Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

(Spoilers below; please do not continue if you do not wish to read them.) Kazuo Ishiguro is clearly a master writer, but he has chosen a subject here that is way, way out of his expertise. Although beautifully written, the basic story behind "Never Let me Go" is dull, and goes over a sci fi subject (cloning) that was done to death 40 years ago. Yes, even the idea of adult clones going willingly to their death for the benefit of mankind. Presumably Mr. Ishiguro was inspired by the cloning of Dolly the sheep to try his hand at something like this. It's notable that when Americans attack this sort of subject, you get a result like the current movie, "The Island", which focuses less on introspection than on the rebellion of the clones. It says a lot about the difference in national character! LOL! Plus I see many commenters here are the most disturbed at the passivity of the characters. I certainly see that as a flaw in the structure of the novel (what would prevent any of the clones from simply walking away from Hailsham or the Cottages? After all, they don't look any different than an ordinary person), however I think there are much more serious flaws in the construct. The ideal age for a "clone" to donate organs would be late teens, not their 30s. That's when all your internal organs are at their healthiest, and you have reached adult proportions. That wouldn't leave time for "carers" to develop. And what's with the concept of "carers"? They aren't even properly trained as nurses or even orderlies. Transplant/donor patients require skilled nursing, not "pals". Then there is the problem of the idea that the clones donate approximately 4 times (if they survive) and then "complete" (die). What the heck are they donating to accomplish this? You can live with only one kidney, and you can survive with a partial liver...or lose your pancreas, and survive on insulin. But you certainly can't survive without a heart or lungs, which are among the most desirable transplant organs. Maintaining a donor clone on dialysis (assuming both his kidneys were transplanted) would render him too weak to donate any of his other organs. From a strictly medical point of view, it would make more sense to kill the clones and harvest ALL the desirable organs, rather than taking one at a time and risking the clone dying from one of those procedures. Or is the idea that the clone is donating only to the individual he was cloned FROM, as that individual has various organs fail? That doesn't make sense either -- nobodies organs fail exactly in a certain order. Furthermore, the implication is that harvesting cloned organs will cure cancer. I am hard pressed to think of a cancer that could be cured by transplantation -- it would certainly be rare. The problem with cancer is that it spreads all throughout the body, and transplanting organ after organ would be useless. This is just a few of the examples of why this is a patently stupid idea for a novel. I don't think Mr. Ishiguro has read much genuine sci fi that explores these ideas, or he'd understand how out of date and out of his depth he really is here. As far as the story exploring the way people passively accept their fate, no matter what it is, without fighting back -- well, if he's revealing an inside look at British culture, that's the scariest part of all.