. I liked it because of it’s distinctiveness. It's definitely not a book that gave me warm fuzzy’s or made me feel complete or happy at the end. This is a very thought provoking and unnerving read. I will never forget it.

Mailed out today!
Enjoy!

Caught today, thank you!

What an excellent, understated book. I loved the slow reveal - that Kathy and the other "students" were clones - though it was obvious something was very very different from the England we know. The slow reveal gives you plenty of time to digest the horror behind a rather straight-forward style of telling the story; it's quite clever, really! Here I was, thinking, "I'm reading a lovely story about a group of kids growing up" when it starts to dawn on me that I'm actually reading a story about a group of test-tube kids growing up so that they can give up their lives to "regular" people through organ donation. It's great they removed wombs...why didn't they remove frontal lobes too and spare the students the emotional pain? Too humane, I guess.

While I've heard the book was good, I never heard what it was about, so I was very pleasantly surprised. I have PM'd imagirldork and will send this book out when I hear back. Thanks for the ring, bestfriends!

RELEASE NOTES:

Sent via air mail to iamagirldork.

Arrived today safe and sound. Starting it today!

I found this book quite interesting. In the beginning though, I felt as though Ishiguro just kept dragging and dragging things on and I wondered if it was going to be worth finishing. Towards the middle, I noticed I just had to know what was going on, even though there really wasn't anything going on. The ending was a little flat I thought.

I've heard many wonderful things about Ishiguro, but based on this novel alone, I wouldn't care to read anything else by him. The concept was very interesting though.

Thanks for allowing me to join. I will mail it to samulii tomorrow.

Mailed 1/25/2007 - Customs Form #: LC803579841US

Wow, that was fast! The book just arrived at my mailbox.
Unfortunately I have 2 other bookrings in the house at the moment, and expect 2 more shortly. I will try to get to this book as soon as I can, but it may take one or two weeks.

I got to it faster than I thought and once I started I couldn't put it down and read it on 2 days straight.
This was my first Ishiguro book, but it won't be the last. I can totally understand the hype about it, because not only is the story superb, it also gives you a lot of food for thought afterwards. I already know that this story will stay with me for a long time. (I don't want to post any spoilers here so I will not get into the details of the story. I will instead post a longer review of it in my blog.)
The reason I am not giving it 10 points (which I very rarely do anyway) is that there are some little inconsistencies in the plot which kind of rubbed me the wrong way and were never really explained. But I still think this is a remarkable book and I will definitely read every other book by Ishiguro I can lay my hands on.
Thank you so much for letting me join this ring, bestfriends!
I have already PMed soleille and will send the book on as soon as I get her address.

This arrived safe and sound today, thank you! I'm really looking forward to this one. I've heard raves about Ishiguro, but the name always put me off as I normally can't get into Asian (or is he just Asian-named?I really haven't looked it up) authors' writing. But as soon as I heard what it was about, I put it on my wishlist- thanks for including me in this ring! Will get on it as soon as my migraine (it's day #3!!!!) goes away and I can actually read again instead of relying on audio books. By the way, bestfriends, I am falling more and more in love with that gorgeous fleece cap every day- can't imagine how I got through all those winters before having it :o)

I loved this book and read through it in one go.
What a world...I don't know which part go to me the most, the growing up , doing all the thinks children and teens do, tod from a child's perspective with the shadow of donations always overhead without knowing what it really means- or the adult life in full conscience of this Damocles's scalpel!
How very very sad and upsetting...the worst thing for me was that the students are to be carers first, see it all firsthand, then become donors themselves. I'd definitely recommend this book!

Got it today, thanks!

Reminder:




Not me, I've read the book. Others on the list haven't yet!

Sorry for taking too much time. I enjoyed this original, surprising and moving story. I admire Ishiguro's inventivity and the way he always manages to write and describe a whole new world to the reader.

Arrived safely, thanks Griete!

Great book, I enjoyed slowly finding out what was really going on behind the idyllic scene of kids at a school in the countryside. Many thanks for sharing, bestfriends! I have safrolistics' address and will get it on its way as soon as possible.

Recieved this today in the post, and as usual, have a couple of books to finish before I start it...

Well, managed to zip through this book in a few days. I found it quite ingrossing, I wanted to keep reading to find out what happened next....but in the end? well...not a lot happened really, they all just accepted their fate.

Just waiting for the next person's addy, and then this will be in the post.

RELEASE NOTES:

Arrived safely. Thanks!

Well, a bit disappointed by the book as well. Maybe there are just things I didn''t get/understand... Actually it never really grabed me though the subject sounded insteresting to me at first.

On its way to Biblioknoef

Thank you Tournesol for sending this book on to me. I grabbed it from the mailbox last week when I was leaving for a couple of days to somewhere without internet access, so I could not make an entry right away. But it was very welcome because I had the time to read there!
Fascinating book once I came over my first reaction of “come on now, come to the point” like when someone is telling you something and you don’t really have time to listen to all the small details and just want to know what it’s really about (tapping your foot and longing to leave...). Although from the first page on I guessed that Ishiguro was talking about clones I kept having this feeling of wanting to shake him, until the end: “now tell me the details finally!”. Somewhere he let’s one of the persons say “we were told and we were not told” and that’s exactly what he is doing himself. I really enjoyed the subtle way the theme of this book was woven into the story and the analytic way Kathy tells about her and her friends’ life and their feelings. Well yes, so clones have human feelings, the book tells you. If so, why does none of them ever try to escape his/her fate? This made me feel frustrated (which shows that I was really caught up in the book) but also made me clear that there is always the possibility of simply accepting things the way they are.
Kind of book that can raise interesting discussions about human behaviour.
Thanks a lot for sharing bestfriends - will send it back to you today!

The book returned safely back home today. Will give it some well deserved rest now and re-read it sometime in the future. It will somehow continue its journey after that.

Thanks all of you for making this into a successful ring.

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February 2008 update:
I did some of that rereading a while back. Book is now available again.

Donated to the "1001-library" You will find a list of all the 1001 books in that profile.

Thanks very much bestfriends! A great book now available through the 1001 library.

RELEASE NOTES:

to ekaterin4luv in Nürnberg. Enjoy!

Thank you bestfrieds for sending me this book, I'm looking forward to it.