The first time I saw this book was in a library in England in 2007. I was hesitating between that book, Neil Gaiman's Anansi Boys, and John Ajvide Lindqvist's Let The Right One In.
I'm terrified of spiders and I well knew about Anansi from my Caribbean parents so I quickly put Anansi Boys back down without reading the synopsis too carefully (Or if I did, I forgot it by the time I did read the book). For some reason I never really pinned down the genre of Never Let Me Go from the synopsis, it seemed so...I dunno but I wasn't intrigued enough.
I went with Lindqvist because I love vampire books and his seemed original and perverted enough to redeem the genre (if I were a vampire these days, I'd be turning in my grave).
I finished Never Let Me Go today which means I've now read all three books.
After some thought I feel like Never Let Me Go is a not-quite book.
It's not-quite dystopian, not-quite sci-fi, it's not-quite dark, not-quite literary.
The entire time I was reading the book I wasn't sure how I felt about it, if I liked it or not. I kept reading on because it felt like the story was about to pick up and give me the answers I was looking. In the end it didn't, at least not quite.
You figure out pretty soon that the kids at Hailsham are clones that are essentially being grown to become donors for originals, which is to say non-clone people. And...that's it. From the start the narrator seems relatively uncertain about her memories, uncertain in her memories and pretty passive. Things happen and she accepts them. Even on the rare occasions she rises up and shows some character she pretty quickly backs down and goes back to her previous state. She's a not-quite human with not-quite emotions and a not-quite life.
Things and events that seem important, that seem to provide some hope, eventually end up being meaningless. The love story doesn't happen as you think it will and it doesn't end as you think it will. In fact the book ends with a sort of fizzle like it isn't quite done. Someone described the book as being one of quiet desperation. I see that, you read it and feel like there's no hope but I think I wasn't expecting the quiet desperation to be unerring and unswerving. There isn't really ever any contrasting emotion to bring out this desperation. It just is.
I don't know what I think of the book because I'm not quite sure what it is I read. I sometimes felt sorry for these kids but also felt that wasn't the point of the book. Also the book is essentially a long monologue and doesn't have much action or dialogue so it reads with no real ups and downs. At the same time I didn't not like the book and read it well into the night and reached for it first thing this morning to finish it. Interestingly the book makes much of the kids being 'told but not told' what's going on and that's basically what happens to the reader. You get it and don't get it at the same time. Like I said, it's a not-quite book or at least, it's a book that you kind of have to figure out on your own.
I saw the trailer for the movie which necessarily has to be a bit more action-driven so I'll see that and see if I pick up on anything else.
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