Reviews with content warning for Vomit - Leave the World Behind

Reviews tagging 'Vomit'

Leave the World Behind by Rumaan Alam

144 reviews

frozenheartv's review against another edition

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dark mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

3 stars
🌕🌕🌕

🧠 My thoughts

I’m very disappointed with this book. The premise was promising, the tension-building was done pretty well too, at least it kept me reading to see what was going to happen next. The prose was interesting to read because I haven’t seen this kind in many books but sometimes it could be dry and there were useless fancy words as well. However, it failed to deliver any meaningful details to me, it all fell flat at the end.

It felt to me that the book tried to be deep but couldn’t get there. Maybe there were too many things to talk about but nothing was resolved. The first half of the book felt a bit unrelated to the second half as well. The first half tried to dig into the problems related to racism, political issues, sexism, classism, and so on. However, the second half was more about the story itself, and how the situation developed.

I checked the movie right after reading the book and I thought the movie is far much better. At least, the movie explained why things in the book happened without the disturbing and unrelated sexual scenes.

For example, in the movie they mentioned that Amanda’s work was all about convincing people to buy stuff they didn’t need so that she could sell stuff. This made her become a terrible person as she was, she just hated people and her work. Moreover, the scene where Clay abandoned the Spanish-speaking woman when she was begging him to help her lead to the fact that Ruth didn’t trust white people and she told G.H. to be careful with these people because they might abandon them too if things happened. Even the ending when Rose found the Friends DVD and sat there to watch the series ending was more meaningful. She told Archie before that the world was sad anyway, if there was something happened to it, at least, she wanted to know what happened to Ross and Rachel because Friends made her happy and she was done waiting. That was so relatable and made me feel nostalgic, in the book it was not portrayed like this.

There were more things to talk about here but I think these details are enough to tell you that the movie makes more sense.

👍 What I like

Interesting premise
The prose when it’s bearable

👎 What I don't like

Weird and unrelated sexual scenes
Nothing is resolved, try to be deep but fail to do so
Falls flat and the end

Content Warnings

lizzieinmt's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Content Warnings

mel_bee_421's review against another edition

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tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

1.0

The plot drives the book. Unfortunately, the plot is unrealized. There is random sexual imagery that is out of place. By the end I wasn't rooting for any of them.

Content Warnings

bhoomika26's review against another edition

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mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.75

Content Warnings

scharocket's review against another edition

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tense medium-paced

1.0

The amount of times genitalia or sexualization of literally anything is mentioned is ridiculous....Just gross. It reads like a horny teenager who thinks he’s "saying something" wrote this. And what that something is? I'm not sure. Whatever theme it was trying to hit, it just didn't give me enough ENOUGH to show me any actual conviction. For one moment, I think, there was commentary on climate change? Another time, it was commentary on racism (maybe?) and how people treat each other in times of crisis (possibly?)

All leading up to an ending that was no ending at all, just a lazy stoppage of 240 pages of stream-of-consciousness writing.

I had the urge to DNF at about page 16, after one particularly grotesque description of a character's genitals, but CERTAINLY not the last one.

I should listen to my DNF instincts more.

Content Warnings

ariparip's review against another edition

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dark tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

I think it would've been better if it had an ending!

Content Warnings

ddclarke's review against another edition

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dark mysterious reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

A literary novel written to sound like a literary novel. Really love the concept and it was pulled off, but without anything that really stood out to me.

Likely hurt by having watched the movie first, which was very faithful and left me little to discover in the pages.

Content Warnings

robynbookworm's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

Content Warnings

nutmegandpumpkin's review against another edition

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dark mysterious reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No

2.0

Content Warnings

dblue236's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

What... why... but...

Did I just read a 300-page first chapter? Was that ACTUALLY the entire book? Did I really spend all that time waiting to find out what was happening only to learn... nothing at all?

Okay, I'm mad. I loved the concept of this book and the tension of it was glorious. And then just... nothing. No resolution. No explanation. No ending.

*flips table*

Three stars for no reason other than how much I really wanted to love this.

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