Simple and precise prose that paints one of the most human stories I've ever read. The characters are so tender, even more so as we start to fathom the true reason for their existence.
Makes me reflect on the intrinsic value of living in groups of peers (in a school), the meaning of interpersonal relationships, the many facets of friendship, and the purpose of all. Hailsham was after all something willed into life, not because it was strictly necessary to solve a problem. Hailsham was the pure manifestation of intrinsic value. The life of growing up amongst peers, being guided, taught, and scolded by guardians. Losing yourself in expressing your budding feelings and sense of self. This is arguably no longer anything that our own schools in our own world strive for. Though I'd like to think that it still functions similarly for many. Probably more thanks to the intensely human instincts and motivations of our teachter, and despite our bureaucracy.
The ending moved me strongly, because Kazuo lets us feel the journey of everything that once was and that we held dearly, as it retreats to the brittle medium of our own memories. It pained me to read about Kathy juggling memories of Tommy, Ruth, and Hailsham in order to keep them alive and to hold on to some semblance of continuity and meaning in her own life.
The donorship throughout this story also hit close to my feeling about the concept of a career in our world. We stumble, learn, and grow, only to end up in a bureaucratic treadmill that feeds itself off of something we can give. Though in our case, that something is less concrete, but arguably more confusingly hurtful.
Lastly, something about the way this book is written. It has tempo! Kazuo makes sure that there's almost no natural pause in the story. Everything "ends" by alluding to how something happened, or that something was about to happen, or that everything we just read was totally changed by what someone did next. And to learn what that something was, you'd only have to start on the next paragraph, or the next chapter. Yeah, the story has amazing flow.