From the author of Summer Hours at the Robbers Library, a tenderhearted story of two very different women grappling with the messy emotional legacies passed down by their parents—for fans of Dani Shapiro, Ann Napolitano, and Jody Picoult.

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.

I received a copy of this book courtesy of the publisher. All thoughts are my own.

I’m always here for a good family drama. Give me complicated relationships, buried secrets, and emotional fallout, and I’m 100% in. When I read the premise for this book it had “right up my alley” written all over it. And yet, it didn’t land the way I’d hoped.

The first half of the book was promising. The pacing worked, the emotional beats landed, and I wanted to know more. Then came the second half and the ending. Without spoiling anything, the “big” reveal near the end left me blinking at the page and asking, “Why?” Not in the good, thought-provoking way. More in the “Why was that necessary? What was the point?” kind of way. It didn’t add to the emotional resonance of the story, and it didn’t feel earned. If anything, it took away from the stronger, quieter moments the book had been building toward.

The book alternates between two narrators: Melody, a high school senior reeling from the sudden death of her adoptive mother, and Candace, a forty-something whose life has been shaped by the collateral damage of her parents’ bad marriage. On paper, this dual perspective should work. In practice, I found myself far more invested in Melody’s chapters than Candace’s.

What’s surprising is, I didn’t expect that. Usually, the older I get, the more I connect with characters closer to my own age. Teen characters can sometimes feel like they’re written in a language I don’t fully speak anymore. But Melody pulled me in. Her grief, her stubborn refusal to learn about her birth parents, and her messy attempts to navigate friendships and identity all felt grounded and real. She’s flawed in a way that makes her interesting.

Candace, on the other hand, was… fine, but that’s about it. She’s competent, self-contained, and perfectly serviceable as a character. But I never felt like her storyline had the same emotional pull as Melody’s. Honestly, I’m still not sure the book needed her chapters at all. What we learn about her could have been delivered in a different way, making this Melody’s story from start to finish. I think it would have had a stronger impact that way.

That said, there’s still a lot to appreciate here. Halpern captures well that bittersweet space between the family we’re born into and the family we build for ourselves. Melody’s arc in particular has some beautiful, aching moments. I just wish the entire book had held onto that same energy.

In the end, this was a mixed bag for me. If you’re in it for Melody’s journey, you’ll probably find plenty to enjoy (especially in the first half). If you’re looking for a knockout ending or a perfectly balanced dual POV, you might walk away feeling underwhelmed.