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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.
2025 National Book Awards Finalists Announced
Here's the list! Which ones have you read? Which are on your radar? Fiction : Rabih Alameddine, The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother) Megha Majumdar, A Guardian and a Thief Karen Russell, The Antidote Ethan Rutherford, North Sun: Or, the Voyage of the Whaleship Esther Bryan Wa...
-kim.kovacs
"McBride is a master of verse, weaving lines with emotion and character development, articulating pain and hope with an economy of words, and documenting Black lives with tenderness. Reverberating with a haunting trauma, this powerful narrative is packed with Black joy, queer love, and feminist defiance. Compelling and evocative: a must-read." —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"Achingly tender...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." ―Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Sparse yet evocative verse brings to life a deep and profound exploration of the liminal space between life and death, between here and wherever there is. Love and loss are given equal space in the narrative, and creative, thoughtful play with the structure of words on the page is engaging. Gorgeous and haunting, through and through." ―Booklist (starred review)
"Intimate and astonishing." —Jason Reynolds, New York Times bestselling author
This information about The Leaving Room was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Amber McBride estimates she reads about 100 books a year. Her work has been published in literary magazines including Ploughshares and Provincetown Arts. Her debut young adult novel, Me (Moth) was a finalist for the National Book Award, and won the 2022 Coretta Scott King/John Steptoe Award for New Talent, among many other accolades. She is a professor of creative writing at University of Virginia, and lives in Charlottesville, Virgina.
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