Book Review: My Name is Leon

My Name is Leon, by Kit De Waal

This is an excellent book. Almost perfect. Except for the ending.

SPOILER ALERT: 

The problem with the ending is that is just ends. No resolution. No happy ending. No sad ending. Just the book ends.

END SPOILER ALERT.

Ok. Sorry about that. Hope you can read around it, or I hope the spoiler doesn't wreck the book for you. Because it's a great book. I really, really liked it.

It's DeWaal's first novel, and it's a dozy. The British writer, of Irish and Kittian descent, introduces us to an array of characters, including Leon, a 9-year-old boy of mixed race. That is important because when his mother gives birth to a second child, and experiences severe postpartum depression, children's services swoops in and puts both children in foster care. Soon, the infant white boy is adopted, but Leon is left in care of his foster mother, where everyone correctly assume he will stay.

Except for Leon. In the less-than-a-year that he lived with -- and took care of -- his baby brother, he grew to love him. He wants to reunite with his mother and brother, and sets out to do so, despite the long odds against him.

Along the way, he meets people who want to help and hurt him. He learns the difficulties in being a black boy in white Britain -- which seems very much like being  black boy in white America. But he also bonds with a group of black men from the West Indies, who seem very much like the father he knows.