Reviews with content warning for Classism - Leave the World Behind

I can see why this is a divisive book. Personally, I found it middling.

I found the character dynamics interesting - complex and conflicted enough to be worth following, but not contentious enough to be simply unpleasant. The book's strength lies in the roundedness of the characters (at least the adults).

It does feel unfinished, like a sentence missing a period. I'm not entirely sure what the message of the story is. It could have one message if a catastrophe weren't confirmed to the reader, and it was a sort of modern Monsters Due on Maple Street. It could have another if we (the reader) knew the intent or nature of the crisis. It'd have yet another if we saw just one plot point further into the story.

Not an unpleasant reading experience, but unclear what to take away.

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kah's review

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challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

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

3.5

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britttobegorey94's review

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dark mysterious tense slow-paced

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

3.5

Very slow with no real climax or ending. This book walks the line of horror and mystery and keeps its readers on their toes with no real answers for so long that it's hard to feel any real satisfaction for finishing it. A strange shuffle in writing occurs approximately when Ruth and G.H show up. I think this was done to show the difference between a holiday enjoyed and a abrupt unplanned end to the holiday. Either way this is not pulled off as well as intended and it makes it feel like the first few chapters in the book are misplaced and almost like they belong to a different book entirely. The characters are frustrating and for a book lamenting how humanity might survive if technology failed, I felt this book showed a profound lack of knowledge in relation to how phones in particular, actually worked. This book also knee capped itself by shutting down technology - the audience could only know what was happening in a very specific place in America and with such a scope, this meant the world was not necessarily ending but was likely just ending in America. Perhaps the author was trying to make a statement here about America's focus on being "the main character" but the book tells us so little about anything that you could never know for sure.
This is an anxiety inducing read with no real answers but a somewhat interesting examination of classissm and racism in America, although again, I felt like these themes were not explored to their highest potential either.
Do not read if you are looking for a satisfying conclusion.

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bootsmom3's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad 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

5.0

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