Thank you Net Galley for my review copy of this book. Deming is a young boy of 11 when his mother Polly an undocumented Chinese immigrant never comes home from work one day. Polly’s boyfriend and his sister keep him for a short time but are not able to care for him after it becomes clear Polly is not coming back. Deming is adopted by 2 college professors who change his name to Daniel and give him a life he should be grateful for. Yet Daniel struggles to accept this new reality and finds it hard to be someone he is not.

Told in sections from the point of view of both Daniel and Polly the story slowly unfolds with so much power and emotion. This story is one of hardship and heartbreak as well as triumph and love. The characters are so well developed and the storyline is utterly compelling. This book covers so many important topics that are heartbreaking and so hard to believe but they are real. A fantastic debut that everyone needs to read!

I was pleasantly surprised by the relevancy and depth in this novel. Deming (Daniel) and Polly were dynamic and engaging characters, although I felt a great deal of frustration with him from time to time. This novel touches on several important topics regarding immigration, heritage, and the importance of being ourselves rather than forced into perfect little boxes.

I did not finish this book. I got several chapters in and felt like I couldn't connect with the story or the character. I don't want to say that this is the explicit fault of the book or the writing--it could very well be my state of mind at the time of reading--but still, the fact remains that it didn't grab me, and I do not see myself finishing this book.

I honestly could tell by the writing of the first 2 chapters that it wouldn't be a good fit for our box and had to put it down. I may read it again in the future!

This isn't my usual type of book to read but I am glad I took the time. Deming is a touching character that makes you take a hard look at the people around you and what hardships they might be going through. Everyone has a story to tell and every life can be made or broken by the choices we make every day.
This was read as an ARC through netgalley.com.

One morning Deming's mother just leaves. No note, no reason, no contact. Over the course of 20 years, we learn the whole story.

This is a touching, maddening story of love and loss that leads from NY to China. Deming (Daniel) is sometimes an annoying character, drifting through life when he should be taking the advice of everyone around him. But at the heart of his unproductive life is the loss of his mother and his heritage. The story unfolds in several voices and in flashbacks and by the end, the reader is satisfied.

Not the best book I've read this year, but a touching story worth reading nonetheless.

Thought provoking storyline! I am ashamed to say as a US citizen, I have never thought about the children of illegal immigrants and what happens to them if their parents are deported!

Sometimes the things we do to save the world can actually destroy it. Deming, born in America to an undocumented Chinese woman knows only poverty, but love from his mother and makeshift family of roomates. But when he turns 11, his mother disappears, as does all his world. A couple receive him with wide open arms, well meaning but not well versed in adopting a racially different preteen. Deming becomes Daniel Wilkenson and he lands between two worlds. Lisa Ko brings up delicate yet relevant issues such as immigration, racial prejudices, adoption, and those lost souls who just don't know what they want. Her artful work inspires us all to reflect on how our expectations impact the lives of others.

Really riveting and unputdownable. I read this in one sitting and I loved it!

Really enjoyed this story of an immigrant mother and her son and the trials that separate them. Gritty without being over-dramatic. Good story of relationships in the context of a world I knew almost nothing about - Chinese immigrants in NYC.

Deming Guo/Daniel Wilkinson has never had much stability in his life. He was born in New York to an undocumented Chinese immigrant, but was sent to live with family in China when he was only one year old. He was sent back to New York to live with his mother when he turned six. Five years later, his mother disappears without a trace. Peilan/Polly Guo left for work one morning and never returned. At the age of eleven, the people he thought were his family place him in the foster care system. He's adopted by a white family in a suburban community. 

Deming's feelings towards his adoptive parents are complicated. He desperately wants their approval, but he's never sure what they want from him. They mean well and give him a comfortable life, but they’re out of touch. They insist on complete assimilation, even going as far as changing his name to Daniel. Occasionally they try to incorporate their own conception of Chinese culture into his life, but they don't ask for his input and there's no consideration of how varied cultures can be in such a large country. They aren't sensitive to his unique circumstances and develop a "colorblind" approach to parenting him.When he overhears a racist comment, his adoptive mother panics and insists that he misheard. She often seems to view life in China as inferior to life in the United States. She doesn't realize her view of China may be biased, that her life isn't the only type of life worth living, or even that her suburban community insulates her from some of the United States's own problems.

With all that he's been through in his twenty-one years, it's no surprise that Deming/Daniel struggles with issues of identity and belonging. He blames himself for his mother’s disappearance. He feels unwanted and undeserving of love. A fear of letting people down forces him to keep people at an arm's length. When he's uprooted from Chinatown and placed in the predominately white and middle-class Ridgeborough, NY, he has to learn to navigate a completely different culture. He endures a constant onslaught of thoughtless comments and is exhausted by being both invisible and conspicuous at the same time. All throughout the book, he's forced to compartmentalize his feelings and be careful about what he reveals to each person in his life. He can't even completely relax with his closest friends: "Be careful. They're not on your side. It's important to be strong." He tries so hard to fit in, to the point of losing himself altogether: "Daniel was malleable, everyone and no one, a collector of moods, a careful observer of the right thing to say.” The issues that Deming struggles with from having few family connections and a complicated parent really resonated with me. One of the most heartbreaking moments was when he felt embarrassment at referring to his mother as "Mama," because "it felt like he was claiming something that didn’t belong to him."

I was really interested in Daniel's perspective on life, but his chapters felt uneven. He had so much going on in his life, and his musical obsession and gambling problem were a little boring for me. Peilan's chapters took the book to the next level. Peilan has never been content to stand still and lives for the excitement of new beginnings. She writes about growing up in China, the series of events that brought her to the United States, and the struggles of starting over in a place far away from everything she'd ever known. She immigrated to the United States in hopes of a better life and financial success, but moving up the economic ladder is almost impossible between low-wage jobs, unexpected expenses, and mounting debt. Despite the new location, she finds herself encountering similar roadblocks as she did in China. She manages to build her own little family in the New York, but she feels isolated when her son speaks in rapid English that she can't understand or she hears her boyfriend exchanging family stories with his sister. She also feels suffocated by motherhood and the heavy responsibility of guiding her son in the right direction.

When Deming remembers his short relationship with his mother, he remembers being "enough" and not having to try so hard to be accepted. Despite spending only five years together, there are many parallels to how Deming and Peilan experience the world. They find comfort in disorder, knowing "that nothing stayed the same for too long, that each day was a new opportunity for reinvention." They both experience synesthesia. They imagine other versions of themselves leading different lives. They both feel their pasts and everyone who has touched their lives as a physical weight. Getting to know Deming and Peilan as individuals shows how family bonds go much deeper than the biological.

There's also the recurring theme of a parent's expectations conflicting with their child's needs and desires. There are both parents who see their child's successes and deficiencies as a reflection of themselves and those who don't expect anything from their children at all. In addition to the forced assimilation, Daniel's parents dissuade him from being a musician. They want him to follow in their footsteps. Both his biological and adoptive mothers had parents who expected little of them because of their gender. They were both were determined to shatter those low expectations, but it was still a source of resentment. Will Daniel ever grow comfortable in his own skin and learn to live for himself?

Did Peilan leave Deming by choice or was she taken from him by force? The Leavers is a thought-proving story about belonging, identity, and what it means to be a family. These flawed characters make awful choices and even made me angry sometimes, but I could understand how they evolved into the people they were and how they were able to rationalize their choices. The characters fool themselves to protect a life they've grown accustomed to, but they can never completely escape what they're running from, regardless of the distance they put between themselves and their problems.

The author Lisa Ko was inspired by a real-life story. Spoiler Alert: There are some parallels, so don't read if you haven't read the book!

Fascinating and well written on a subject not usually addressed in the immigrant discussion. You will never look at a nail salon the same way again.

Different voices give the reader insight into the character's psyches. Heartbreaking portrayal of how every decision and assumption impacts one's life path and the dirty truth of the immigration experience.

A touching story of acceptance and forgiveness as mother and son struggle themselves as well as each other.

This was an interesting take on the immigrant experience, but ultimately I found it quite hard to connect with the key characters, and the structure became a bit confusing at times. But there were elements i did enjoy.

I read this book in two days and wasn't ready for it to end, yet couldn't bear to put it down. Lisa Ko tackles so many subjects that resonated with me: parenting, immigration, identity, and the changes in China over the last couple decades. I can't wait for more from Lisa Ko!

This is a sad, compelling read. While Ko's writing isn't as interesting as are her themes, we become involved with her characters and their very timely plights.

The Leavers by Lisa Ko is a beautiful, well-written immigrant story. The story begins with Deming and his mother Polly their little apartment in the Bronx. The first chapter ends with Deming’s mother leaving him. This is shapes the character of the boy who is constantly afraid of abandonment. The story is narrated through a dual narrative by Polly and Deming. Polly’s narrations were more moving perhaps because they were in first person unlike Deming’s. I found myself looking forward to her sections and especially to her narrations of life before the US.

Despite enjoying the writing and the story, I didn’t like this book as much as I thought I would. I couldn’t connect with Deming or Polly. I enjoyed Polly’s narrations at least however, nothing worked for me as far as Deming was concerned. I didn’t understand him and most of his actions. I felt detached to the characters and this affected my reading experience.

This is a sad story especially in its portrayal of the broken mother-son relationship. There are a number of heavy themes that are covered in the story such as cultural identity crisis. I like how the author tackled this issue showing how Deming struggled with identifying as Chinese and American. The portrayal of his struggles with fitting in with his new adoptive family was well done. I think the author also tackled the issue of immigration in detail which was great for readers like me who haven’t read a lot of books about the theme. In the end, I am torn about this book. There is so much to like about it but at the same time, I did struggle with a few of its aspects in relation to characterization of the MCs.

Thank you Netgalley for this ARC of The Leavers.

Young Deming wakes up one morning to find that his mother has disappeared without word or warning. Being left without a strong family network, he finds himself quickly swept up in the foster system, and then adopted into a home, where his name is changed to Daniel, and English his his primary language. As a child he grows up confused and resentful at having been abandoned by his mother. But as he grows, he learns that the truth was much more complicated than it once seemed.

This was very interesting and informative. It's also the second book I've read recently that addresses what it must be like to be adopted into a family that doesn't share the same ethnicity as you (The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane). However, the big difference between the two was how uninterested Deming's family was in keeping him connected to his heritage and language. (Nancy, if you're reading this, note the text-to-text connection :) Either way, I appreciated the candidness and nuances in both of their experiences, as well as their journeys in finding the truth about their parents.