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3.94 AVERAGE
3.94 AVERAGE
Yay for learning about the miserable lives of undocumented immigrants.
Boo for the story being unrelentingly depressing. Ko could have added in more happy moments to contrast all the pain and make reading it feel like less of a slog.
Boo for the story being unrelentingly depressing. Ko could have added in more happy moments to contrast all the pain and make reading it feel like less of a slog.
A story about people bending to whims of others learning to trust themselves.. Interesting story and characters but I found the pacing so slow. I kinda hate when stories are told from multiple viewpoints and characters tell the same events from their side...I feel like there's better ways to handle that. I would not recommend the audiobook because of the slow pace of the story and also the sound mixing was not great. So many parts I could barely hear then my ear drums were being blasted.
challenging
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Definitely an interesting and timely read. It’s a slow book and I feel like the middle parts of Daniel’s story are a bit of a drag on the story, but it’s well written and well researched.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Abandonment, Deportation
It took me a while to get through this one. I felt the story was slow at many times. I had to restart it twice. when I finally got through it, felt it was just ok.
he Leavers by Lisa Ko tells the story of Deming Guo and his mother, Polly, who mysteriously disappears one morning and he is left wondering why she left him behind. While The Leavers focuses on one family, it is a universal tale of loss, misunderstanding and hasty decisions and it is also a timely story as it deals with the instability of being an illegal immigrant in the U.S.
Ko sets up the story of Deming and his mother, flashing back and forth in time and while all along you know that Polly leaves, you aren’t sure why. Ko is a skilled story teller as there were many times that my stomach dropped and my heart ached for Deming and Polly. I felt connected and invested in them and that makes for a wonderful novel.
I won’t give away the ending, but as you move through the novel, you come to suspect what happened and you hope that Deming and Polly will find their way both back to each other and toward happier lives.
https://whatwouldjoannaread.wordpress.com/2017/06/30/the-leavers/
challenging
emotional
hopeful
mysterious
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
disclaimer: I don’t really give starred reviews. I hope my reviews provide enough information to let you know if a book is for you or not. Find me here: https://linktr.ee/bookishmillennial
I loved Memory Piece by Lisa Ko, and I am so happy I found another book in her backlist, and this was a National Book Award finalist!
I loved Memory Piece by Lisa Ko, and I am so happy I found another book in her backlist, and this was a National Book Award finalist!
The Leavers was inspired by recent, real-life stories of undocumented immigrant women whose U.S.-born children were taken away from them and adopted by American families, while the women themselves were jailed or deported. It was this missionary-type attitude: We need to save these kids from their own culture and families. The kids are assimilable; the mothers are not. (Lisa Ko, from conversation with Barbara Kingsolver at the end)
I'm often bothered by this notion that literature shouldn't be political. How can you separate art from the world it's created in, and why would you want to? (Lisa Ko, from conversation with Barbara Kingsolver at the end)
This novel shares the perspectives of Deming Guo, later known as Daniel Wilkinson, and his undocumented immigrant mother Polly, before, during, and after she is taken by ICE and deported at her job at a nail salon. Deming was raised in his infant and toddler years by his grandpa in Minjiang, where Polly grew up due to childcare and living costs, but then reunited with his mother in New York City as a school-aged child. After Polly disappears and her roommate can no longer afford to care for Deming along with her own son Michael, Vivian drops Deming off with department of child and family services, essentially leaving Deming in foster care. He is quickly adopted though, by a white couple, Kay and Peter Wilkinson in Ridgeborough, who live 5 hours northwest of New York City, leaving behind the city life he was accustomed to, and yet another set of community members behind.
This may be one of my favorite reads this year, and Lisa Ko is quickly becoming a favorite author of mine. I appreciated the nuance she illustrated of both Polly and Deming's experiences, as both are valid and quite layered. Deming struggles with finding his true sense of self and respectively, figuring out where he belongs. You can easily grasp the emotional rollercoaster of anger, heartbreak, and confusion Deming feels, and it's devastating because you realize it is ultimately a blameless situation when it comes to the individuals in their lives.
As I reflect on their story, I don't blame any of them for the choices they made; I can't say I would've acted differently in their situations, and I have the privilege of not having to navigate that.
You know who is to blame though? The United States legislation and lack of community care. We do all that we can to fund and maintain capitalistic, white supremacist systems like ICE and the Department of Child and Family Services, rather than actually providing assistance and community care to keep families together. We predicate these corrupt and immoral actions on a colonialist framework of "borders," when this land was originally stolen from hundreds of indigenous tribes in the 1400s. Meanwhile, folks who adopt may be well-meaning, but a country, state, and county who is dedicated to reuniting families, should put more effort to do so.
We see the long-lasting harm that adoption has done to Deming, in his search for identity, belonging, and belief system, as he feels not only torn, but incredibly lonely in his experience. When he finally meets another Chinese kid in his small town with the Wilkinsons, he has hope to find a semblance of the community he once knew:
"I thought you were born in China, like me."
"I was born in Manhattan. I'm from here."
...Deming grasped for the lost Mandarin words and lunged. "Did you think it was forever when you came here?"
"She bunched up her face. "I don't know Chinese."
"Oh," he said, crushed. (86)
However, he was left wanting, as this was yet another Chinese baby who was adopted and then had their culture erased by the white family who adopted her.
I also appreciated how Lisa Ko highlights how this internalized racism can happen, even when you're raised by your biological parents and are immersed in your ethnic heritage. Deming tells his mom about a joke at school, naive to the overt racism that this seemingly tenuous joke implies, and ignorant of the way it paints Deming and people who look like him as "forever foreign," and simply reduced to the way they look.
"I have a new nickname at school," you said. "Number Two Special."
"What does that mean?" I felt self-conscious, like when I took you and Michael to that carnival and you made fun of me when I mistook the English word octopus, the name of a ride that spun you around in circles, for lion.
"It's a joke. You know, from a Chinese takeout menu? That's how they order the dishes. Number one special, number two special. Get it?"
..."You don't work in a takeout restaurant."
"Yeah, but I'm Chinese."
"You better tell them not to call you that."
"It's a joke, Mama." (199)
I urge everyone to read this, as unfortunately, it remains timely to 2025, the year I'm reading this in.
Quotations that stood out to me (marking as spoilers):
Years before these transplants dared to venture out of their suburban hometowns, Daniel had been a city kid who memorized the subway system by fourth grade. Yet he still didn't belong. (16)
He had never slept alone before, never had a room to himself, all this vat, empty space. (48)
"We love you, Daniel."
...His mother said she had wanted big things for herself, but then she had him. If he could love Peter and Kay, they could leave, too. (58)
"Where are you from?"
It didn't seem as annoying when it came from Roland. "The city. The Bronx." (62)
Adopt. There was a similar term in Chinese, yet Deming hadn't thought of his time with Peter and Kay to be anything but vaguely temporary. Even the name Daniele Wilkinson seemed like an outfit he would put on for an unspecified period of time, until he returned to his real name and home planet. Where that real home was, however, was no longer certain. (77)
This was what could happen in a city like this. A woman could come from nowhere and become a new person. A woman could be arranged like a bouquet of fake flowers, bent this way and that, scrutinized from a distance, rearranged. (119)
"Grandparents treat them better than they treated you. They know the babies are going to leave again. Old age softens people." (145)
"Better to be the one wo leaves than the one who's left behind." (181)
Leon was the one who left on purpose, not me. I didn't leave on purpose. I loved you more than anyone. You could call another lady "Mama," but I was your mama, not her. I knew I had forfeited the right to say that, but it was never going to change. (225)
Daniel read the messages, one by one, read them again. There were so many of them, and seeing them made him giddy with sadness. He hadn't been forgotten. (318)
He wasn't sure if she didn't understand Kay and Peter, or if she didn't have the English words to respond, or if she didn't know what to say, but he wanted her to say something, anything, for her to be as loud and demanding and opinionated as she usually was. He hated that he could see her the way Peter and Kay must be seeing her, a mute Chinese woman with a heavy accent. Their tense smiles were making him angry. (320)
It's a funny thing, forgiveness. You could spend years being angry with someone and then realize you no longer felt the same, that your usual mode of thinking had slipped away when you weren't noticing. (322)
Either way, it was incredible to decide something. He had never allowed himself to fully trust his choices before. (331)
If he couldn't feel at home in China, if he didn't belong in Ridgeborough, then where did that leave him? (333)
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Confinement, Racism, Xenophobia, Abandonment, Deportation
Minor: Drug use, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders
adventurous
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
emotional
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix