Never Let Me Go follows best friends Kathy, Ruth, and Tommy at their boarding school, Hailsham in late 90s England. It is a tranquil, almost idyllic school where the students are educated in everything from poetry to painting and their artwork is highly sought after by a mysterious woman named Madam. Unfortunately, like many seemingly good things, it harbors a dark truth, and the very purpose of the students’ existence is put into question.

Through a retrospective lens, we learn the importance of past events in real-time from narrator Kathy – however, even then, her assumptions are not always correct. As we learn of Kathy’s school days, the story slowly unravels like an unsettling ball of yarn, spilling out the uncomfortable truths and things unsaid that haunt her present.

The characters are given realistic, albeit dislikable qualities with the caprices that plague all humans. These distinct personalities result in complex dynamics among the protagonists and strictly adheres to the old adage that “every person in a story, along with one other character, must create enough conflict between the two to sustain a scene”.

Piece by piece, the reader is asked perhaps too much – too much thinking, too much rereading, too much grappling. It is enough to make anyone chuck it in the garbage, only to retrieve it five minutes later. The plot is disturbing and compelling. Ishiguro reflects the “human” in all of us even during the most un-human circumstances; gracefully capturing the quiet heartbreak that is having friends slowly disappear from our lives, as well as our profound desire to have purpose and meaning in this world.

Never Let Me Go is not for everyone; with its disturbing ideas, slow narration, and subtle nuance, many may give up in vain. It is a thought-provoking story that will have you reflecting on the themes days after you’ve finished, or else completely and utterly bumfuzzled – or both. However, Ishiguro does not write for popularity, and for that, I have all the respect in the world.