The Leaving Room
-
- $16.99
Publisher Description
**NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST!**
"Intimate and astonishing."--Jason Reynolds, New York Times Bestselling Author
For fans of You've Reached Sam and If I Stay, a hauntingly beautiful, ultimately hopeful novel-in-verse about a girl in between life and death, by National Book Award Finalist Amber McBride.
Gospel is the Keeper of the Leaving Room—a place all young people must phase through when they die. The young are never ready to leave; they need a moment to remember and a Keeper to help their wispy souls along.
When a random door opens and a Keeper named Melodee arrives, their souls become entangled. Gospel's seriousness melts and Melodee’s fear of connection fades, but still—are Keepers allowed to fall in love? Now they must find a way out of the Leaving Room and be unafraid of their love. In a novel that takes place over four minutes, National Book Award finalist Amber McBride explores connection, memory, and hope in ways that are unforgettable and poignant.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Told in verse, this story of a very unusual caregiver left us grappling with the profound nature of life and death. Gospel is the Keeper of a Leaving Room, a tiny but beautiful place where she helps dead children prepare themselves to go somewhere else, leaving their memories behind. She’s not supposed to look at their memories, she’s not supposed to have feelings, and above all else, she’s not supposed to leave. But her yearning to bend, and then break, these rules reaches a fever pitch after another Keeper, Melodee, visits her room. Is there a way for these two to love…and live? The Leaving Room ponders the sorrow of lives ended too soon and the vast power that love for others and for ourselves gives us to strive for something beyond the roles imposed upon us by outside forces.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A teen steward acting as a bridge to the afterlife wonders if there's more to her existence in this achingly tender verse romance by McBride (Onyx & Beyond). Gospel is a Keeper, a being tasked with helping Leavers—the recently deceased—make peace with their deaths. As a Keeper, Gospel must follow a core set of rules: don't lie, don't enter another Keeper's room, don't review the memories collected from Leavers. Despite these mandates, Gospel watches her Leavers' memories and chafes against the reality that "Keepers can't feel./ We Just are. We keep." Nonetheless, Gospel takes pride in her duties, preparing meals for the young spirits in her care to ensure that they "find joy in whatever is next." Over the course of her work, Gospel becomes especially affected by five-year-old Maple and eight-year-old Suvi, and after beautiful and enchanting violinist Melodee, another Keeper, enters Gospel's room, the encounter sparks within Gospel a desire to experience things beyond her perceived purpose. Through quiet, in-between-feeling moments rendered in an eerie, philosophical tone, McBride considers the liminal spaces between life and death, as well as the weight of grief and loss on children, particularly Black youth. Richly imagined settings pulled from Leavers' memories ("Haint-blue ceilings/ & rocking chairs to sit/ & watch giant willows weep") evoke Black Southern gothic imagery, adding texture to this wholesome speculative novel. Ages 12–up.
