What We Leave Behind
Sue Halpern
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars
4.00
· 1 ratings · 352 pages · Published: 24 Jun 2025
It’s the perennial are we a product of how we were raised, or is our identity hardwired by our genetic inheritance? When her adoptive mother dies in a freak accident, high school senior Melody Marcus doubles down on her refusal to learn anything about her birth parents. In this age of 23&me, though, that may not be possible, and the secrets hidden in her DNA threaten to upend everything she knows about herself and her family.
For Candace Milton, a successful woman in her forties, the collateral damage from her parents’ tortured marriage has led to a life of intentional unattachment. She is happy—enough. But a chance encounter with a friend of Melody’s father will challenge this assumption and force her to reimagine who she is and who she might become.
Big-hearted evocative, and achingly relatable, What We Leave Behind grapples with destiny, belonging, and love, and makes us question our own idea of the kind we’re born into and the kind we create.
Tagged as:
- literary fiction 3
- family 2
- coming of age 2
- tragedy 2
- female mc 2
- drama 1
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- format - reader age
- audiobook 3
- adult fiction 1
- book 1