Klara and the Sun

by Kazuo Ishiguro

No cover — Kazuo Ishiguro: Klara and the Sun (Hardcover, 2021, Faber & Faber)

Hardcover, 303 pages

English language

Published July 18, 2021 by Faber & Faber.

ISBN:: 978-0-571-36487-9

(6 reviews)

From her place in the store, Klara, an Artificial Friend with outstanding observational qualities, watches carefully the behavior of those who come in to browse, and of those who pass on the street outside. She remains hopeful that a customer will soon choose her, but when the possibility emerges that her circumstances may change forever, Klara is warned not to invest too much in the promises of humans.

In Klara and the Sun, Kazuo Ishiguro looks at our rapidly changing modern world through the eyes of an unforgettable narrator to explore a fundamental question: what does it mean to love?

15 editions

Tania reviewed Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro

Exploring love and loneliness through an AI

4 stars

An easy and enjoyable read despite some illogical parts. I like the idea of exploring such human concepts as love and loneliness through an artificially intelligent robot.

Rachel Unkefer reviewed Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro

A lot of setup for not much payoff

3 stars

What even was this? A parable? A fairy tale? An allegory? Was it about religion? About artificial intelligence and how it can spawn its own superstition? This seemed to me a huge amount of world-building and excruciating detail just to say‚ what?

pixouls@bookwyrm.social reviewed Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro

Surprisingly underwhelming

3 stars

I listened to this as an audiobook, my first checked out from Libby.
I liked the narrator's voice and felt it was generally quite well to meet the range of voices for the characters.
The book took too long to build up and the ending was too abstract and fell apart.
I also generally didn't like or understand why the characters were selected with the traits they had.
Some of the dialogue felt well played, while others felt jarring
In the end, my favorite part is Klara's relationship with the sun, which goes for the most part unexplored with other characters. This book has vague environmentalist themes.
many of the tropes that show up in this book I feel, have been better expressed in other works I've read.
I think this book would be fine for a middle schooler as it goes generally without much complexity with its readability. Though …

I listened to this as an audiobook, my first checked out from Libby.
I liked the narrator's voice and felt it was generally quite well to meet the range of voices for the characters.
The book took too long to build up and the ending was too abstract and fell apart.
I also generally didn't like or understand why the characters were selected with the traits they had.
Some of the dialogue felt well played, while others felt jarring
In the end, my favorite part is Klara's relationship with the sun, which goes for the most part unexplored with other characters. This book has vague environmentalist themes.
many of the tropes that show up in this book I feel, have been better expressed in other works I've read.
I think this book would be fine for a middle schooler as it goes generally without much complexity with its readability. Though I do think it should be followed with journaling or a book discussion. I would be curious how this book could be used to engage youth about AI ethics.

finktank reviewed Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro

Ishiguro is a modern master

5 stars

I love everything I've ever read by Kazuo Ishiguro. His prose isn't filled with vocab words and doesn't ever even feel anything but mundane, and yet somehow, every single line is poetry. This book did not disappoint. Lovely, loving, heart-rending... and also exploring the very real potential futures of artificial intelligence, machine learning, friendship, and disposability.

Robbie A reviewed Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro

Review of 'Klara and the Sun' on 'Storygraph'

4 stars

This story was most interesting in that it was told from the perspective of an artificial intelligence. Not a whole lot happens, but it was neat to see the story unfold as the AI learned more.

There are some things I wish I could know a little bit more about the world, because it seems like an odd future setting that I couldn't get a great handle on. However, this lack of explanation fits with the narrator's perspective, so it works out fine.

Nicholas Boyd Isacsson

rated it

Dec. 8, 2021

Subjects

Fiction
Robots
Artificial Intelligence
Dystopian
Science Fiction
Chronic Illness
Disability