The word that I think best describes this novel is “haunting.” It’s one that stays with you and doesn’t let go easily.

It’s a deceptively simple coming-of-age story about the love and friendship between three students at a seemingly idyllic boarding school in the English countryside, completely separate from all society, where they grow up being taught that they are special and important, and only gradually learn of a dark secret and a nightmarish future that awaits them.

In most dystopian science fiction stories, the protagonists — once they learn the truth — rebel, or flee a la Logan’s Run or Blade Runner or The Giver. But not here. This book illustrates a different response, one that’s certainly hard to forget.

The pace is slow, the odd euphemistic terminology puzzling at first, and the descriptions by the slightly obsessive narrator may seem unnecessarily detailed. There’s not much action. But for the patient reader, it’s a powerful morality tale about, among other things, what it means to be human.

NOVEL: Never Let Me Go

AUTHOR: Kazuo Ishiguro

DATE OF PUBLICATION: 2006

IMAGE: book cover, Vintage