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 * … 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?
more
I did not like this book. It schlepps along, telling the story of a family of four vacationing in another couple’s home (like a VRBO rental situation.) Shortly after the family arrives, a couple identifying themselves as the homeowners knocks on the door asking for refuge from “something” that has happened in the world. The book continues to unfold with awkward dialogue and social interactions between the strangers, foreboding & foreshadowing, mysterious sounds and illness, inability to make contact with anyone else, ramblings of “Could it be…” and “Maybe it is…” and “Should or shouldn’t we …” This is the ENTIRE book, and it ends with NO RESOLUTION WHATSOEVER. I wanted to throw it across the room when I finished it (but it would have ruined my Kindle.) Save your money. Leave this book behind.
Leave The World Behind is that rarest of things, a beautifully written, emotionally resonant page-turner. Alam explores complex ideas about privilege and fate with miraculous wit and grace.
Amanda and Clay rent a vacation home in the middle of nowhere to escape the city. They plan to spend the week there with their children, Rose and Archie. A day into the trip, there is a knock at the door and a couple appears, announcing themselves as the owners and asking if they could stay there. Something has happened, there is no cell phone, no internet or TV and NYC is in a blackout. Without any ability to get information, the two families only have each other. Can they trust each other and learn about what happened?
This book is a slow read with a very slow-moving plot. Also, the character development is only superficial at best. I didn’t feel I knew them very well at the end either. There seemed to be pages describing the house, everyone’s genitalia, and the pantry.
At the end, I am still not sure what happened. The book lacks closure as well. It was an interesting premise. If you are looking for a thriller as this book seems to be categorized as, this isn’t your typical thriller. There wasn’t any sitting on the edge of your seat, anxious to turn the page. It was more a human study when the end of the world seems near, while lacking the strong character development that was needed.
Fantastic! Hilarious and nerve-racking. Excellent mix of humor and suspense. A white upper middle class family rents an Air BnB in the NY countryside to get away from the world. One night, the black owners of the house show up claiming that NYC had lost all power and possibly they were under attack. This premise leads to witty and prescient notes on race, class, trust, family, and technology. Without phones, internet, or tv, everyone is rendered equally inept. The story is of this particular moment mentioning current politics and world events and Daniel Tiger. Pretentious at times, but full of meaningful observations. A very fun and engaging read! Highly recommend!
I loved this book from page 1 on! Completely enjoyed every bit of it. Author was so descriptive and accurate on the portrayal of Long Island, had to have taken a lot of research. I look forward to reading more from this author.
Leave the World Behind by Rumaan Alam is an apocalyptic novel. I found the idea for the novel fascinating, but it was honestly more disturbing than interesting. The writing is choppy and does not flow well. The ending?? Oh my. Not at all what I expected, sadly. I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher with no obligations. These opinions are entirely my own.
Depressing.
A different type of “end of the world” book. Thought provoking. Almost scarier than the action packed apocalyptic thrillers.
First off, I paid full price for this book, because based on the synopsis I was expecting a whole lot more from the story. It was just a flat-out boring book. None of the characters were particularly likable, the limited story development was super slow& uneventful. Not an enjoyable or entertaining book.
Honestly read this book super fast because I was dying to know what happened but hated all the characters and hated how it ended.
Interesting novel with some the best, creepiest use of an omniscient narrator I’ve ever seen. It’s a slow-building horror story that seems to be about the inevitable banality of actually living through an apocalypse — especially when dumb luck has put you at a seemingly safe distance from it and you don’t know what the hell is going on. (Nobody does, because the phones and TVs aren’t working.) It’s all underplayed in a way that reminds me of Shirley Jackson, but it’s also a bit of a comedy of manners for the end of the world, in that two families, White and Black, are forced to make nice with each other and maybe even find common cause. A good read if you can stand a fairly open ending that leaves plenty of questions, not to mention a plot that manages to work in a lot of the stuff of our everyday nightmares.
The first 150 of 232 pages was pretty good, but then it nose-dived into a repetitious downward spiral and never recovered. I do not recommend this book, unless you like disappointment
At its core, this book is about human connection and how far we will stretch our compassion for others. This story gets to the deep, dark truth of these characters and challenges the reader to explore similarities within one’s self. This author’s prose are what kept me gripped to the book. Not for the faint of heart, but a story I found interesting and self-reflective.
Very disappointing.
Boring and pointless.
It was one of the scariest books I’ve read. It was not science fiction and there wasn’t a monster in sight. I read the book in a day because I literally could not put it down. I wondered, each time one of the characters did something,how I would have reacted in their situation. I also loved the way the author interspersed events happening around the world that the characters had no way of knowing that they were happening. I went to bed believing a catastrophic event had occurred ….. and I had no idea what it was.
I loved the writing style. Characters were great, story was nicely paced. But I did not care for the ambiguous ending.
Very dark, in a very dark time.
The book had me right until the end.
Terrifying. I especially liked how the author built tension out of the unknown. The story felt realistic to the premise.