Book Review | Klara and the Sun

Klara is a solar-powered AF (Artificial Friend) who reveres the sun. She also possesses exceptional observational and empathy skills. This is why, one day, she is selected to be the companion of a very sickly girl named Josie. Determined, Klara embarks on a secret mission to save her.

Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro is a wistful and beautifully poignant story that explores what it means to love and what it means to be human. It’s a quieter novel that finds the beauty in everyday things—all told through Klara’s lens of child-like wonder.

However, this is both part of the book’s greatest strength and its greatest weakness. Klara is the star of this novel, but perhaps due to her own limited worldview, there are multiple plot points and aspects of the worldbuilding that go unexplained. For instance, Josie’s mysterious illness is never named and there are frequent mentions of a class divide between children who are “lifted” and “unlifted” that never quite gets fully addressed. There are also hints of AF mistreatment and fear towards artificial intelligence that I feel were missed opportunities to explore.

All in all though, I’d say Klara and the Sun excels most as a character study. It’s an emotionally-driven story that allows Ishiguro’s understanding of human nature to continue to shine, and although I felt his other work (Never Let Me Go) to be more gripping, this book’s bittersweet end still left me in tears.

Thank you, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Book Details:

Publication Date : April 6, 2021
Publisher : Knopf
ISBN : 978-0593318171
Pages : 320

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