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sharonus's review against another edition
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
Content Warnings
Moderate: Sexual content and Death
Minor: War, Suicide, Violence, Racism, and Vomit
thebustadotjpg's review
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.0
I love apocalypse books. End of the world scenarios are my absolute jam, so I was excited to read this, but boy does this thing fall flat. It frustrates me because this could’ve been good, it just has so many fatal flaws that make it unworthy of your time.
First issue is the characters. I hate them. We have a middle class white family that we follow most of the time. The husband is quite possibly the stupidest man alive. If you painted a tunnel onto a mountainside he’d drive right into it and crumple up like Wile E. Coyote. Just an absolutely feckless, spineless, drooling, useless character who’s brain’s only function is to write lifestyle articles for the New York Times. The you have his wife, whose function is to be a huge bitch. She’s racist, she hates her stupid husband, and she has the uncanny ability to always make the wrong decisions and emotionally fly off the handle whenever it looks like something might inconvenience her. Then you’ve got their two snot nosed brat kids that exist to create problems for the adults to deal with. Everyone sucks. Even the older black couple, Ruth and George Washington (I am not kidding), who I initially believed I was supposed to be sympathetic to, are written in such a way that make them off putting as well. So I’ve got a house full of people that I don’t care about now, and the conversations they have with each other remind me of work meetings where everyone just talks in circles for hours and nothing gets accomplished. Seriously, every conversation in this book happens two or three times, and nothing ends up mattering in the end anyway.
We have a third person narrator even more useless than the dad, who is constantly explaining that things may or may not be happening, which makes for a really gripping thriller. Don’t worry, even if you didn’t read this, you already know just as much about what the apocalypse “event” of the book is than I do, because it never gets named. It sounds terrible. There sure are a lot of graphic descriptions of people dying and getting murdered, but hell if I know what from. Is it a war? Disease? The second coming of Christ? Who knows! Doesn’t matter.
The prose is so pretentious it’s dripping. Seriously bust out the thesaurus for this one. The author strikes me as extremely horny, as the amount of times a sexual metaphor is used is absurd. We also get a good description of a sixteen year old jerking off and some weird stuff about how his thirteen year old sister’s swimsuit fits on her body. Awesome! Definitely wanted to read that!
Overall very pointless book that had the chance to say something poignant about race and class and sexism during times of strife, but totally squanders it so the author can flex how many big words he knows and how many unnecessary sexual metaphors he can fit into one book. Some of the writing is good, and this could be salvageable if you cut out most of the beginning before the other couple shows up and actually had something get resolved at the end instead of the absolute non-ending that’s in there now. Man what a load of crap. Two stars because some of the writing is good and effective but this could be tightened up so much and be something I would’ve loved.
First issue is the characters. I hate them. We have a middle class white family that we follow most of the time. The husband is quite possibly the stupidest man alive. If you painted a tunnel onto a mountainside he’d drive right into it and crumple up like Wile E. Coyote. Just an absolutely feckless, spineless, drooling, useless character who’s brain’s only function is to write lifestyle articles for the New York Times. The you have his wife, whose function is to be a huge bitch. She’s racist, she hates her stupid husband, and she has the uncanny ability to always make the wrong decisions and emotionally fly off the handle whenever it looks like something might inconvenience her. Then you’ve got their two snot nosed brat kids that exist to create problems for the adults to deal with. Everyone sucks. Even the older black couple, Ruth and George Washington (I am not kidding), who I initially believed I was supposed to be sympathetic to, are written in such a way that make them off putting as well. So I’ve got a house full of people that I don’t care about now, and the conversations they have with each other remind me of work meetings where everyone just talks in circles for hours and nothing gets accomplished. Seriously, every conversation in this book happens two or three times, and nothing ends up mattering in the end anyway.
We have a third person narrator even more useless than the dad, who is constantly explaining that things may or may not be happening, which makes for a really gripping thriller. Don’t worry, even if you didn’t read this, you already know just as much about what the apocalypse “event” of the book is than I do, because it never gets named. It sounds terrible. There sure are a lot of graphic descriptions of people dying and getting murdered, but hell if I know what from. Is it a war? Disease? The second coming of Christ? Who knows! Doesn’t matter.
The prose is so pretentious it’s dripping. Seriously bust out the thesaurus for this one. The author strikes me as extremely horny, as the amount of times a sexual metaphor is used is absurd. We also get a good description of a sixteen year old jerking off and some weird stuff about how his thirteen year old sister’s swimsuit fits on her body. Awesome! Definitely wanted to read that!
Overall very pointless book that had the chance to say something poignant about race and class and sexism during times of strife, but totally squanders it so the author can flex how many big words he knows and how many unnecessary sexual metaphors he can fit into one book. Some of the writing is good, and this could be salvageable if you cut out most of the beginning before the other couple shows up and actually had something get resolved at the end instead of the absolute non-ending that’s in there now. Man what a load of crap. Two stars because some of the writing is good and effective but this could be tightened up so much and be something I would’ve loved.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual content
Minor: Body horror and Racism
vj_thompson's review against another edition
challenging
dark
mysterious
reflective
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? Yes
3.0
Interesting and different style of writing. Honestly don’t know my thoughts or feelings about this book. The end was open ended and up the reader to guess what happens next. Thought provoking for sure. Do look up content warnings. There are a few that mainly discuss death, suicide, racism, and child abuse (towards the end).
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror
Moderate: Sexual content and Racism
chris_reads's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
1.5
Things happened and I felt nothing.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Classism and Alcohol
Moderate: Drug use, Pandemic/Epidemic, and Sexual content
Minor: Racism and Vomit
alisonfaith426's review against another edition
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Loveable characters? No
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Classism, Sexual content, Cursing, and Vomit
Moderate: Racism
jamiejanae_6's review against another edition
mysterious
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual content, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Pandemic/Epidemic, and Vomit
cheye13's review against another edition
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.
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.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Alcohol, Vomit, Body horror, Injury/Injury detail, and Sexual content
Moderate: Death, Xenophobia, Classism, and Racism
Minor: Cancer and War
body horror mainly regarding teeth; some brief asides detail gruesome deaths unrelated to the main characters; racism is of the casual/ignorance variety rather than intentional crueltygrizzlysnack's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
1.5
The premise of Leave the World Behind is what got me into it. Having to be confined to a little space of land and having no clue what's going on around you, and having to trust complete strangers to reach some sense of normalcy. I feel as though the execution of that premise fell flat.
The omniscient narrator nonchalantly mentions the havoc the six main characters aren't aware of, which was meant to be used as a critical thinking tool for the reader. However, there seems to be no depth or fear that the outside world has on what's going on with our six protagonists.
The mention of teeth falling out, the president being in a bunker, the premature babies dying in the neonatal care unit because of the power outages, the Thorne family never coming back to the house Rose broke into feels as though it's meant to make the reader feel jaded, more than putting any sort of depth or seriousness into the current events. The sex-related scenes were also a little jarring, they almost feel as though an 11 year-old wrote them
Leave the World Behind has an open ending, so take these 241 pages with that information if you're expecting a wrap-up chapter. It's a decent amount of detail without a concrete ending.
The omniscient narrator nonchalantly mentions the havoc the six main characters aren't aware of, which was meant to be used as a critical thinking tool for the reader. However, there seems to be no depth or fear that the outside world has on what's going on with our six protagonists.
Leave the World Behind has an open ending, so take these 241 pages with that information if you're expecting a wrap-up chapter. It's a decent amount of detail without a concrete ending.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Vomit and Racism
Moderate: Child death, Sexual content, and Death
Minor: Confinement and Excrement
krys_kilz's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
This book was a difficult read. The pacing was quite slow and it's mostly character driven. It took me a few days to get through the whole thing. The plot remained vague all the way through to the ambiguous ending and the reader never gets any answers about what's going on.
I understand how that might be frustrating for many readers. Initially I was frustrated too, but as I sat with it after finishing, I honestly found the book's entire concept and execution extremely clever. Alam's writing style was superb and his sharp commentary on the delusion of whiteness, the illusion of safety, the fragility of life, ignorance/denial, and colonial modernity felt very on the nose.
This novel doesn't really feel like a thriller. To me, it reads more as satire with light dystopian undertones. The entire story really zeroes in on the fear of the unknown, of uncertainty especially in the so called "age of information." The overwhelm of not knowing what is happening or what will happen next along with the sheer volume of things that can and are going wrong. And the certain hubris of whiteness that nothing bad can ever really happen to you.
The book's ending perfectly encapsulates those fears by mirroring them back to the reader - providing scant to no clues about what has happened or what will happen next and cheekily asking if we don't know how this will end, how is that different than any other day?
If you go into this book expecting a tense, edge of your seat thriller with lots of conflict and big twists, you will certainly be disappointed. This book is not those things. For me, it was more quiet. Subtle. As Alam says in a profile with Vulture, "I write about the living embodiment of a certain kind of blindness."
I understand how that might be frustrating for many readers. Initially I was frustrated too, but as I sat with it after finishing, I honestly found the book's entire concept and execution extremely clever. Alam's writing style was superb and his sharp commentary on the delusion of whiteness, the illusion of safety, the fragility of life, ignorance/denial, and colonial modernity felt very on the nose.
This novel doesn't really feel like a thriller. To me, it reads more as satire with light dystopian undertones. The entire story really zeroes in on the fear of the unknown, of uncertainty especially in the so called "age of information." The overwhelm of not knowing what is happening or what will happen next along with the sheer volume of things that can and are going wrong. And the certain hubris of whiteness that nothing bad can ever really happen to you.
The book's ending perfectly encapsulates those fears by mirroring them back to the reader - providing scant to no clues about what has happened or what will happen next and cheekily asking if we don't know how this will end, how is that different than any other day?
If you go into this book expecting a tense, edge of your seat thriller with lots of conflict and big twists, you will certainly be disappointed. This book is not those things. For me, it was more quiet. Subtle. As Alam says in a profile with Vulture, "I write about the living embodiment of a certain kind of blindness."
"Ruth had learned only one thing from the current reality, and it was that everything held together by tacit agreement that it would. All it took to unravel something was one party deciding to do just that. There was no real structure to prevent chaos, there was only a collective faith in order."
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual content, Alcohol, Vomit, and Body horror
Moderate: Racism
erika_t's review against another edition
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
1.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual content and Vomit