Klara and the Sun

Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro. Penguin Random House

Klara is an AF, or artificial friend, who is waiting to be chosen by a child or teenager. She sits in her store and takes in the world as she sees it, learning more and more as time passes. Eventually, Klara is chosen by Josie and goes home with her. Her “life” is much changed with Josie and much of it revolves around how unwell Josie is.

I really enjoyed much of the first part of the book. Klara had a charming innocence about her along with a desire to learn so much. The latter parts were not as appealing to me. I found it hard to reconcile the supposed intelligence of Klara with her belief that the sun would heal Josie. Even more problematic were the few characters who had any part in Klara’s actions with regard to this healing. Plus there are the few characters that went along with her plan without any reasoning. They were supposed to trust her on this and they just did. Klara never “learns” more about the sun she worships and continues on in her naive beliefs. Even in the end I just could not buy into the idea that Josie healed the way she did and Klara learned nothing more about being human from this experience.

The really weird part of this book is it is never made even remotely clear the reason for AFs. It seems they are meant for older children and teenagers but I never get a sense of a real purpose. As a driving plot device, it seems there should be something given away but it’s lacking here more than just about any other aspect of this world.

The narration on the audiobook was reasonably good. I did find the voice of Josie’s father sounded too much like a much younger person. Also sometimes the voices of Josie and the mother were a bit hard to distinguish. Otherwise, it was an easy listen overall.

I originally was going to rate this at three stars but I think world-building was minimal (whether intentional or not) and the reader deserved to have more than just vague ideas. Therefore, I am giving this 2.5 stars.