When We Were Orphans

I don't usually give up, but with this I did. About 100 pages later I'm still lost and the plot is lost, and I give.

Im a little torn with this book and would probably give it 3.5 stars. It started out really fun and interesting. Then a few things happened that 1 perplexed me and 2 kinda annoyed me. I wont really point them out here, other than to say that I thought Christopher was quite selfish. But, beyond that, I did enjoy the book and the mystery behind it.

Second reading. Ishiguro's novels are nothing if not enigmatic. There's disorientation; the reader is never quite sure where he stands. When We Were Orphans is a quasi-Bildungsroman or coming of age/detective story. It is set over a period of fifty years or so in London, Shanghai and then back in Lo......more

My favourite Ishiguro! “On the contrary, it is never too late to, as you put it, pick up the scent” Indeed, it most certainly isn’t. This book was so, so, deep. I feel like my emotions have been stretched to breaking point when reading. If you’ve not ready any of Ishiguro’s novels before, then d......more

Nobel Prize winner Kazuo Ishiguro - image from his FB page A pretty good novel. I thought it was outstanding until the back quarter. Renowned London detective Christopher Banks was raised in the International part of Shanghai, sent to England after both his parents disappeared. He is smitten with a......more

I’ll characterize this novel as ‘haunting.’ A boy grows up with his British parents in the enclave of Shanghai where all foreigners have to live. It’s around 1900. Much of the first half of the book involves the man’s reminiscences of his childhood, particularly time spent playing with his next-door......more

Many reviews here have commented on Ishiguro's unreliable narrators (let's let that classification stand, whether or not it is entirely valid or really applies to all of his work), as if this aspect of his fiction is so obvious, or that it has been so exhaustively mined, that there is little to noth......more