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ReadUP 2020: The Leavers: Reviews & Awards

Awards & Accolades

black and white simple drawing of a medal and ribbon

2017 National Book Award Finalist for Fiction

Winner of the 2016 PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction

Finalist for the 2018 PEN/Hemingway Award and the 2017 Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writers Award

Named a best book of the year by NPR, Entertainment Weekly, BuzzFeed, The Los Angeles Times, Oprah Magazine, Electric Literature, and others.

Book Reviews

black and white drawing of a hand holding a sign with three stars The Atlantic: The Leavers Is a Wrenching Tale of Parenthood
"Lisa Ko’s novel, about the disappearance of an undocumented mother, places an imperfect victim within a cruel system." review by Amy Weiss-Meyer

The Guardian: The Leavers by Lisa Ko
"Ko’s wrenching debut novel about an immigrant Chinese mother and her son has profound resonances that reach far beyond its setting." review by Arifa Akbar

The Los Angeles Times: The immigrant novel, 2017: Lisa Ko’s ‘The Leavers’ shines a light on ugly truths. "The face of immigration is less white than it once was; the fate of immigrants far less secure." review by Steph Cha

Image Copyright Attribution

Review [icon] by Rakhmat Setiawan and Award [icon] by Ben Davis come from the Noun Project and are being used under the Creative Commons 3.0 Attribution License

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