Kristina

After reading books like this, it’s always difficult to structure your thoughts and sort everything out, because your feelings simply outpace your words.

​This is an unhurried, melancholic story where the characters gradually find their places within the narrative and the reader's heart, feeling so real that it's as if you knew them in the past. The book reads like a close friend's diary, left behind as the most precious memory of her.

​At first, it’s a bit exhausting how Kathy jumps back and forth between memories, describing events from different timeframes. However, you get used to it over time, and towards the middle, all the pieces come together into a seamless picture.

​I genuinely loved the novel. Despite the slow pace and the feeling that nothing drastic is happening, it was impossible to tear myself away—I read it in one sitting. What's more, you continue to think in the rhythm of this book even when you set it aside and return to your daily life.

​The only thing that, in my opinion, disrupts the overall rhythm and slightly breaks the atmosphere is that towards the finale, everything is explained far too directly through a supporting character's monologue. It’s as if you’ve been walking spellbound around a cloth-covered statue, trying to guess what’s depicted underneath by the outlines pressing through the fabric. And the whole beauty lay exactly in those moments of fantasizing. But right at the peak of forming that image in your mind, someone abruptly pulls the cloth away, and you clearly see what’s there. It’s not the end of the world, but the magic is gone. Up until that point, the world of Hailsham was consistently built through atmosphere, things left unsaid, and the interactions of the characters. In the end, it felt as if Mr. Ishiguro was forced to wrap up the novel in a hurry, simply dumping his dry drafts onto the reader with all the answers about the Gallery and the true purpose of the students. This sudden shift in pacing somewhat smeared the finale.

​Yet, when you turn the last page, a quiet devastation remains inside. It's a light sadness, rather than an oppressive one. The theme itself is incredibly heavy, but I believe Mr. Ishiguro explored it masterfully.