We first meet Klara is in the front window of a shop that sells androids that are manufactured to become companions to children. Despite not being the latest model, Josie falls for her and, as she is described to be more empathic than later models, her mother agrees to the purchase.

The novel follows Klara’s point of view as she starts making sense and develops her understanding of the world. She also grows and develop attachments, impulses and a fascination with the sun -- always featuring in her frame of vision – that goes beyond what is simply her source on energy. A dystopia where androids are more empathic than humans, as Klara is attentive, generous, naïve. As we see her grow, we get to observe humans though her eyes and judgement, and this external look reveals their fragility, motives, selfishness, loneliness. This external point of view oh humans provides a “mirror” that works really well.

What it means to be human, engineering of humans, humanising AI, and the inability to face loneliness are all themes in this touching dystopia. Visually, I love the way the world looks through Klara’s gaze: essential and rarefied as if we are inhabiting a painting by Malevich, the sun always in some corner of her field of vision; the aftermath of some environmental catastrophe and the echoes of social unrest in the background ; the slow, measured pace that still manages to create tension, interest and unforgettable atmospheres and evoke the unexpected. Ishiguro has a magic touch, style, imagery, pace, everything seems surrounded by a magic aura.