Reviews tagging 'Child death'

Non lasciarmi by Kazuo Ishiguro

5 reviews

jabberwalky's review against another edition

challenging emotional mysterious reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No

5.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Sexual content, Forced institutionalization, Medical content, Medical trauma, and Gaslighting

Moderate: Homophobia, Infertility, and Toxic friendship

rzh's review against another edition

emotional mysterious reflective sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.25

oh.....my goodness this was a lot. intense, brooding, sad, mysterious... took me a while to get into the sort of conversational style its written in, but once i was in i was IN. the book somehow reminded me a bit of jane eyre? maybe the POV, the "stages" it is in, the reflection on a past life in a boarding school and the constant sense of foreboding and mystery all the way through. maybe its a personal thing but i found the whole mystery of the novel quite frustrating at times. i know that was really the point of the book, but it just felt like cathy was going to reveal a bit more every so often, and then she'd just change the subject, which left me feeling a bit short changed by all the parts that went unanswered.  like......

if the other teenagers at the cottages weren't from hailsham, where did they come from? if they were from similar schools, why were they so mystified by the hailsham students? were the carers allowed to be part of society before being called up to being donors, or not? what is the whole system around leaving the cottages, who is the "they" who enforces the rules around carers and donors, why are we never introduced to them? i know we get reintroduced to miss emily and madame at the end, but surely there were other forces at play?

all in all a really gorgeous book: not the kind of thing i'd usually read, but would be up for reading another by ishiguro some point soon. 4.25 stars

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Confinement, Death, and Forced institutionalization

Moderate: Infertility, Toxic relationship, Medical content, and Toxic friendship

schmitzy_'s review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No

4.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Child death, Terminal illness, and Medical content

Moderate: Forced institutionalization and Trafficking

nepheloma's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious reflective sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

This is a very interesting book that I personally interpreted as an allegory for the course of life.  The main question it focuses on is: why do we do anything if there's no hope, or at least nothing more than this life, in the end? It's basically a reflection on the absurdity that characterizes our existence through the experiences of three very, very human characters. They are all very flawed, sometimes even to an aggravating extent, but I found it kind of comforting how openly their flaws were explored and how they kept being connected, not despite these flaws, but even alongside them.

What I personally realized through this book was that we keep on living life because that's the core of our humanity: to create and to exist, no matter how absurd our existence might really be. We're not different from the students at all -our existence is a path straight towards death, just like theirs. But we keep carrying on, because what matters is that we live until we die.

I think that the only thing that I didn't enjoy very much was the writing style of this book. I do understand that it is designed to reflect that the story is told orally, but I found it repetitive. Sometimes, there was foreshadowing that was too obvious or even repeatedly mentioned, which made me feel that the set ups the writer wanted to create were a little not too strongly built. At times, I also found the narration somewhat emotionless, especially in the beginning of the book, but even though this bogged me, I have to admit that it did contribute to the general morose, yet hopeful, atmosphere that the book had.

---

Content Warnings

Moderate: Death, Terminal illness, and Medical content

Minor: Cancer, Child death, Chronic illness, Death, Drug use, Infertility, Sexual content, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, Medical content, Grief, Medical trauma, and Pregnancy

catol's review against another edition

hopeful informative inspiring mysterious reflective

• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? N/A
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

---

Content Warnings

Moderate: Bullying, Child death, Confinement, Death, Infertility, Sexual content, Terminal illness, Medical content, Grief, and Medical trauma

I took this book to empathise with child laborers and the clients of their labour. It made me reflect on my views of humanity, how to take action. This book was a personal insight into being born in a situation where your future is a second thought and comes after you have escaped the system that ties you to poverty, unless you donate all the labor you have to give until you die. This book gave an insight into the atrociously inhumane treatments neoliberalism has created. I understand

Madame's fear and distance, being afraid of touching Kathy's cheek. Just as I may struggle to understand a 12 year old suffering, me knowing that he would not have my future of possibilities

this book is hopeful