Leave the World Behind

A Novel

By: Rumaan Alam

Narrated by: Marin Ireland

Length: 7 hrs and 26 mins

Publisher's summary

A Read with Jenna Today Show Book Club Pick!

Finalist for the 2020 National Book Award (Fiction)

A Best Book of the Year From: The Washington Post * Time * NPR * Elle * Esquire * Kirkus * Library Journal * The Chicago Public Library * The New York Public Library * BookPage * The Globe and Mail * EW.com * The LA Times * USA Today * InStyle * The New Yorker * AARP * Publisher's Lunch * LitHub * Book Marks * Electric Literature * Brooklyn Based * The Boston Globe

A magnetic novel about two families, strangers to each other, who are forced together on a long weekend gone terribly wrong.

From the bestselling author of Rich and Pretty comes a suspenseful and provocative novel keenly attuned to the complexities of parenthood, race, and class. Leave the World Behind explores how our closest bonds are reshaped—and unexpected new ones are forged—in moments of crisis.

Amanda and Clay head out to a remote corner of Long Island expecting a vacation: a quiet reprieve from life in New York City, quality time with their teenage son and daughter, and a taste of the good life in the luxurious home they’ve rented for the week. But a late-night knock on the door breaks the spell. Ruth and G. H. are an older couple—it’s their house, and they’ve arrived in a panic. They bring the news that a sudden blackout has swept the city. But in this rural area—with the TV and internet now down, and no cell phone service—it’s hard to know what to believe.

Should Amanda and Clay trust this couple—and vice versa? What happened back in New York? Is the vacation home, isolated from civilization, a truly safe place for their families? And are they safe from one other?

©2020 Rumaan Alam (P)2020 Harper Audio

This book left me cursing!!

This book builds and builds and builds leaving you with question after question. Then just like that ends and gives you nothing!!

Compelling

** spoiler alert ** Wow, this book is compelling. In it, some horrible but unidentified event has occurred which is affecting the whole world. I was so intent on finding out what it was and what the “big problem” was, that I really powered through the whole thing. I do love being that excited about getting through a book! However the big shock is that the reader finds out NOTHING at the end. The big problem is still unidentified! It was like a metaphor for life: the final lesson is that one doesn’t know how it’ll turn out and has to keep on living day by day and doing one’s best to stay on top of things, NO MATTER WHAT. In this case there was a LOT to deal with, but the lesson is the same. SO… that’s life, and it can be scary.

The big terror in the book is like the pandemic in a way. It’s a horrible problem enveloping the whole world and it seems to be getting worse, not better. It is scary and it causes people to behave toward each other in ways that are very revealing of their character, just like in this book. The characters in the book each seem to revert to their own stereotypical behavior in how they deal with the terror.

Even though I enjoyed reading the book, I didn’t much like the writing; I felt it was pretentious. Who uses the vocabulary words synechdoche, pudendum, susurrus? And the metaphor, “the laptop was hot enough to intubate tumors in her abdomen.” That irritated me. Also, I didn’t appreciate the writer’s air of superiority in putting the characters down for their normal, if shallow, ways of life. Amanda and Clay are portrayed so negatively, but really they are just a couple of pretty normal people. Aren’t we all?

The other issue I had was that after the story was set up and the two families were both inhabiting the country house, there is really little else that happens. The writer has to draw out the story by delving into the characters’ inner lives, past, feelings etc. In the mean time, all the reader wants is to find out WHAT IS HAPPENING to the world. It could just be me and my impatience, but I found myself skimming past the characters’ actions or inner thoughts about their past, etc. I just wanted to get to THE PROBLEM, whatever it was. And then… nothing happens. I do get the message about living life to your fullest each day, but… what a disappointment after all that set up.

Ask yourself these questions

This book is about a world-altering event, experienced as it unfolds by two families stuck together by circumstance. Alien invasion? Terror attack? Virus? A foreign country's surprise act of war? We learn a little bit more than the characters, but not much.

I’m seeing a lot of poor reviews from people who can’t tolerate not learning every single detail.

So. Do you _need_ to know what the event is? Who or what caused it? How we plan to fight back, if we even can? The ultimate outcome, months or years or decades in the future?

If you answered no, this novel is for you. Let your imagination fill in the blanks. The story was gripping enough without explaining everything. And Marin Ireland continues to be one of the best narrators around.

It might be well done but I’m too depressed to be sure

This book would be best for a book club selection, since it has so many topics to discuss, or for someone who’s mood is so positive that they need something to take them down a little. It’s a decent book but I didn’t necessarily enjoy it. I can see its merit though because it held my attention and is technically good, just not for me.

What Matters In the End?

I must have been misled by reviews as I thought this was a story about racial tensions between two families--and while there is some of that, briefly, in the beginning, the novel actually turns out to be a

stop if you want nothing spoiled

a dystopian disaster story in which the previous tensions melt away as the families realize the world is ending and are drawn to support one another through their common humanity.

Leaves you wondering

This is a book that you either love or hate. There are no pet answers as to why everything is happening, and if you want a book that has everything neatly tied up in the end you will be disappointed. It leaves you with a desire to know what happens next, but you have to only imagine it. I loved the way the author developed her characters so vividly. She is a very descriptive writer.

Medicine for covid

The book is framed as “timely” — and it is. I found the terror this book conjures to be a strange balm for the pain of 2020. I worried he couldn’t possibly land the finish...but know that he does.

Impotent Plot

Struggled to finish. Impotent plot "supported" by unbelieveable characters and unchallenged events. Omnicient narrator scurries in to resolve the mess but explains nothing except that something realky did happen. Waste of time.

wow

This is all I will say - this novel is NOT what I'd expected after reading media reviews. I'm glad the reviewers didn't spill the beans, so I won't. This is a very engrossing book, and the narration is superb.

Meh

I kept waiting for something, anything, to happen and it just never came. The book was boring, incredibly boring.