The Mystery Box of The Leavers

 In the book, the Leavers by Lisa Ko, the stories of Polly Guo and her son Deming Guo are effectively told and allows the reader to be more engaged in the story. Ko opens up the story with DeMing. When Polly leaves Deming, the reader gets to see his perspective of what's happening, but since he was too young to know anything, from his perspective he was lost and angry toward his mother and Vivian. And understandably so. The reader connects with De Ming’s pain as his entire world was flipped around. He had new parents and lived in a new community where had to suppress his Asianness. His frustration is clearly shown when Mrs. Henning's corrects his FuZHounese, a dialect of Chinese that he spoke with his mother, and he lashes out at her calling her stupid. FuZhounese was almost a symbol of his mother to him and he holds it very close. Then after Deming’s story is told, Polly’s is next. Her story is told in first person. This allows the reader to connect with her more, but also when she refers to “you” she is referring to De Ming. This makes her story extremely personal to De Ming. It highlights how much she cares about De Ming and makes it feel like she wrote it specifically for De Ming to see. The reader is shown her story and what happened to her. This allows the reader to see the story from someone who knows what is going on and the reader sympathizes for Polly as well. 

This is an effective way to write and as it keeps the reader engaged with questions and reveals just enough information to the audience for them to want more. A Movie Director JJ. Abrams called this the “mystery box” way of storytelling. He utilizes this and many of his movies to keep his viewers engaged. This is similarly applied in The Leavers, as the readers continually ask themselves why Polly left and why she wants to move to Florida.