"Leaving Now is sometimes harrowing, occasionally funny, often heartbreaking and always engrossing. Paré's distinctive style artfully mixes poetry, personal journal, feminist socio-political analysis and literary analysis of fairy tales. You can read the book with pleasure for its overall cleverness, for its emotional depth, for its poetry or for its setting in Montreal and Vancouver. You can read it as a heroic quest by the narrator to integrate personal truths within their historical moments and the literary traditions by which we try to understand our lives. Just read it." -- Debby Yaffe, Herizons

"Paré is a past winner of the Victoria Butler Book Prize, and it is easy to see why. She moves seamlessly between poetry and prose in the pages of Leaving Now, writing with an obvious respect for language. By making the choice to incorporate as much poetry into the novel as she does, Paré limits the actual number of words that makes up her story. There is a significant amount of white space in an already slim book, so it is especially important that the right words are in the right spaces. It's a job Paré has done very well." -- Colin Holt, the Times Colonist

"Paré's character, let's call her Mum, tells her story in prose, poetry and fairy tales. The boundaries of genre are stretched just as Mum stretches the possibilities of life. As with our memories that appear in a mysterious and circular way, events don't unfold chronologically in Leaving Now. Are we here? Have we left? Are we just planning to leave? The white space in the book offers a kind of relief. Separating from one's husband and children requires some deep breathing and is always heart-wrenching. That's true for anyone I would say. In my case, I did exactly what the character in this book did and at the same time." -- Mary Ann Moore, Story Circle Book Reviews