1. How would you describe the humans presented in Ishiguro’s vision of the future. What are their mannerisms like? Their ambitions? Their ethical code? What about the Artificial Friends?

2. Does the term “Artificial Friend” resonate at all with you now, as a reader in the age of social media and the internet? What’s the difference in the level of interaction between children and their “artificial” versus their real/human friends?

3. Klara is prized for her observational qualities as an Artificial Friend. How do the tone and style of her first-person narration help to convey the degree of her attention to detail?

4. Klara assesses “loneliness” as a danger that humans fear and wish to escape (potentially through inventions such as Artificial Friends). To what extent do you think this assessment is correct for humans, both in the story and in our world today?

5. What was your opinion on the plan to turn Klara into an avatar of Josie? What would have been the point of Josie being able to “live” on in another form?

6. Klara and Paul share a moment of concern and consideration regarding her ability to learn Josie’s heart, which he describes as: “Rooms within rooms within rooms.... No matter how long you wandered through those rooms, wouldn’t there always be others you’d not yet entered?” (216). What do you make of Klara’s response about the finitude of such metaphorical rooms? Which of the two do you agree with?

7. What do you think the Sun represents in the novel? How does Klara’s belief in the Sun’s power affect her outlook and her actions? What does this belief suggest about the technology of Artificial Friends?

8. What are your opinions on the process of “lifting” children. What are the main differences between children who are “lifted” and those who are not?

9. In the novel, some workers have been “substituted” by machines who do their labor. This includes Josie’s father Paul who thinks “the substitutions were the best thing that happened to me [… They] made me take a completely fresh look at the world, and I really believe they helped me to distinguish what’s important from what isn’t. And where I live now, there are many fine people who feel exactly the same way. They all came down the same road, some with careers far grander than mine.” A little later it is suggested that Paul’s new community is characterized by fascism, gang violence, and racial division. How do you think this happened? What is Ishiguro trying to say in this part of the story?

10. Not much is explicitly described about the world in Ishiguro’s future. Apart from some signs of social stratification, inequality, unemployment, and vague fascism, what other hints were given in the book about the state of the world?

11. How would you describe the relationship between Klara and Josie? Would you describe it as love?

12. What did you think of the place where Klara is sent after Josie is finished with her? How did the ending make you feel?

13. META: What do you think “Klara and the Sun” is about?