Written by Kazuo Ishiguro

I loved this book, narrated in the voice of a robot, or Artificial Friend (AF), a dystopian science fiction story taking place sometime in the future. Klara, who is solar powered and takes her energy from the sun, is bought by a mother and her daughter, who like many youngsters of this day are genetically engineered to be gifted—with the danger being that their alteration might also kill them. Klara is highly intelligent and observant, though naïve when it comes to human matters. She is bought to be Josie’s friend and soulmate during her teenage years. Most kids who have been “lifted” are home tutored by computers and are often socially challenged, so the AFS are largely there to assuage loneliness. In fact loneliness is a key element in the book—loneliness and love, and what it means to love and to be human. Much like Wilson the soccer ball in the movie Castaway, we come to learn that Klara the robot is the most humane character in the book and the one most capable of love. As a reader, I rooted for her, sympathized with her, and was saddened by her eventual plight. Klara and the Sun is oddly a deeply moving and delightful book that compels us to take a look at what it means to be human.