One of my favorites of the year! I inhaled this book in 24 hours. It was suspenseful, funny, touching, scary, thought-provoking, and sad. It was (as has been said) the perfect book for our weird times. An insightful look at fate, the wonder of an everyday life, and the relentless worry of parenting. Highly recommend.

I received an ARC of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. I wanted to like this book, I really did. It had an interesting apocalypse premise, but the characters were really one dimensional and other repeated the same dialogue to one another without furthering the plot or building on their own character. The narrative was often long and overly descriptive and seemed to wonder off before making a point. By the last few pages, I was skimming the words just to get to the end, and even then there was no real resolution.

This book was totally bonks and I couldn't put it down. The writing was so smart and the story so big and so small at the same time. I loved it.

Page-turning, suspenseful this book captured my attention from the beginning. The book follows a family on vacation in the countryside. Their second night, a couple knocks on the door stating they own the home and would like to stay. A blackout has happened in the city. What follows is a series of unsettling events that leaves the reader questioning who to trust and what exactly in unfolding. This book was a creepy, slow burn-- in all the best ways.

Depending on just how twisted your mind is, Rumaan Alam's Leave the World Behind may just be the perfect or the most horrible book to read during this unending COVID social isolation. What begins as an isolated AirBnB getaway for a husband, wife, and their two teenage children quickly turns into an exercise in terror and helplessness as the owners of the house show up demanding to stay with them because there's some sort of unknown emergency happening in the city. The house has no wifi, cellphone, or television service so there is no way to know what's going on.
While the author's word choice was at times weird and weirdly sexual (multiple uses of the word tumescent and using the word pudendum to describe a young girl's body), and the marketing really played up the barely existent racial tension of the story, this book was expertly imbued with a constant tension that gripped me until the last page and that I think many will relate to right now.

Unclear whether or not the terrible night's sleep I had after finishing this was due to the book or, um, *gestures around*, but such an unnerving and trenchant social thriller certainly couldn't have helped.

This book is so spooky! It reminded me a little of Parasite, but set in the apocalypse. The writing is really beautiful and lyrical, and some passages have even a little bit of a whimsical quality to them, even though everything happening is absolute horrible. Seriously...something that happens to one of the characters is one of my absolute biggest nightmares. It starts off a little slow but then about halfway through it really ramps up and it's hard to put down. Other reviews have mentioned that it doesn't have much resolution, and this is true- I literally gasped out loud when I reached the end of my e-copy. I can't explain the feeling of swiping to the next page and seeing the acknowledgements when surely there has to be more! But I don't think that is a complaint, I actually thought it was a pretty strong choice. As a result, I went back and read the last two chapters and caught even more details and ended up liking it even more. One thing I think this book pulls off well is the narrator does not think highly of the white characters- like at all. I don't think one good thing is said about them the entire book, all of the descriptions and modifiers are negative, and the commentary never hesitates to reveal less than pure motivations on their behalf. I think sometimes that's hard for me to read, I prefer books that really love its characters, but I think again, this was a strong choice and made parts of the book work.

This book is really something. It is ominous, creepy, beautiful, suspenseful, totally dreamlike....everything at once and also something so singularly unique, like nothing that exists. There has been so, so much speculative apocalypse/climate disaster fiction coming out this year (it seems to be to 2020 what cults were to 2019) but Leave the World Behind really sets itself apart from the same tired narrative. At first I found the narrator a little pretentious - Alam peppers the text with a lot of obscure vocabulary words and allusions - but once I fell into the rhythm of the third-person omniscient voice I was totally enveloped in this story of a family vacation gone seriously dark and couldn’t stop turning the page.

Clay, Amanda, and their two children (white) are renting a house in rural Long Island when the owners of the house (elderly, wealthy, Black) show up in the middle of the night following a blackout in Manhattan. Something is happening; everyone comes to terms with this knowledge in different ways and at different times, but eventually they all accept that something horrible and irreversible is happening and they have to figure out their role in the context of the groups’ response to it. An emotional examination of the state of society, our relationships with technology, and our relationships with each other (both within and outside of family units), this book is a memorable and haunting cautionary tale. I think it will stay with me for a long time.

Thank you to Harper Collins and Netgalley for the opportunity to read Leave the World Behind in exchange for my honest opinion.

This is a story of two families, one renting a home for a vacation and the second, the owners of the home. The owners return suddenly one night, asking to come in because there was a blackout in NYC and they're frightened to go to their apartment in the city. The story follows the internal thoughts of each character as well as what appear to be apocalyptic events taking place around them. The story was suspenseful and intriguing but I felt like the ending left me hanging.

Thank you to NetGalley and the Publisher for allowing me to read this digital ARC.

I loved the writing of this book and how real the characters felt. I couldn't put it down because I wanted to know how it would end for all of them. But the ending left way too much hanging for my taste. The world in the book has clearly changed in a horrific way, but we don't get many clear answers or a definitive ending. Some people may not mind that, but I like things a little more wrapped up than this book provided.

Thanks to Ecco for the ARC.

I can’t say much without giving away major parts of the book, but there are major themes touted in press materials for the book that are not as prevalent as said materials make it seem. It is a book about so many things, but it mostly focuses on how people show their true selves in the face of a crisis — whatever that crisis may be. Focusing on ethno/sociopolitical conflicts between characters is minor and, to be honest, jarring and forced when it does come up. Also, the all-too-omniscient narrator gives too much away of some things (but definitely keeps certain important details hidden), and outwardly mocks characters/the reader throughout. I could go into great detail, but it would be a spoiler.

Great premise and pretty good story, regardless.

Is there such a thing as a pre-apocalyptic novel? If so, this is it! ⁣
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LEAVE THE WORLD BEHIND is a tense, tightly written novel that will surely draw comparisons to the movie GET OUT. During the initial chapters, we follow an upper middle class white family during their vacation at a rented home outside New York City. A few days into their stay, there’s a knock at the door in the middle of the night. The house’s owners, an older Black couple, have arrived seeking shelter after a major power outage in the city. ⁣
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The book unfolds over a short period of time. It is unclear to both the characters and the readers exactly what is happening, but within the confusion, the author has sharp insights about how race and class emerge/intersect during moments of fear. There never seemed to be a true climax or resolution, which is why I feel it’s “pre-apocalyptic”; instead of examining what happens after the end of the world, LEAVE THE WORLD BEHIND explores what happens in the final moments before total collapse. I’m curious how this book will be received when it’s published in October. ⁣
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Thank you to NetGalley and Ecco Books for providing an eARC in exchange for this review.

Thanks to NetGalley and Ecco for an advanced audiobook in exchange for an honest review.

I enjoyed listening to the narrator, Marin Ireland. I did find it a bit bumpy at times going from one chapter to the next and wasn’t sure if a new chapter began or if it the audiobook skipped. After a while I decided I didn’t really care. There were parts of the writing that I enjoyed and the prose could be very descriptive. But most of the time I felt like I was studying for SATs—chapter one had “demimonde” and “talus”. The word choices did not need to be so complex. And I was very grossed out of the pubescent masturbation scene—ugh. The main characters Amanda and Clay were unlikable.

Deeply unsettling in the best possible way, and perfectly positioned for these pandemic time. I know that a number of the images and scenes will stick with me for a long time. All of the characters are so perfectly drawn.

Prepare to be freaked the fuck out!!!

Amanda and Clay along with their two teenage children head out to a luxurious vacation home in the Hamptons. They spend the day lounging poolside, eating, drinking, and enjoying each others company which is easy to do when the wi-fi is so spotty where they are. After enjoying a nice dinner and after the kids have turned into bed Amanda and Clay just want to lounge around after a glorious summer day of sunshine but then there is a knock on the door. This late in the evening? Who even know they are there?

"There it was, undeniable: noise. A cough, a voice, a step, a hesitation, that uncatergorizable animal knowledge that there's another of the species nearby and the pause, pregnant, to see if they mean harm. There was a knock at the door. A knock at the door of this house, where no one knew they were, not even the global positioning system, this house near the ocean but also lost in farmland, this house of red brick painted white, the very material the smartest little piggy chose because it would keep them safest. There was a knock at the door."

At the door are the homeowners, G.H. and Ruth, an older black couple. They have come from their home in the city due to a black out. They felt it would be safer here. Amanda and Clay are hesitant. These are strangers. They may not even be the homeowners but their need to be kind compassionate to these older folks outweighs everything and so they let them in.

That's all I'm saying because everything after this is straight out of a pandemic nightmare.

"You told yourself you'd be attuned to a holocaust unfolding a world away, but you weren't. It was immaterial, thanks to distance. People weren't that connected to one another. Terrible things happened constantly and never prevented you from going out for ice cream or celebrating birthdays or going to movies or paying your taxes or fucking you wife or worrying about the mortgage."

Holy hell this was good, good, good. And freaky. And intelligent - I used my dictionary quite a bit with this one but that's okay because I love learning new words. I will say the ending is abrupt and it looks like some readers aren't enjoying it but honestly I don't think that this author could have ended it in any other way. It's sometimes the not knowing that makes something truly scary. There are so may themes to discuss that this would make an excellent choice for book clubs. 5 *terrifying* stars!

Thank you to NetGalley and Ecco for providing me with a digital ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Leave the World Behind is a book full of unexpected twists and turns that will keep you on the edge of your seat, and keep you turning the pages! It is a book you can not put down, but when you are finished you want to re-read it immediately to glean any detail you may have missed. The novel begins as what appears to be a story about a family on a luxury vacation in the Hamptons, but then with one late night knock on the door everything changes. Rumaan Alam explores family dynamics, questions of race, and overall humanity. The story makes you question the type of person you would be if you were forced out of your comfort zone, and into an unknown world fraught with the possibility of danger at every turn. It makes you consider who you would trust, and who you could count on. This timely and relevant novel leaves you questioning what you would do to keep yourself and your family safe should your world become an unsafe place to live.

A family is staying at a remote AirBnB when the owners of the house knock on the door late one evening. There was a blackout in New York, and they wanted to escape to the safety of their vacation home. Alam describes the two families' struggle to gain their bearings, while alluding to the chaos that's going on elsewhere. That narrator is clever, but the rest of the characters are unlikable and infuriating. It is sometimes difficult to tell who is speaking. The story may have benefited from being longer and going into the implied apocalypse more thoroughly.

This is a rather benign apocalypse novel, which is somewhat a relief as we are enduring a pandemic. Two families, strangers, end up sharing a house after the owners return early from their trip and their renters are at their home, after they hear an explosive sound, and everyone bunkers in the house in this rural area. The couple who own the home drive an $80,000 car, and live in an extravagant home, which makes me wonder why they AirBNB it to strangers, and the other couple end up their for a getaway trip near their home, with their two older kids so they can enjoy the luxurious house and pools in the country, giving them a break from the city.

The author's engaging prose kept me more interested in the novel than the plot: is the world coming to an end, is America at war, what disaster is happening, is NYC still there? More interesting was how the flamingoes found the pool after their stressful day of filling the bathtubs to prepare for the mysterious disaster which they knew nothing of since their internet and TV service no longer worked, and the 16-year-old son falls mildly ill, and the adults find themselves in the hot tub, somewhat inebriated when they hear splashing in the pool, and once again fear the worse, only to find the flamingoes, and they come up with theories about how they surfaced, none knowing much about birds, but from that point onward, whenever someone vomits, the vomit is pink, and we are forced to remember the flamingoes. A neighbor mentioned he saw hundreds of deer cross his property that same night, and I wondered what would have happened had these two families witnessed the deer instead of the birds.

The novel ends without readers knowing what is happening, and we are to see that this is just how life is, another day, another reaction, and the teenaged daughter somehow seems to have everything figured out, while the family wonder where she is and desperately search for her, as she proudly takes things from a house in the woods to prove not only her bravery, but that she's responsible, and we are left wondering what happens to these families, their teeth (you'll see), their future...

What a whirlwind...I found myself constantly wondering, along with the characters, what in the world was going on with the world. Is this the end of the world? And if so, in what way? And what do we do as it happens? "Leave the World Behind" took these questions to such interesting places as what starts out as a thriller dealing with a mysterious couples' intrusion into a families vacation evolves into so much more.

Well, I'm wrecked now. This was my first book by this author and I can't fathom waiting a few weeks for my hold on her first book to come in. Gorgeous writing and immaculate character building.