Reviews with content warning for War - Leave the World Behind

3.75 ⭐️ - intriguing and definitely gets you thinking - personally would have like more of a tied up ending but I guess that’s is also against the point of the book

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kelleywithanextrae's review against another edition

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dark mysterious reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character

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jackbifrost's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense fast-paced

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

3.75

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epeolatri's review

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slow-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

1.5

Okay, I can see what this book was trying to do. It’s rare to read books about the start of the end of the world, and for that it’s unique and interesting. The characters were terribly boring and so one-dimensional. I didn’t care even a bit about any of them. The use of the third person omniscient narrator had its purpose when it could give us small bits of information on what was happening in the world outside these two families, but other than that I feel like it did a disservice to the story. Had it been written in first person maybe the urgency of the situation and the terror the characters felt would’ve seemed more real to the reader. I was mostly annoyed at their choices and the way they only ever seemed to talk about what they should do but never actually did any of it. This book needed more action and less words.
On that note, the author really really likes his metaphors and similes. Without them this book could’ve been about 100 pages shorter. An entire two or three pages were just a list of what a woman bought at the grocery store. The author also seemed weirdly obsessed with sex. At least three times I was made to read through a paragraph of a character masturbating, one of which was a minor. There was a description of a thirteen year old in a bathing suit that made me very uncomfortable. I’m not sure why the characters genitals were deemed so important to the plot.
This book should have been a lot of things, but ended up just a weird, overly wordy mess that I barely managed to get through. Maybe the netflix movie will be better.

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sharonus's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

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

4.0

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whitne_ey's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious tense slow-paced

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

3.75

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cheye13's review against another edition

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challenging dark tense fast-paced

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

3.0

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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princessdana36's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced

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

2.5

This book is crazy. The pretentious language holds up the meaning of this book. Plus there’s a whole chapter of someone’s grocery list.

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