Capturing the beloved young adult fiction dystopian-future type novel that so many of us have come to know and love, Kazuo Ishiguro’s fiction story, “Never Let Me Go” has encased the hearts of many.

Set in a future world where people can live for hundreds of years, private ‘schools’ are set up around the country teaching and educating “special students”. These students are really groups of children chosen to be donors and carers. Their sole purpose in life is to grow up healthy and strong, so they can donate their vital organs to people who need them, most donors “completing”, or dying by their third or fourth donation. The few who are selected to prolong their imminent death are called carers, these people are chosen to take care of and visit donors during and after their operations to lift their spirits and help them survive as long as possible so they might undergo as many donations as they can.

This riveting novel focuses on a main character, Kathy, who relives her childhood memories through one of her donor patients, a former best friend of hers who she went to school with.  Through Kathy’s eyes the tales of her past reveal how things were like for children at the Hailsham private school, and what it’s like finding out your soul purpose for living is to donate organs that will save others.  A love story mixed with an intriguing and climactic page- turner, this book has many appealing qualities of a good novel to bring readers in.

Using a unique writing style in the first person narration, Ishiguro is able to bounce back and forth between past and present events that shape the novel while informing readers of the background situation that created the societal issues the book focuses on.  Kazuo Ishiguro has written many bestselling fiction novels, and receives a lot of critical praise for her work, even her older short stories from when she was fresh out of college. Highly skilled in the style of writing, realistic characters, and compelling plot, “Never Let Me Go” is quite actually a book you should never let go.