When an unprecedented hurricane devastates the city of Houston, Noah Mishner finds shelter in the Dallas Mavericks' basketball arena.
His fears take form when he starts seeing visions of his great-grandfather Abe, who fled Nazi Germany as a boy.

Pretty good story about a transgender man.
It will honestly open you eyes on everything about the LGTB Community.
Very well written.

Thank You NetGalley And Slim Kent for the ARC.

This is quite a short read but you get thrown in to the story from the very first paragraph, making you become immersed straight away. This was actually quite clever as it didn't waste any time building up the world and you learned everything as you were reading. It is also a clever way to ensure that the reader is immediately intrigued and somewhat invested in the story, the events that are taking place within and also the characters. It uses those pages wisely and instantly got me intrigued and invested, wanting to discover not only what had happened, but what and where the story was going to go.

This story takes place after the events of a natural disaster, an unexpected Hurricane takes place in Dallas, Texas, causing unprecedented damage and death. Among the survivors, we are introduced to Noah, a trans, Jewish man who, not only finds himself worrying about the aftermath of the disaster, whether his friends and family have made it out okay or have had an unthinkable outcome, but on how the rest of the survivors are going to be around him and fellow LGBTQ+ survivors. All of this, while also seeing a the ghost of a young boy, whom he is sure is his grandfather. There is so much packed into such a short read and it left me with so much emotion and thoughts afterwards, that it's actually hard to express. 

I don't want to give too much away about this short read, as I went in not knowing too much and left, not only feeling more educated, knowing this was a great read that I was going to not only remember for a long time, but one that I will also be recommending often!! I also read about the author, which is another reason why this book is so special and why I enjoy and encourage people to do so. It brings more meaning to the story and has made me a deeper fan of Sim Kern. 

So if you are looking for a short read, a book about LGBTQ+ characters or storyline, books about prejudice or want to read about different cultures (Jewish culture), then I highly recommend this book! - I highly recommend it anyways!!

I have the pleasure of reading and reviewing “Depart, Depart!” by Sim Kern. I phrase it this way because there is so much of this novella that is out of my scope of reality that I feel like it is an honor to be exposed to themes and lives that I know very little about. I mean I have never steered away from LGBTQ+ literature, movies, or the community, but “Depart, Depart!” feels different. This is a story that needs to be told, needs to be shouted, needs to be required.

Noah is in the middle of a fight for his life. When a hurricane floods Houston, he is bussed to Dallas to stay in a makeshift shelter for the Dallas Mavericks. He only escapes the flood because the young ghost of his great-grandfather Abe tells him that he has to leave and leave now. This premise is one that lured me into the novella, but the writing, characters, and themes are what allowed me to sit and read the entire story in one setting. There are so many things in this novella that can be talked about, can be explored, from LGBTQ+ issues and disrespect, from police arrogance and the way they interact differently with certain groups, from immigrantion and the treatment of refugees (even though in this case they are citizens from a neighboring city), from the fears of the uncertain future, this is a frightening book. There is tension and fear on every page, and this is the scariest kind of horror novella, one that explores how we treat one another.

I loved every page of this, every thread and theme, every statement about humanity and politics. I’m sure that this is not a novella that everyone will enjoy, but nobody can diminish the importance and timeliness of the work. I can also say that I started to follow Sim Kern on Twitter after reading this, and they have the most accurate and thought provoking tweets. I recommend following them. I recommend “Depart, Depart!”, especially for someone like me who does not know as much as he needs to know about the world around him. This is a thought provoking and haunting book. Every praise I can give it pales in the amount of praise it should receive.

I received this as an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Depart, Depart! followed Noah into a large hurricane shelter after he has lost everything. The hurricane took his friends, his community, his home, his car and his sense of safety.....and his Testosterone pills. Now he is surrounded by a crowd of "all american red-blooded" Texans who have also lost everything and all he has left is his backpack and, under his loose hoody...his binder that keeps his breasts flattened to his chest. As he stands in line to enter the stadium he also discovers that he has Abe, the ghost of his great-grandfather who survived the holocaust of Nazi Germany, along to guide him. As Noah navigates the shelter he finds new community among the shelterees and new things to fears too.

As I read Depart, Depart I tended to get into my "professional head" as a Public Health Response Coordinator and take mental notes of things to do to make sure that EVERYONE feels safe in any shelter or response operation I have a part in. Everyone needs to feel safe in the showers, restrooms and bigotry and bullying must not be tolerated. During a meeting I was once asked "what if the evacuation bus driver doesn't want a transgendered person on the bus"? My answer was, "then the driver can walk and someone else can drive the bus." I also appreciate that Sim Kern included the needs of those with Sensory issues in the book. People who don't have sensitivity to lights, sound, heat, etc have no idea how difficult it is and how panic inducing it is when you can find no relief. There are tools and methods to help these people, which in turn, helps everyone. The bottom line is that all disaster shelters should have at least one on-site advocate to ensure that the needs to everyone are met and to ensure that everyone feels safe. I am going to recommend this book to our state Red Cross Director. #SimKern #Depart,Depart! #netgalley

I absolutely loved this hopeful, beautiful novel about solidarity, the development of identity, and the strength of community and love and acceptance. Noah is a survivor of a devastating hurricane that destroys Houston. Evacuated to Dallas, he's given shelter in an athletic arena, where neighborhoods of similar folks spring up. There he finds other trans people who are--like him--in need of medical care and emotional support. And to top it all off, Noah is being haunted by his great-grandfather Abe, whose presence has been both life-saving and disquieting. Over the course of several weeks, Noah and his new friends form tight bonds, face very real and very dangerous transphobia and other forms of bigotry, and begin to make steps towards creating new lives for themselves.

Kern does an absolutely beautiful job of showing the ways in which trans people are treated by those who are ignorant, unaccepting, or think of themselves as allies but haven't truly gotten past deeply ingrained beliefs to the contrary. They illustrate the difficulties that all refugees from minority groups in volatile situations like those that arise in shelters are forced to face, and show how much it can mean to have a few people in authority on your side. They also write with great depth about the struggles in trying to reconcile religion with lived experiences. Noah is a secular Jew, but in researching why Abe is haunting him, he finds religious texts and arguments that are both enormously uplifting and relatable, and others that make him push back from identifying as a Jew. Based on my own reading, I think secular Jews and queer people are going to feel a chill of understanding as they read about Noah's experiences as he thinks about his Jewish heritage and the way its religious texts can offer both comfort and despair.

This is such a real story, and such an important one, that I want this novel to succeed: I want it taught in schools, I want it chosen for book clubs and reading groups, I want it on library displays everywhere. I want everyone to read it, and hope.

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<p>Review copy provided by the publisher.</p>
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<p>This is a novella about a trans guy whose Houston home floods and about his life with a dybbuk in a shelter in Dallas. If you read that sentence and thought, "ooh, that might be for me if it's done well!", congratulations, you are correct, this is definitely for you.</p>
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<p>Noah's experiences in the emergency shelter are about as much sunshine and lollipops as you'd expect, but there are some rainbows to be found in the community that he both builds and finds there. It's perfectly drawn of imperfect humans--Kern has noticed that even excellent allies don't always share the same priorities, and negotiating those with kindness and patience in the face of deteriorating conditions can be hard, sometimes feeling impossible. Kern draws these relationships so very well.</p>
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<p>The shape of the ending is particularly wonderful at a time like this: a turning toward kindness and toward community in a world that would make it easier to shut others out. The speculative element ties in excellently with the real world strengths of this novella. I'll be looking for more by Kern.<br></p>
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A lovely story of a young transgender man battling his demons, literally, and discovering what sort of person he wants to be. Also, there’s a killer flood and a roving band of gun-toting thugs. Exciting, heart-felt, transformative. An important story for queer folk and their allies. And, it includes fantastic Jewish representation, especially for people (some of my family included) who are from non-traditional Jewish backgrounds. A fast read, eye-opening and engaging.

I received a free eARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I did not love, i am going to be honest. At first I was like YAAYAYAYAAYYAYAATATAYAAYAYATATAYA this is amazing and then I was like NOOOOOOOOO this is so much worse at the end.