This book has somewhere just over 300 pages so there is really no reason as to why it took me a near six months to read – I gotta say that … it’s a little embarrassing considering I’ve read longer books in less time.
One of the first things that I noticed about this book was the melancholy note throughout its entirety. Sure, it’s a happy story, Josie, meets Klara, the AF (Artificial Friend), the protagonist, and all of their interactions are, on the whole, happy ones. But it’s a dystopian fiction – we know going in that we can’t have it all. I’m no stranger to the genre, having been in my early teens when the mass of dystopian fiction hit the market with titles like Maze Runner, Divergent, The Hunger Games, and many more. In a way, it’s interesting going back to something that held such importance to me as well as so many other readers, and seeing it in a perhaps more personal, more real rendition.
While the three above-mentioned books seemed like they could be real, something about Klara and the Sun feels even more so. Within it, parents are almost deliberately genetically enhancing their children so they prosper within various academic fields – for some, this works, and for others, like Josie, not so much. As a reader, you’re thrown into this world that seems more probable than what we encountered in fiction from the early 2010s. When looking at trends in schooling, admittedly, education took a nose-dive in 2020, and it will take a long time to get everyone on their feet again, but when examining some families, and countries, there are children that have their noses in books non-stop, going from class straight to additional tutoring sessions to get ahead of everyone, to be the best in the class as in many countries, education still holds the highest importance and is what will get you far in life.
But, education isn’t the main premise of the book. It is also the relationship between Josie and her parents, her mother specifically. She is the driving force in improving the relationship between Josie and Klara, really, wanting the AF to get to know Josie inside and out. You could say that in some ways, she is the antagonist of the story, pushing both her daughter and Klara to something that may or may not be feasible. She has good reason, though of course that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the right thing to do and it takes a few people stepping in for her to see the error of her ways. (I wish I had my copy on me so that I could flick through it and remind myself of some of the scenes, but per my brand, I am writing this with a significant delay).
Now, a little about the book itself. Unlike many books I’ve read – and I’ve gotten through a few in my time – this one is split up into parts with section dividers throughout them. There isn’t a single chapter, and somehow it makes it easier and harder to read. Granted, the parts are about the length of a chapter, but it’s a formatting I’ve not encountered before. The small separators almost act like scene breaks, the parts becoming individual acts that complete the entirety of the work that is Klara and the Sun.
It’s hard to say whether this is a fast or slow read, but that’s on me and how much time I took to read it. The plot moves at a rather lethargic pace if I remember correctly, the main action of the book spans a year or two, and I don’t think it’s more than that, but you feel like you know the characters for longer, the first part of the book focusing solely on the beginnings of Klara’s life. It’s a very delicate book, when I first started it, and even as I was reading it, I noted that it was all very soft, even when there was something more action-packed, it was described in a way that wasn’t jarring, more so a gentle play by play. Every scene is easy to visualize, a countryside house far from the hubbub of a modern city, the house, to me, appears like one of those modern farmhouses, in and out. I have no way of knowing if it really was that way, but I imagine it to be something plucked out of an architecture and design magazine and placed in a quiet area, a similar house at a distance that’s perhaps a little more disheveled than the one where the protagonist lives.
If I were to re-read this book, I would also start it during the fall. Even though the plot largely takes place in warmer months (or maybe the Earth’s just become a steady temperature at the point this book is set) it feels either spring-like or autumnal. Maybe it’s the calm warmth that it’s enveloped in that makes me say that, but regardless of when you read it, I hope it leaves you thinking a little about the characters and how they all needed to go on the journeys they went on in order to get to where they needed to.
aga is reading 