Will is trying to find reason in his life. He has been trying to come up with the recipe for cornbread that his late father always made but he just can't get it right. Will does a lot of walking, but is he really trying to clear his head?

Will has one close friend, Playa, who he has known since childhood. When Playa gets raped at a party he was also attending, Will once again tries to find answers as to why bad things keep happening to the people in his life. No one seems to really understand what he is going through.

One day, Will notices a small child who is always trying to catch butterflies with his hands. He decides to by the boy a net, hoping it will help him. And he leaves it on his doorstep. This begins a new start in Will's life: giving small gifts to people who need them. But will this new purpose help him overcome his own pain?

WHAT I LEAVE BEHIND is a heartbreaking and thoughtful story by Alison McGhee. At first, I really didn't get what this book was about, but once I did, she really made me think about people. This is a quick read that only took me a couple of hours. However, even though it is a quick read, WHAT I LEAVE BEHIND really has a lot of depth to it. McGhee really made me give some deep thought into what could be happening in other people's life. We should not judge people as we have no clue what is really going on in their lives.