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Title: Not an enjoyable read - for reasons both good and bad.
Review: On the positive side - the sense of dread starts on page one and doesn't let up. Reading this novel is similar to reading Atwood's "The Handmaid's Tale" - you can't put it down, but you feel despair the whole time you're reading it. This is no small accomplishment and I credit Ishiguro with his ability to write something so compelling.On the negative side - also like the Handmaid's Tale, this novel is agenda-driven, and like most novels with an agenda, the characters are just pawns, not seeming to breathe with a life of their own. Ishiguro seems to have made a specialty out of creating the emotionless, repressed character, and receives a lot of admiration for this, but given the situation the narrator finds herself in, it's pretty unsatisfying that she spends the entire novel reasoning her way through it and observing others' emotional moments, not expressing any feeling of her own beyond irritation or mild pleasure.
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