Elevated YA fiction (not unlike Never Let Me Go, but even worse I think, as that story did have effective world building and a relatively unique conceit and even some good characterization despite numerous weaknesses) that betrays Ishiguro’s gifted story writing talents to, I assume, sell a movie out of this book. Like most bad literature, it’s written like a movie. It’s hard to pinpoint what that actually means, but you know it when you’re reading it. One component is the dialogue. You’ll notice that all of the dialogue feeds into the plot, not in a “Chekhov’s gun” kind of way, but characters will only have conversations that either advance the plot or develop character traits of which Ishiguro wants you to be aware. Maybe the issue isn’t that he’s doing this, but the problem is that it’s so obvious. There’s nothing organic about the dialogue. I envision two actors in my head interacting, not two actual people. The trendy blending of genre fiction and literary fiction has perhaps never worked for me, but it’s very far away from working in this story. The AI theme is absolutely nothing new. I can’t glean a single new idea from this book. It’s simply a story about a robotic woman trying to “make sense of the world” and Ishiguro contemplates her compatibility with humans/human relationships. His conclusion is that faith and the power of love can save a sick girl’s life. Nauseatingly saccharine. It’s the most boring subject I can think of and it’s a rather boring book too. Something else that bothered me — why does Klara continually refer to Josie’s mother as “the mother” and not “her mother”? With her sophisticated understanding of 99% of all things she perceives, Ishiguro chose for her to talk “robot-like” for this SINGLE thing while she’s fairly human-sounding throughout the rest of the novel. WHY?! Would nobody have corrected her or would the use of this very common adjective “her” for some reason have alluded her? Also, now I’m being nitpicky, but how did Klara write this narrative in the first person? It just doesn’t make sense considering she “shuts down” toward the ending. When did she find time to write it? Whatever, fuck this book. I’m sad that Ishiguro has declined so much but I’ll still check out his next project. 🤷‍♂️