Never Let Me Go

In Kuzuo Ishiguro's fictional world, human cloning has been going on in the UK since the 1950s or 60s.

The reader meets Kathy H., Tommy D. and Ruth as children, their story told in flashback by Kathy H. Something is unusual about these kids at Hailsham. Are the children in boarding school? Or are they orphans? Are they specially gifted children?

They live among kind, caring guardians who nurture their creativity. A mysterious Madame carts their best art away.

Gradually, the reader realizes the future that is set out for these special kids as "carers" and "donors". Even more gradually, you realize where they came from and why they were born. Despite the cynicism of others, their humanness is real.

Ishiguro illustrates this by focusing on the small misunderstandings between them, what's said and unsaid that changes the air between them. Feel the awkwardness of your own childhood in this story: the bullies, the leaders, the misfits.

Kathy, Tommy and Ruth grow up but remain children; childless, motherless children who dream little dreams and search for explanations with the little energy and will they have. They face final disappointment in the answers and face their fate with the resignation.

Why don't they try to escape? Because their bonds are the bonds of conformity, some of the strongest kind.