The Leavers: A Novel

WHAT. A. JOURNEY.

Oh my goodness, I LOVED this book! Not every single SECOND, because many parts are so uncomfortable, so hard, so akin to real life — incredibly difficult to stare in the face.

When Deming Guo’s mother goes to work one day and never returns, a chain of events leads to his being adopted by a white couple. They change his name to Daniel Wilkinson and move him from New York City to a small, predominantly white town.

Deming’s life is forever changed by his mother’s abrupt departure from his life. It affects his self-worth, identity and ability to move on with his life. THE LEAVERS follows his and his mother’s lives before and after the traumatic event.

I LOVED the writing in this book. Ko wields words like no other. Her sentences are absolutely breathtaking. Yet, Deming Guo is an unbelievably frustrating character for the first fifty percent, so please be patient with him. I found myself being alternately infuriated at and sorry for his adoptive parents, his mother and Deming himself.

This novel breaks you apart and puts you back together. An excellent coming of age story which deftly examines identity, immigration and transracial adoption. BEAUTIFUL. Highly recommended!

A moving and powerful tale about taking risks and the struggles and heartaches endured for a chance at a better life.

Interesting read but not captivating. I was waiting to really like a character. I was waiting for something to make me really connect with one person in the story. I was indifferent to the characters and the entire story until the end.

This is a very moving and relevant look at a hidden side of immigration in the United States. Ko draws readers' attention to a problem that many people are not likely to know much about. However, it felt to me that she forced the adoptive parents in her book to play the role of villain, rather than fleshing them out as realistic individuals. They read to me as stereotypical caricatures of academics, and the story left me feeling that the author harbours a negative view of adoption. I felt like it was far too easy for the main character to forgive his birth mother, and that he seemed to easily forget his adopted parents. This didn't seem realistic, as if his choices were just a way to advance the political narrative rather than an actual reflection of how torn someone would be if their birth parent inexplicably disappeared from their life and then came back again.

A very moving story of an illegal immigrant (Chinese) mother an the son born to her in the U.S. The reader gets the back story of how the mother, Polly, came to arrive in NYC and work at a nail salon. Polly and her son (Deming) lived with Polly's boyfriend, his sister and her son. As is usually the case with immigrant families, they are very tight knit. But then one day Polly goes to work and never comes home. Deming is eventually turned over to social services an adopted by a couple of college professors who live in rural NY. Throughout the book, the voices of Polly and Deming are alternated and we learn of what transpires in the ensuing 10 or so years. Deming did not know what happened to his mother and was scarred from her disappearance and his adoption by a Caucasian couple. It's a wonderful story of his coming of age and finding his mother and himself. Heartbreaking, sad, funny, I felt many emotions reading it but it was quite unlike anything I have ever read before and I highly recommend it.

Part 1: Deming is a Chinese-American boy in NYC whose mother is an undocumented immigrant. One morning she disappears. Deming is adopted by well-meaning white professors and moves to a college town outside of the city. Part 2: Bit by bit we find out what happened to his mom. Two more parts follow. Can Deming figure out where and with whom he fits in this world?

A chinese-American boy's mother is deported. He is fostered by an American professional couple. The story is told through his eyes as well as his mother's. While fiction, the author based it on articles she had read of children being taken from their illegal parents. This was enlightening and certainly gives you a different perspective of transcultural adoption and of children of illegal parents in this country. It was very well written.

Lisa Ko's 2016 PEN/ Bellwether Prize winning novel centers around two narrators, Polly who puts herself in debt for 50,000 dollars to immigrate to the US, and her son, Deming who at first is sent back to China to stay with his grandfather while his mother makes some money and then is returned to live with her at age five in NYC. For five years we read of their existence, living with her boyfriend Leon and his sister Vivian and her son Michael. They scrape by, trying to live a semblance of the American dream until one day his mom disappears. The novel then alternates narration as the two tell of the ensuing years and struggles. For Deming, who is eventually adopted by wealthy white parents, his name is changed to Danial, he feels unmoored and isolated in school until he meets a friend, Roland, whose similar love of music bonds them." the real him remained stubbornly out there like a fat cruise ship on the horizon, visible but out of reach, and whenever he got closer it drifted farther away". He is forever a bit angry that his mom left him and it is the mystery of her disappearance that propels the action of the novel. Ko relates in an interview that she first got the idea for the novel from an article she read about a woman held in a detention center whose American son gets adopted by white parents. "Nearly a quarter of those deported are parents of U.S.-born children who remain in the country, so you have all these families that have been permanently fractured."Highly recommend this novel and look forward to her future work.Lines:Deming and his mother loved everything bagels, the sheer balls of it, the New York audacity that a bagel could proclaim to be everything, even if it was only topped with sesame seeds and poppy seeds and salt.His mother could curse, but the one time he’d let motherfucker bounce out in front of her, loving the way the syllables got meatbally in his mouth, she had slapped his arm and said he was better than that.You had to hunt for her beauty, might not even catch it at first. There was a sweetness to her mouth, her lips lightly upturned, lending her a look of faint amusement, and her eyebrows arched so her eyes appeared lively, approaching delighted.Music was a language of its own, and soon it would become his third language, a half-diminished seventh to a major seventh to a minor seventh as pinchy-sweet as flipping between Chinese tones. American English was loose major fifths; Fuzhounese angled sevenths and ninths.Four shots and Leon was reshaped into the man he had been when I first met him, a prize I had wanted to win, whose attention was sudden, precarious, instead of this man whose aging sometimes took me by surprise, like when he was putting money on his card at the subway station and I noticed how his body was stiffer, his neck thinner, the skin around his throat loosening.

One of the most powerful and informative sub-genres of fiction is one that focuses on the stories of immigrants to a new country. What and why are they leaving? What are they looking for? Why are they willing to take risks and what are the outcomes? "The Leavers" by Lisa Ko is perhaps the most moving and effective novels on immigration, present-day immigration into the US. Polly Guo emigrates from China to New York, eventually bringing her son Deming with her. When she literally disappears, Deming is taken from his familiar Bronx neighborhood and adopted by a couple in upstate New York. Deming has no explanation for his mother's absence and has to not only navigate his new all-white middle-class world, but figure out where he fits in. When at 21 he decides to search for his mother, the narrative shifts to Polly and we learn about the complicated and sometimes soul-crushing background to immigration from China. All of the questions I posed at the start of this review are answered. Ko skillfully provides a voice to both Deming and Polly and provides us with a novel that leaves us deeply moved and so much more aware of what might lie behind the surface when we are aware of individuals who have recently immigrated. . I believe this novel, though being nominated for the National Book Award and winning the PEN / Bellwether Award has not received the widespread readership it deserves.

I decided to read this book because it had been a National Book Award Finalist, though I am beginning to be disappointed with these books lately. The book was educational for me because it dealt on a human level with the issue of immigration, cross culture adoption and the impact on all of those caught up in the complexities. The main story is about Polly and her son Deming. Polly is an illegal immigrant from China who ends up in New York City, like many illegal immigrants just melting into the system of low wage work and a poverty existence. The book gets into the details of her life, but the ultimate story surrounds her disappearance when her son is 11 and his subsequent adoption by a white couple from upstate New York. The book does a good job getting into Demings head(name changed to Daniel) as he has to come to grips with his dual life of his past and present. The book deals with many issues but at the heart is the problem of immigration and racial stereotypes on all sides. This was first novel and the writing was okay and I agree with other reviewers that it was a little stuffed with information that didn't help the story. All in all it was a worthwhile read.

I may bump this up to 5 stars, depending on how it sits with me over time. I think this is an important book for us now as Americans - if reading fiction is supposed to make us more empathetic, as the studies say it does, then this book needs to reach people who don't see or understand the urgent need for compassion for undocumented persons. This is a very humanizing story, and it doesn't seek to depict pristine martyrs. Ko created characters that are people, not symbols. They aren't perfectly good or perfectly bad - they are three dimensional, and that makes it easier to see ourselves in them.

As an adopted person, this book probably held some special interest for me, even though the circumstances of my adoption could not be more different than Deming's. Adoption is not a topic that I often see depicted in adult literature, and it was interesting to see it explored in this context.

This is one of those stories where your opinion of the characters fluctuates based on their actions and what they reveal during the novel. There were times when I thought a character couldn't change or defend their behavior, but surprised me. Like many people, you don't know what they've been through or what their present circumstance might be. Although a slow start and certainly some parts I enjoyed more than others, I liked it. It helped that I was reading it at the same time as my friend, Jim. Reading is more fun with a friend ;)

This is a book of bad decisions and unrealistic expectations. The novel centers a Chinese mother and son. She comes to the United Stated illegally and tries to fashion a here. There is a big build up till mother and son are separated. The other theme is about when the son (now older) goes on a quest to find his mother and find out why his mother abandoned him. This issue seems to force him into making into really poor decisions and leave him goalless life (except finding mom) The book is well written and deserves all the plaudits it has received, Read the book. Don's listen to it on CD as the narrator is a drama queen.

Anytime a book makes me gasp out loud as a major revelation becomes clear, I know it's a good one. This novel was beautifully written, often heartbreaking, and so very honest in its depiction of difficult relationships. The Leavers is a standout from start to finish.

I thought I would like this book a lot more than I did. After all it won 2016 PEN/Bellwether Prize for fiction. A lot of the reviews I read said it depicted life for immigrants fairly well. If so, I am a fortunate person. But I didn't like the characters that well. They were so unlikable. It took me a week and a half to read because I wasn't compelled to keep picking the book back up.

Really wanted to love this novel, waited a long time to get a copy from my library, however I struggled to stick with it. The writing is okay -a bit more editing could have improved the flow. My main complaint is that it felt like the author did research, made a list of all the issues that could strike a young girl in rural China, a young boy being raised by a grandparent in China then being reunited with his mother, the fears and struggles of new immigrants, the reality of many female single immigrants, the insecurity of new adoptive parents, the insecurity of an adopted older child, the identity issues that may be caused by cross ethnic adoption, the search to find ones identity and purpose in life etc, and wrote her story to include them all.
Many issues were familiar from other sources - exploitation of new immigrants by nail salon owners (including the hierarchy of tasks - who does the lowly waxing vs. easy manicure etc) - NY Times articles. the horror of children being separated from their parents due to deportation - 60 Minutes, the horrid conditions of the detention "jails" - several magazines - you get the picture - it's all here, and I mean all!

What happens when children move to cities or other countries and send home money to poor rural towns- it's here! Chinese people having gambling issues (stereotypes much?) - it's here! Professors being clueless about pop-culture - yup! Immigrants owing huge amounts to loan sharks who fund their voyage to a new country -ditto!

I wish the author had narrowed her focus, and given us more likable characters - at least one or two! I did not find any characters sympathetic - and that is a problem when so many other issues vex the novel.

If you know nothing about immigrant struggles, how the laws can affect them, why people would leave their homes to seek a better life, you can learn from this novel, or you can watch a few episodes of 60 Minutes, a couple of documentaries, a newspaper to two - same difference.

The story of Deming and his mother. The story is told from both points of view, past and present, alone then together.I did not care for any of the characters. Deming as a child is great but as an adult, as Daniel, he is a jerk. His adoptive parents are also jerks. I felt bad for Polly, his mother, but she did not have her act together either. Had I not read this for book club I would probably never picked it up. The story was interesting enough but I never developed any empathy for the characters.

The Leavers is a coming of age novel that addresses issues of undocumented workers, motherhood, and adoption. The mother/son are the main characters in the novel. This book addresses the current issue of undocumented workers and exposes the system as heartless and using unacceptable cruel treatment of undocumented workers who come into the US. Because the mother is pregnant when she comes to the US and is unable to abort because she is too far along, the son is a US citizen. When the mother is taken in an ICE raid and unable to contact anyone, no one know where she is and she is eventually sent back to China and the boy is adopted as an older child to a Caucasian family in an area where there are no Chinese. Another issue addressed; adoption, cross cultural adoption. For educated people these parents don't seem to be very wise in their parenting but that happens. Eventually the son and mother find each other and both are still trying to find themselves. Both are complex characters. The book is a debut novel and felt a bit bumpy and my edition had quite a few errors that should have been caught by the editor. Issues addressed; undocumented workers, children of undocumented workers, human rights, motherhood, parenting, adoption, making children be something they are not, addictions, and PTSD. Perhaps there were too many issues.

The Leavers, The Leavers, Lisa Ko, author, Emily Woo Zeller, narratorThere are many reasons why this book received so many accolades, the foremost, I believe, is because it is about current political issues. It attempts to present the plight of the immigrant, emphasis not on immigrant, or illegal immigrant, but rather on undocumented workers. I believe that the author was actually sympathetic to the “undocumented worker ignoring the illegal status. If you are progressive in your beliefs, and you believe in open borders, this book is for you. If not, it may be very disturbing for other reasons. Each of the characters seemed to blame others for their missteps. Each ignored the fact that their troubles, although real and devastating, were caused by their own choices, choices to disobey the laws of the United States. Each seemed to believe that he/she had the right to break the law.Gou Peilin was a willful and stubborn young teenager from Fuzhou, China. She did as she pleased, defying rules and regulations. Girls were not permitted to do many of the things that boys were, and she bristled and did them anyway. She rarely thought of the consequences of her actions. She went to Beijing to work in a factory and took up with her former boyfriend, Haifeng. She was unworldly and naïve. When she found herself pregnant, she decided she did not want to tell him, although he truly wanted to marry her. Desperate for freedom and a different life, she tried to abort the baby and never informed him that she was pregnant. In China, however, she encountered a bureaucracy she could not navigate, and so she could not end her pregnancy in a timely fashion. In desperation, she borrowed money from loan sharks and obtained false papers, bought passage to America and began what she hoped would be a new life. Her debts were enormous, in the end, upwards of $50,000 that had to be repaid. Still, she was exhilarated when she arrived in America, and she gave little thought to motherhood or her future. She was painfully naïve and unaware of the fact that at seven months along, she could not abort the child, even in the United States where abortions were more accessible. She was soon to be a working, single mother, and her life was about to become even more difficult.Her situation grew dire as she struggled to work and raise her son in New York City. However, one day, she met Leon and they fell in love. She moved in with him, to his apartment in the Bronx, and he cared for her and her son, Deming, now a toddler. Leon’s sister Vivian had been abandoned, and she also lived there with her son Michael. Peilin, worked as a nail technician, but as time passed, now known as Polly, Peilin had dreams of a better life. Leon, however, was not legal either, and he was content to stay where he was. He would not abandon his sister, and she also refused to move. When ICE raided the nail salon where Polly worked, she was rounded up and sent to a place called Ardsleyville, in Texas. It was a detention camp, based on the Willacy (County), detention camp in Texas. She was quickly lost in a system that was overwhelmed with illegals. No one could find her or help her. The telephone there did not work. When she was permitted one call, she did not accurately recall any phone number, so she could not reach out for help. For more than a year, she lived in terrible conditions, even solitary confinement. Although her own actions had caused her plight, she was angry with everyone else, and the horrific conditions she was forced to endure, changed her forever. Deming, her son, was lost to her when he was adopted by a white couple, both academics, and brought up as an American, losing much of his Chinese heritage. His name was changed from Deming Guo to Daniel Wilkinson. His new parents, Kay and Peter, had their own ideas about what his future should be, but it did not match his own ideas, which, if truth be told, were all over the place. Still, his birth mom encouraged his music, and they discouraged it. His mom allowed him more freedom and they made more rules. Soon, he felt he did not fit in anywhere, not in the white world or the Chinese world, not in the United States or in China. He seemed destined to failure, as he, like his birth mother, made one foolish choice after another. Although his parents wanted a more traditional life for him, with a college degree and a stable future, he chose to drink too much, became addicted to gambling and had dreams of being a famous guitarist. He was talented, but seemed to always set himself up for failure by never adequately preparing for the task before him. The fact that he was adopted into a different racial family seemed to weigh heavily upon him, and he didnot feel comfortable in most situations. He was also adopted as a boy of 12, so although grateful for his life and his new family, which was far different from the life of poverty he lived with his mother, both lifestyles offered different advantages to him, which he struggled to understand and appreciate.As the decades passed, the reader was given a window into the world of the undocumented immigrant/illegal alien’s struggles in the United States. However, as they rail against the injustices that they must endure, they seem to fail to recognize their own complicity in the shaping of the situation.I did not find myself liking the characters or their behavior. I found them self-serving and irresponsible. They made a choice to enter a country illegally and were upset when they were arrested for doing so. They contrived all sorts of ways to try and become legal, with false papers, through marriage, etc., once in the states, but often were unsuccessful. The illegality of their behavior seemed inconsequential. They came for the opportunity America offered, although in China they did not suffer terribly from deprivation. The problem was that there were few opportunities to leave the peasant class, in China, and that seemed to be the driving force behind Peilan’s often erratic behavior and dreams. She wanted to succeed, to get ahead, to accomplish something more. I thought the book was too long. The timeline was often confusing, and the subject matter jumped from topic to topic, sometimes without fully exploring and developing the one before beginning another. When the book ended, I was surprised, since there were still many loose ends that were not tied up. Did Deming, now Daniel, ever find or meet his real biological father? Did his biological father, Haifeng, ever discover that Deming was his son? What happened to Yong, Polly’s husband, after she went to Hong Kong? Would she ever get to America to see Deming again? Which life did Daniel wind up identifying with, his Chinese or his American? Was the author for or against interracial adoption, for or against illegal immigration? Did Deming/Daniel or Peilin/Polly ever find out what they truly wanted, who they really wanted to be? Did they find what they were searching for? Did Daniel feel out of place because he was adopted into a white family? Could that white family truly understand what he needed as a young Chinese boy? Children who were adopted as infants seemed to fare better in the story. Was that a fact? Although the characters seem to take great risks, they seemed ignorant of the rules and completely naïve about the chances they were taking.The struggles Deming felt about his parents and his responsibility toward each was troubling for him. To whom did he owe the most allegiance? Who was his true mother? Was it the mother who wanted him desperately and chose a grown boy to raise, or the mother who had never wanted to be a mother in the first place, who had been unable to find him and who stopped searching for him, eventually pretending he no longer existed?The immigrant plight seemed to be conflated by the author with the illegal immigrant plight, and the issues were not clearly defined or developed. The characters were surprised when their foolish decisions had unpleasant consequences. It was as if they decided they could make their own rules and the laws of the country were immaterial. Should the laws of a country be defied or ignored? None of the questions I raised were ever answered. In the end, there was one conclusion that stood out for me. Somewhere, someone in the book said, Americans were not all white. The converse is that in China, the Chinese are all Chinese. The book may actually have pointed out an interesting idea that is often not discussed. It is hard to assimilate; it is hard to overcome the stares and the inherent bias and confusion of people who see things they do not understand. We tend to oversimplify our problems in America with a one-size fits all solution.

The Leavers by Lisa Ko is about a mother and her son and what brings them together and tears them apart.When Deming Guo was 11, his Chinese immigrant mother, left for work at a nail salon and never returned home. In alternating narratives, this heart-wrenching literary novel tells both sides of their stories.This novel is also about immigration, belonging in a foreign place, figuring out who you are and who you want to be and what it means to have a family.After his mother’s disappearance, Deming Guo is adopted by a white family, Peter and Kay Wilkerson, and given the new identity of Daniel Wilkerson. Daniel struggles with the loss of his mother and the other people he considered his family. He had lost so much and he was lost himself and could never bring himself to fully accept the love his adoptive parents tried to give him. He kept everyone at arm’s length because he was scared they would disappear. He felt like a stranger and was always fearful and on edge, never feeling like he belonged anywhere.Daniel really struggles with himself. He goes to school for a while and quits, goes back, quits again. He joins a band and quits. He drifts around from place to place torn between his two identities (Daniel and Deming), never knowing who he really is or who he should be.Later in the book we learn what happened to his mother. Will he be able to forgive her for abandoning him? My book club didn’t care for this book. It has won a lot of literary awards, but I also felt like it just wasn’t as good as it could have been. Still, it provides a heart-breaking look into the world of immigrants and the battles they must face.Advertisements

I absolutely loved this book! Being a person who was adopted and who have moved to another country, a lot of this book really resonated with me. I enjoyed reading along as he tried to find himself, in a blend between his past and present, and as he tried to understand the mystery of his mother. Ko has really given us a story packed with detail, history and personality. Amongst all of the story, we find ourselves swimming in a sea of identity, in a world where borders seem to determine too much about who you are and who you become. I found Lisa’s details very apt and this made the story one that I thoroughly enjoyed. From start to finish, I was really put in awe by the way Ko was able to give the characters life and a true thought-provoking ability to reach me. I felt connected and really a part of this book, and did not want to put it down. Overall, this is a very good read and one I highly recommend! In a world like today’s, I honestly feel this should be suggested reading for schools, and one many reading lists for adults, and it really describes the life that a lot of people have to find their way through. Excellent book!

This story is so relevant for today. If you have no future in your native land, and come to the US illegally, you end up living a shadow life. You can’t expect to have much of a future. When Polly leaves China for what she hopes will be a better life in New York City for her and her unborn son, she finds it’s a heck of a hard climb to survive. When she is caught by INS she is sent back to China, and her son eventually ends up being adopted. What happens to the two of them creates a drama that many people are facing.

When he is 11 years old, Deming's mother goes to work one day, and never returns. Deming is soon put into foster care and then adopted. We meet Deming again 10 years later, and struggling with an identity crisis. Does he want to try to be the academic his academic adoptive parents want him to be, or does he want to follow his own love of music and try to make it as a musician? Ko is more than a little heavy-handed in making the reader understand that this is something of a stand-in for his mixed feelings about being an American-born Chinese who spent half of his life in a lily-white upstate New York college town.This character-driven story will appeal both to readers who enjoy books about immigrants, as well as those about characters searching for their own personal identity. Told through the point of view of Deming (in the third person) and his mother (in the first person), the full story of what happened to Deming's mother, both how she came to America and what happened the day she disappeared, is gradually revealed. This is a grim, but ultimately hopeful and redemptive novel that lays out the difficulties of immigration and assimilation without being overly preachy.

Deming is twelve when his mother disappears. He'd been secure and happy, although he knew his mother, an undocumented immigrant had her worries and money was always tight. But in his neighborhood everyone was poor and from someplace else and he had a best friend and a mother whom he adored. Her disappearance and his subsequent adoption by a pair of white university professors is traumatic, even as he tries to fulfill his new role as Daniel Wilkinson. There's a lot going on in Lisa Ko's debut novel, which addresses immigration, integration, adoption, cultural dislocation and growing up as a permanent outsider. At it's heart, though, it's a story about a mother and a son and their love for each other. It's a lovely novel, well-told, that fully deserves all the attention and awards its receiving.

A timely read about a mother and son separated by the immigration process. Deming Guo was a confused child when his mother didn't return from work one day and he shortly afterwards found himself being adopted by an older couple. As the story unfolds, partly from the perspective of his mother - an illegal Chinese immigrant - and partly the story of Deming seeking to find himself and learn his own history. Sometimes frustrating to read, but also incredibly touching. I'd recommend this to anyone seeking to put a human face to immigration.

I enjoyed the vivid writing about not just the main characters Polly and Deming but those entrenched in their lives. The story itself about what could happen concerning illegal immigration and the impact it has on families was compelling. I am not a fan of films or books that jump back and forth between the past and present and I struggled with this in this book. Overall, I enjoyed this book

Deming's mother leaves for work one day and never comes home. When Chinese Deming is adopted by two white college professors, they change his name to Daniel and try and turn him into the son they have always wanted. The book then shifts to his mother Polly's point of view, outlining her childhood and how she came to America.I didn't think the back and forth between Daniel and Polly really worked. It may have been different if the author introduced Polly's pov earlier, or alternated in smaller chunks. Instead, it was jarring when Polly was introduced, and she seemed somewhat alien. Overall, not a bad book, just not one I would re-read.

The Leavers uses a need we all share -- the need to belong - to illuminate important issues like immigration and transracial adoption.The problems Deming experienced with his white adoptive parents really opened my eyes to the child's perspective within a transracial adoption. Frankly, I couldn't understand how such intelligent, educated people could be completely ignorant of healthy ways to raise a child of color. Yet I know this fictitious story was based on actual experiences. Not to mention the fact that they kept inflicting their choices and expectations on Deming, which is a parenting style I will never support. As soon as Deming mentioned how much he loved playing guitar and wanted a guitar of his own for his birthday, and his adoptive parents bought him a laptop instead, I was like, "Oh, they're that kind of people."The Leavers made me take a look back at the children of immigrants and adopted children of color I've known and wonder about their personal experiences. They seemed happy, but now I question whether that was true or just my assumption based on outward behaviors and appearances?4 stars

This is a complex novel about a young boy, born in the U.S. and sent back to his mother's village in China as a toddler to be raised by his grandfather. When his grandfather dies, 6-year-old Deming is taken back to the U.S. by a relative to live once again with his mother. At first confused and frightened, he develops a secure attachment to his mother and her boyfriend, as well as the boyfriend's sister and her son. Then, when Deming is just 11 years old, his mother disappears. A white family adopts Deming, changes his name, and does their best to love and provide for him. Now Daniel, the young man struggles with trust, identity, and his sense of place or purpose in the world. In some ways, he is a surly teenager with whom reading this novel required spending more time than I wanted. However, this is also a poignant and sophisticated treatment of issues of immigration, family attachment, and the devastating impact of adult decisions. It is also a book of hope.

I'll mention first that I have problems with finishing books I'm reading after I receive bad news (my dad was in the hospital) but I gave this one a chance. I'm a white girl living under a crap administration, so I have been meaning to read even MORE books from people of color and immigrant stories than usual. If anything, this book is important as an immigrant story. Otherwise, my mind was trying to figure out what this book was reminding me of (possibly I read too much). Most similar to my mind, and I'm cringing while typing this because I deplored it, was 'The Goldfinch' by Donna Tartt. Thankfully, the main character Deming was a little more tolerable than the other. Deming becomes an adopted orphan in America while both parents are still alive but missing. Deming spends most of his life until he is a young adult puzzling out what might have happened when his mother doesn't come home one day. 'The Goldfinch' and 'The Leavers' both hit on same themes: New York City, gambling, orphans, identity and belonging. Luckily no rambling drug fevers though. But I feel like this shouldn't have been Deming's story, it's his mother's story. His mother went through some things... she was able to make Deming's life easier. And I think when Deming eventually finds out his mother's story, he should have realized it could have been much worse (like the kid from Goldfinch could have had it much much worse). Overall, I'm surprised that this book has so many workshops mentioned in the acknowledgments...sadly, I don't really see the extra work in the writing or the story. The writing is too matter of fact for me with too many unnecessary details (I think I had this problem with The Goldfinch too.) There is nothing here other than the immigrant experience that made this story unique enough and that is definitely something The Goldfinch doesn't have. I'm still trying to think of what it reminds me of. I think The Goldfinch will forever ruin books like this for me (it also happened with 'The Rise and Fall of Great Powers' by Tom Rachman.) Deming still seemed lost in the end, though I did love his love of music. But maybe I've been reading too many weird and wacky books lately to appreciate something this straight forward. Deming should read Tomoyuki Hoshino's book 'Me' if he wants to read about an identity crisis! But if a book about an immigrant is out there and being read, it's a good thing.