The Leavers

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.

4.5 stars. I picked this book randomly for Book of the Month in May, and I'm so glad I did. This book will break your hear about a thousand times, but in the best possible way. The narration switching moved the story along and I felt anxious about what was going to happen next. I also hope you'll find the ending as satisfying as I did.

tw: racism, deportation, graphic mentions of animal slaughter, vomit, microaggressions, the mention of the r-word.

i loved this book so much. I adored the writing and getting to see the world through the eyes of Deming. Deming wasn't a perfect character he's far from it. His life was a whole theme park of roller coasters. His mom disappears one day with no warning nothing but his memories of her. He ends up resenting her as his life moves forward without her as he's adopted by a white couple. This books follows him and his mom throughout the span of 20 ish year in an nonlinear timeline.

I loved that this was a character study of two shitty and morally gray characters. Deming and Polly are both lowkey selfish and they don't change much by the end of the story. I actually like that this left off with a kind of open ending with enough of a happy-ish ending. This was just all around a great book and wow i'm so glad that i was right in my high rating predictions. I cant wait to read whatever else Lisa Ko releases.