Never Let Me Go Study Guide

Kazuo Ishiguro's 2005 novel, Never Let Me Go, was a Man Booker Prize finalist, the same prize that Ishiguro won for his 1989 novel, The Remains of the Day. Lynn Nutwell, a reviewer for School Library Journal, described Ishiguro's writing in Never Let Me Go as elegant and recommended the book for its "literary merit" as well as for it being a good medium through which to discuss the "controversial topic" of civil rights of human clones.

Yes, this is a futuristic story about human clones who are raised for the sole purpose of donating their organs to so-called normal human beings who come down with incurable diseases such as cancer. The clones are raised without fully being aware of their roles in life. They suspect that they might be different from those of the outside world—the world outside of the schools in which they grow up.

At the end of the novel, two of the clones, Kathy and Tommy, who are hoping to find at least a temporary escape from their fate, learn that they are special clones. They attended Hailshain, a British boarding school, where they were educated and treated to such domestic privileges as heated rooms and good food. There are many more clones, readers are informed almost at the completion of the story, who did not fare so well.

As it turns out, clones are looked down upon as being subhuman. They have been created to serve the so-called normal population. When they reach a certain age, the clones sacrifice their organs. Some clones, such as Tommy, go through four separate operations before they die, or as they call it, are "completed." Theirs is a hapless life. They do not discover until they have graduated from high school that they have no future, no civil rights.

Most of this story is told through the reminiscing of Kathy. Her best friends are Ruth and Tommy. The trio is very tight. After graduation, Ruth and Tommy become a couple for a few years, until they are called upon to make their first donations. Kathy is a carer. She consoles those who are donors, until she too is called upon to offer her organs. Readers are kept in the dark throughout most of the story, much as Kathy and the other characters in this novel are never sure what is happening. The story reads very much like a literary mystery.