This was not what I expected but I still enjoyed it. It was almost like it was two stories running simultaneously, one a pretty normal one of three friends growing up together in a british school from childhood through adulthood and all the coming togethers and drifting aparts that go with that, pretty normal stuff...except in the background you have the other story...much darker, more mysterious and terribly tragic. I don't think each story by itself would have stood on its own as a compelling story, but by intertwining them, Ishiguro made a pretty interesting read.