Review: What We Leave Behind – Sue Halpern

I received this book for free from in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

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 question: 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 family: the kind we’re born into and the kind we create.

What We Leave Behind is an intimate and thought-provoking novel that explores the complicated ties of family, identity, and emotional inheritance. Through the parallel journeys of Melody and Candace, Sue Halpern paints a layered portrait of what it means to search for truth when the past refuses to stay buried. The writing is both tender and sharp, with characters that feel honest and deeply human. This story invites readers to sit with the messiness of love, loss, and self-discovery and to consider the invisible threads that bind us.

Reviewed by: Orsayor

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