Harmless Like You

Is the desire to leave genetic?

I may be oversimplifying, but to me, that's the quintessential question in this book. Because he was abandoned by his mother as a child, will a man grow up and abandon his responsibilities, too?

I don't know why, but this is the second book I've read in recent months about an Asian mother who leaves her child behind without a trace. That child is left to grow up wondering - was it his fault? Where did she go? Would he leave his child, too? The previous book, The Leavers, was better than this one in my opinion, but both wove past and present together in a way that draws you in and keeps you reading, knowing you'll find out where the mother went along with the child who searches for her.

We learn the most about the woman who leaves when she is left herself. When her family goes back to Japan, she chooses to stay behind and live the life of an American teenager. She ends up being abandoned in other ways once she stays. It begs the question: to what do you cling when everything else slips away? Or are you better off if you keep moving so nothing else can hurt you? Is leaving a self-fulfilling prophecy?

The questions in this book are big ones, the writing is clean and the characters are understandably human. Still, I didn't love this book. Perhaps it felt too similar to The Leavers and the fact I read this one second made it feel.... second. 

It was critically acclaimed, though, so it's not a waste of time to find out for yourself.