Klara and the Sun

The premise is beautiful, it hints at deep reflections about being human, but it didn't work for me. The dialogues were super weird and unnatural, they really bothered me. I missed more exploration of the technology behind the Artificial Friends (AF) and how they worked. Was Klara all mechanical? Was she an android? I wasn't convinced that AF's would find mystical significance in the Sun. The story hints at several themes but never really goes deep: environmental pollution, empathy, robots taking over human jobs, loneliness, gene editing, social class privilege. The plot is super simple and predictable, and the ending was very bleh. Probably not my thing.

Ishiguro's novel about a sentient robot is very timely, thought-provoking, and disturbing. My favorite character in this story was definitely Klara, the AF (artificial friend). In some ways, this is a challenging read, since the author does not spell everything out, and there are plenty of details that are not spelled out. Klara's reasoning and sensory clues are well described, however, and the saddest aspect of this story is how much of Klara's knowledge and insights will never be explained or shared with those she cared about most. Like most of those who have been assigned by society to a subservient role, she is vastly underestimated. This is a story that will stay with me, and I do recommend it.