What do you do when the world is an upheaval? How will you react? I listened to the ARC audio version of this book. Amanda and Clay and their two children rent an Airbnb just outside of New York City. Hoping to enjoy their vacation from the city, all is well until one night when their doorbell rings in the late night. The story of how people react when everything they know to be true and right is thrown away during a blackout and something being "off" in the world. This is a tense, well-written story that will have the reader questioning their own ability to survive when nothing in the world remains as you have become accustomed to.....this is a difficult read during our COVID-19 pandemic, but also so appropriate for our times.

Review of NetGalley audio edition:

The book finally got interesting around half-way in. A mysterious "happening," let's call it, terrifies Alam's main characters to their core. Each individual internally tries to make their own sense of what happened and also as a group they falter to come to any logical explanation. Is it the rapture? A missile? A plane crash? Innumerable possibilities are argued until eventually fear overshadows all.

It's an existentialist's thriller. The tidbits of narration about what is happening at the same time in other parts of the world is creepy in the way that thriller books need that peppering of creep throughout.

At the end of the audiobook, as soon as the "end credits" music started playing I said, "That's it?" I expected it to be fleshed out at least *little* further.

This book had some interesting moments but overall I wasn’t a fan of the book. It is certainly an AirBnB rental that doesn’t go well. It could be stuff of nightmares. Not only do the owners (so they say) show up late at night, but they bring bad news,<i> something</i> is going on out there. What, exactly, no one can say for certain. Being in a secluded area, no cell service or tv, it could be anything.
Suggestions are made, a few alerts popped up before all information is cut off. Yet, the book turns not so much as an apocalyptic but, a study into what does a family, or two, do when thrust in this odd situation.

Each character gets a moment of being the center focus of the omniscient narrator. It is smart and jabs at stereotypes, classism, racism, and stuff of everyday life. Things are revealed that none of the characters will ever know, at least in the confines of this novel. And yet it is the unknowing that pulls the story along.

The end I found unsatisfying and mediocre, somewhat how I felt through a large portion of the book. For myself it may be the genre or type of book this is, or trying to be, that isn’t what I’m much of a fan.

This book does feel like it will reach a wide audience and likely many will enjoy it much more than myself. I can recommend the book, if only for your own experience, to discover if this is what you like, or don’t.

I listened to the audio book and found the narrator handled the material very well. Her voice changed enough for character distinctions. I would give the narration a 4.5 stars.

Leave The World Behind is a tense piece of literary fiction that explores how we react when we know that *something* has gone terribly wrong. Amanda and Clay have rented a house in the Hamptons for a getaway with their two teenage children. When the owners of the house, an older black couple, unexpectedly appear with vague news of a blackout in the city, Amanda and Clay are at a loss. Amanda’s instinct is distrust, though eventually they let Ruth and George in and try to figure out what’s happening. There’s a light exploration of racial tension near the beginning, when Ruth and George first appear at the house, but I wish it was something that had been pushed a little more. I think the two couples had the potential to create a bit more conversation about both class and race. However, Leave The World Behind is steadily builds tension until the reader absolutely has to know what is happening in the world. Rumaan Alam impressed me very much with his prose and storytelling. The vagueness of the ending was okay with me, I didn’t mind not knowing all the details of the pending apocalypse. I think Alam hinted at just enough to keep readers engaged.

Marin Ireland was an excellent, steady narrator.

3.5/5

A relaxing family vacation in a luxurious rental, out in the country, the perfect escape from Brooklyn. A pool, a well appointed kitchen, a classic summer forecast. Sounds appealing, right? What do you do when you are on vacation, and on a stormy night, the internet goes down (though the power stays on) and the owners of the rental home appear, stranded and "asking" to stay in their home in the in-law apartment while they wait out the storm. Do you agree? Do you begin to like them and somehow feel comforted by them? Can you trust them? Add an unexplained explosion, illness, a blackout and you might wonder about the genre of this novel. Could this be bigger than their immediate inconvenience?

I listened to Leave the World Behind while I was on vacation, in a vacation home on an island, with the owners present. Just as I reached the part where the owners in the book arrive, the guests for the next week arrived, a day early. Yikes!

Leave the World Behind was hard to stop listening to, and I say that not liking any of the characters and finding it difficult to invest in them. Just as the abundance of grocery lists and gratuitous sex tempted me to give up, there would be a plot twist that surprised me and I just had to continue. I saw how those details invited me to see the materialism and narcissism of the family, how they made me think everything was normal and going to be just fine. What I thought was an OK thriller turned out to be a very suspenseful story with a dystopian edge that had me very relieved to return home!

Wonderfully creepy end of times story set in bucolic Eastern Long Island. A family vacation turns horrible wrong when numerous suspicious events occur while cut off from the external world.

This is a deceptive novel. What appears on the surface to be a simple story of a family on vacation morphs into a narrative about humanity, shared fear, misconceptions of people and more. Married couple Amanda and Clay, residents of NYC, rent a B & B for a summer vacation, along with their 2 children. It's a sunny, summer day. A normal day. A normal day that they take for granted, but never will again.
Normalcy ends when the owners of the home, Ruth and G.H suddenly appear on the doorstep in a panic. They can't, or won't describe why they are panicked, only that they fled NYC to their country home. And that they need to stay there. But Ruth and G.H are not the ones that bring the end of the lives that they all take for granted. Something else did.
This book is reminiscent of the novel Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel in that the story is about the people and not what has devastated the world.

The narrator does a superb job.

Well-paced, thoughtful and suspenseful story. When an unexplained blackout strikes New York, two different families find themselves suddenly thrust into each other's intimate company in a remote vacation house in the Hamptons. The twin tension of the unknown threats from inside and outside will keep readers on the edge of their seats. The narrator does an excellent job of pacing for the audio book.

I'm honestly left disappointed by Leave the World Behind. The premise was interesting enough, and there were surely parts where I was truly drawn in. The not-so-subtle racial divides present feel almost like a last minute addition to the plot, and while I can see where the author was going I dont think it was successful. The resolution and ending of the big mystery was very anticlimactic even without getting any solid answers and I dont care enough to wish for more. The author's use of snippets describing a couple of the characters' genetalia and sex and masturbation just were unnecessary. The saving grace that got me through the book was honestly the narration.

A family on vacation in a rented home. In a moment -- with a knock on the door -- everything changes -- and keeps on changing.

This story kept me enthralled until the very end. The narrator did a great job with each character and gave them distinct personalities and voices that fit very well. I appreciated that this wasn't a 100% dystopian story, just a threat of it and the possibility that it might be right around the corner. That's something we can all appreciate -- and fear -- these days!

Two families, strangers thrown together in a strange predicament, face an unknown future. Just the right amount of eerieness and suspense make this a terrific page turner but also a searing character study.

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.

Leave the World Behind grabs you right from the beginning, and it mostly delivers on it's promises.

Alam's writing style is chatty and realistic, and it feels "contemporary." The characters are likable, but not so likable as to be unrealistic. They come across as individuals and not stock characters. This is the story of a family arriving at a remote rental house for a week's vacation, and it quickly takes on a creepy and (maybe?) menacing tone. To say much more would necessitate spoilers. I will say that the plot is intriguing and keeps you wondering what will happen next... but, in the end, not a whole lot actually happens. I can't decide, though -- does that make the tale even creepier? It's been a few days since I finished, and I'm still thinking it over. That counts for something, I guess.

3.5 stars. Would recommend.

This is one of those stories that you think is going in one direction and then bam! it gets flipped on its head. Picture a Brooklyn family of four on their way to a remote Long Island estate eager to pretend this luxurious rental house is theirs. It is quiet, the pool is heavenly and as they drink and relax they think - this is the life. Enter the couple that really owns the house who return late that night instead of heading to Manhattan due to a huge power failure that is sweeping the city leaving them no choice but to return to their Long Island home. Soon the two families begin to believe things are more serious than they originally thought. This feels like a social experiment gone wrong as we take an intimate look at two families that couldn't be more different, trapped in a potential apocalypse. Masterfully written and increasingly tense, it will leave you with your mouth hanging open wondering what just hit you. My thanks to the publisher for the advance copy of the book. I listened to the audio and the narration was perfect.

I received a free ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I had been hearing a lot about this book and was happy I was approved. The writer, who I haven't read before, had an interesting writing style. At times, I did find it a little confusing and hard to follow. That may just be because it was in audio format. I thought the content was timely with people responding to an emergency. I was a bit disappointed by the ending. I felt like a lot had been unresolved. I enjoyed the narrator. She was good about doing different voices for the characters and emoted well.

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. The text of the book is at times confusing, and it's difficult to keep speakers straight. The audiobook narrator does a fantastic job of making the text easier to understand. The book itself is underwhelming, and the characters are unlikable.