Leave the World Behind

DNF 20%

This is fucking terrible. It's like the subreddits r/im14andthisisdeep and r/menwritingwomen combined with a letter to Penthouse. Atrocious on every page.

Good writing meh plot

what was this book

Despite a slow start and some unnecessary fluff, Leave The World Behind offers a horrifyingly realistic breakdown of society.

There seemed to be something missing the entire way through this book, mostly evident in what one might argue is a lack of even a proper ending. Let alone explanation for the event that drove the whole plot. Interestingly, the writing was strong and distinctly different (including some decent character development) but there is an ongoing feeling like you are waiting for something to happen or for a big reveal/explanation/surpirse that never comes... a decent premise that never gets off the ground and certainly pulls its punches.

i was worried after seeing the low average rating and some of my friends' ratings, but i ended up loving this book. i inhaled it in one sitting. i felt like i was living this alongside the characters, the tension keeping me on the edge of my seat. the little reveals along the way could have felt cheesy, but i found them truly ominous. i can easily see why this wouldn't have worked for others, but i'm so glad i picked it up.

The book is one of those stories with limited characters and settings that takes place over a short amount of time. I have a lot of respect for stories of that nature, but they're hard to pull off. I think if the story were written by someone else I'd have liked it more. There were too many unnecessary and unrelated references to sex and the writing style felt clunky. Stylistically I think I'd have enjoyed it more as a play (in an Arthur Miller way). I do want to say that I loved his vocab even if I didn't quite like his voice, it just feels reminiscent of 20th century writing. Overall the concept was good but needed to be executed better. I feel like if we got to the end of the hour, or even a scene with all the characters in one room, that would have really driven the story home. I'd say it was a page-turner but I wasn't really invested (but maybe I'm biased because the sex references were SO random it was just gross and offputting and my rating would've been a 3 otherwise). If I end up watching the Netflix movie I'll update my review and see if I like the story better as a movie.

Read this after having seen the movie, and I prefer the movie's take. I didn't feel the book painted quite enough as much of a picture as the movie did. Of course many major points were shared, but the additions of the movie such as the tanker and the final shots in the woods as well as rhe younger G.H. and how he found out created more tension.

There's no doubt that this author is very talented. There's no doubt that the subject of this book is exciting and mysterious. I wish that the author could've created more tension more suspense more the creep factor.

I watched the Netflix movie first and then I listened to the audio. The two have quite a few differences.

Despite being written prior to the pandemic it feels like the perfect encapsulation of that fraught time. The escape of affluent New Yorkers from the city to some wooded retreat to mitigate against the push of people in elevators and the subway. The think pieces and countless “Why I Left” essays that appeared constantly in the early days of lockdown. All of it mirrored by Amanda and Clay's retreat to a rental that promises to “leave the world behind” with their teenaged kids in tow. It's all sunny relaxation until the Washingtons arrive at their doorstep.

Surely this wasn't a home that black people owned thinks Amanda, that this was some con perpetrated by the cleaning staff to some nefarious end. Her liberal values completely overrun by previously hidden prejudices, fuelled by the uncomfortable feeling of not knowing. Sounds familiar. And the disaster, much like Covid, isn't clearly defined. Things are bad, we're just not exactly sure how bad.

So what do we do when the end of the world comes? Bake a cake, pour ourself another drink and go swimming. Or bake sourdough bread, adopt a pet and buy a Peloton. Either way it seems we just keep moving forward in uncertainty. So yeah, the book is all undercurrent and uneasy vibes that I can see being frustratingly vague - but that's a feature not a bug. The book feels all the more relevant with most of us having emerged from Covid. A pitch perfect Netflix adaption to boot.

the writing was sooo beautiful and fun !! also very much appreciated the 1D shoutout near the end

i did not just waste my day listening to this shit??????? THIS BOOK GOES NOWHERE, NOTHING HAPPENS???? besides the surface level commentary literally nothing happens im going insane. also this had so many weird sexual comments abt the kids in the book, specifically the daughter whos a minor...? very weird and disgusting bc they were thrown there for literally no reason. i think this is the worst book i've ever read and it makes me want to punch the wall

Feels like a mumblecore thriller/drama where anything you imagine to be the cause of this mystery is better than what we actually get. You can tell this was stormed up or in some part adjusted to fit a COVID lens, as it absolutely plays with themes of paranoia, isolation, and fear mongering, among others. I liked the intrigue and the prose, but the third act and ending fell incredibly flat. There were slight vibes of a possible Twilight Zone episode direction it could have taken, but then it decides to remain more so in the mundane lane.

I haven't looked at the Netflix cast for the future film adaptation yet, but while reading it, I envisioned:

- Amanda: Meghann Fahey/Rebecca Hall
- Clay: Adam Driver/Dan Stevens
- Ruth: Ruth Negga/Viola Davis (after it's revealed she's older)
- G. H.: David Oyelowo but then Denzel Washington/Delroy Lindo (after you find out he's older in age)

This was odd. Everything that every other review mentions is true, from the constantly switching perspective, to the lack of anything happening, yadda yadda. And for the first half of this book I was constantly ready to quit reading. I was sure it was going to be a three star read if I did finish it, because the setup is interesting and the writing, while occasionally insufferable, was actually fun to read. By the time I'd hit the halfway point, I was used to the switching perspectives and the tension and fear in the characters was starting to crank up.

I think the biggest problem with this book is a lack of proper editing. The worst parts for me are the ones where someone should have told Alam: “Listen, I love this, but it is not as effective when it goes on for a paragraph rather than a couple of sentences.” I think of the moments where this happens as Alam spinning off into the air. Like yes, it would be interesting to have a character think about how his flip flops will someday be cut up by people of color in another country to be made into something new and sold to white people again. Having him think this while he is desperately searching for his daughter feels like I was running and then someone took a baseball bat with the word “Digression” burned onto it and hit me in the head.

I loved the ending, because the journey in this book is not about the apocalypse, but rather how people act when the world is falling apart and they don't know what to do. In other words, most people's daily lives right now. I did not care about learning what was going on by the last third of the book, because I was wrapped up in the characters and how they each dealt with their panic and confusion differently. I don't want to know why people's teeth started falling out or what those planes were going to do or even what was happening with the world outside. That's not the point. The point is that all we can do is keep going, no matter how bad things get. That's why I'm giving it four stars. It should not have spent so much time in digressions, especially in the beginning before the tension has even started, because that was a slog to get through. Once the tension starts, Alam has a restraint put on the wild word wanderings of his brain, and it becomes much more focused. I blazed through the last hundred pages of this and almost cried twice.

tl;dr A lot of work should have been done before this was published, but the final third was so good that it gets an extra star from me.

P.S. Reading the sex scenes in this book felt like I snuck into the pages of the Necronomicon. I'm glad I got to read it, but a part of my mind and soul has been forever damaged.

I've always found it weird how male authors sexualise almost everything with their writing. This man literally describes the road his characters are driving on as “curvy and seductive like a hip switched back and forth.” NO BUT
WHO IN THEIR RIGHT MIND WOULD SEE A ROAD AND THINK IT LOOKED SEXUAL?? I'm honestly speechless. 

He uses a bunch of words to say absolutely nothing and most of the plot is the characters not liking each other and panicking without even trying to figure out what is going on. Then finally the open ending leaving everything unexplained 🫠
If only he spent as much time on the plot as he did trying to mention sex, penis, orgies or masturbation in every chapter, maybe then this book would've been interesting. 

This book was just unnecessary with the sexual bits and just overall drove me nuts...i am so glad i got this through the library and didnt spend hard earned money with this one. Definitely not going in my mini library. Sorry just definitely not for me any part of this and happy to leave this book behind to never be talked about again.

Bizarre, but quite disturbing/thought-provoking. Wasn't sure at all where this was going to go until the last third or so... Will stay with me a while though, as I have questions and want to know more! And will be absolutely looking to buy a full survival kit now. 
Knocked off a bit of a star for the odd start, some bits of ott flowery language and slightly frustrating ending.

Gripping writing, I liked the omnipotent interjections about things happening elsewhere, but the slow burn and thriller aspect to lead to an open ended resolution at the end which was a bit of a disappointment- especially since there was so much build up to the mystery.
There's a lot of crude/sexual descriptions, but I didn't mind it as much since most YA end of the world tropes sometimes forget to mention the crudeness of humans/”animal needs”. The feeling of isolation was also invoked and I did like that. Very vanilla end of the world trope though, so it shall stay a 3 star.

A fine book, but TBH it was a ‘Skip The Line' book on Libby and I needed an audiobook to listen to when I pounded out some time-sensitive work, and I would not have read it had I known. I thought It was an average thriller and it was a world-ending type of situation, which was not what I was expecting and was very underwhelming. Heard they're making it into a movie and I think I would very much enjoy this in visual form.

i don't know the last time something made me feel like this 

Just finished this during my FULL DAY at LaGuardia. This book started out strong. For the most part I enjoyed it and I'll watch the Netflix movie just to see what Denzel and Julia manage to do with it- But man this book leaves you hanging- and after making the reader do some serious phrasing and adjective somersaults.

I enjoyed the reviews almost as much as the book, which was hard to put down (or, actually, stop listening.). It was just too scary and bleak, given the current state of our country and the world. But clever premise and interesting themes.

this book's lack of dedication to any one single genre, plot-line, or character is somehow both its greatest strength and weakness. the vagueness and mystery enthralled me many times throughout the book, but things can only be so eerie and intriguing for so long.

There were some things here that had the potential to be interesting - the “guess who's coming to dinner” scenario with the white people who desperately want to believe they're not racist (or that they don't SEEM racist, these characters are preoccupied with seeming) but resent the class/race divisions not going the way they would expect, the mundane weirdness of living through a disaster, some of the things with the animals. However, the prose is extremely dense, full of short sentences, weird metaphors and unpleasant sexuality, and in the end it just kind of felt like a chore to read it. It also drove me insane that they spent all that time complaining about not knowing anything but refused to listen to the radio.

In this book, a family is vacationing at an AirBnB in a remote part of Long Island when something terrible and mysterious happens. This has the build of a thriller but reads like contemporary fiction with subtle sci-fi. There are some really interesting character dynamics that provide commentary on race, class, and social mores in contemporary American society. I enjoyed it, and to some extent, enjoyed that the author doesn't spoon feed us all the answers; that's truer to the experience of disaster as it's happening. But the details aren't enough to be clear on the big picture, at least on the first read. Perhaps that's intentional but it did leave me wanting.