Ishiguro is hit or miss for me, so I was a little skeptical going into this one as to whether or not it’d be one of the ones I’d enjoy – ultimately, my sister made the decision for me when she gifted me this book for the holidays!

I see that I might be in the minority in that I actually liked Klara, though not for the reasons oft-repeated in the novel. I didn’t find her particularly bright or observant, despite what some of the characters might say about her. But I liked her well enough that I was rooting for her, even in the parts where she seemed almost too naive to be believable.

Most of my complaints about the novel come down to wanting more. I wanted more from Klara (and more for Klara), I wanted more from the story, and I wanted more from the peripheral characters. If I enjoyed Klara, I found the rest of the characters blah at best and quite underdeveloped at worst. I found myself thinking as I read that things were occurring with a layer of haze between myself and the story – perhaps that is how Klara is meant to be feeling, but I also got the sense that this was an effect from the other characters. They weren’t vivid, and if that is how Klara is meant to be seeing them, I wish that had been more clear. But as it is, I just found I really didn’t care about the plight of anyone but Klara.

I’m glad I read this book, because I did enjoy Klara as a character. I just wish Ishiguro had done more with her, or made her environment all that more vivid for the limited amount of time she had on the page.