Why did I love this book?
From the first page, The Leavers transported me to a hidden realm of New York City, where an undocumented nail salon worker struggles to provide for her son.
When this mother disappears, gritty realism combines with mystery and urgency, as well as a deepening sense of sympathy for every character’s fight to move forward and survive in a broken system.
Ko’s prose is electrifying.
3 authors picked The Leavers as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.
One morning, Deming Guo's mother, an undocumented Chinese immigrant named Polly, goes to her job at the nail salon and never comes home. No one can find any trace of her. With his mother gone, eleven-year-old Deming is left with no one to care for him. He is eventually adopted by two white college professors who move him from the Bronx to a small town upstate. They rename him Daniel Wilkinson in their efforts to make him over into their version of an "all-American boy." But far away from all he's ever known, Daniel struggles to reconcile his new life…