Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

This is a classic teen love triangle moving into young adulthood--but with a significant sci-fi twist that gradually gets revealed.  The author doesn't have a reputation as a fantasy writer (he is robably best known for "Remains of the Day') and so if you are trepidatious of that genre, this would be a good way to put your tow in the water.

The book is not, however, a good fit for someone who requires an upbeat story or a happy ending, because both are sorely lacking here.  The story of what is really going on unfolds for the reader as well as the three main characters in a gradual manner.  The more we know, the less we like about what is going on, but it is done in such a way that we do not catch the full brunt of what the author is saying to us until the last third of the book, and by then we are so involved with the characters that we keep reading, even though their situation is terrifying.

Here are the basics:  Kathy is the narrator.  She goes to a boarding school with Tommy and Ruth.  There is something special about the school, and the characters lives revolve around the school--there is no mention of family.  Ruth sees that Tommy loves Kathy and that Kathy loves Tommy, and she goes about making sure that they don't figure that out about each other, and eventually that a relationship between them would be a betrayal of her.  Typical high school girl drama, where Kathy doesn't see the manipulation until it is much too late.  What makes this different is that these people do not have their whole lives ahead of them--their time is short.  So it changes the emotional dynamics quite a bit and not at all, both at the same time.  Layered into this is what society has become, the lack of morals that exist, and how these kids came to be.  What we can do medically and what we should do medically are two separate things, and the book does a nice job of getting the reader to think about that.