minimum spoilers
I think we need to stop writing dystopia novels where we just take words and capitalize them to show how this is a different world than we live in (Donor, Exchange, Gallery, etc). at this point i have to avoid rolling my eyes when we build worlds like this (I admit that Ishiguro seems to have come up with it before the YA world took it). what this book has going for it is we come to understand ishiguro’s world much the same was as our protagonist; we are “told and not told”, slowly having the reality clarify to us and along the way getting the sense we knew all along and can believe it. the central theme is obviously about losing what you love without being able to stop it, about nostalgia and youth and love and how all of it is taken from you. and despite this impending loss, knowing that there’s nothing to do but seek out people to love and hold onto anyway.
TBH our cast of characters is not anything spectacular. ultimately i found everyone very static. still ruminating on a final rating but 3 stars for now, but the real joy in this novel is the delivery of the story as we weave through Kathy’s memories