My thanks to Bloomsbury Publishing U.K. for an eARC via NetGalley of ‘Leave the World Behind’ by Rumaan Alam in exchange for an honest review.

This novel left me reeling! It’s a restrained work of literary speculative fiction, yet extraordinary in its scope. It is almost play-like in its small cast of characters and the atmospheric woodland setting.

New Yorkers Amanda and Clay head with their teenage son and daughter for a holiday in a remote corner of Long Island where they have rented a luxury home for the week. Yet as they are settling in there is a late night knock at the door. Standing there are an older couple, Ruth and G.H. Washington, who announce themselves as the house owners.

They are in a panic and bring news that a sudden blackout had hit New York City causing them to head back to their country home. Yet with the internet and TV down and no phone service, can Amanda and Clay trust this couple?

That Amanda and Clay are white and middle class and the Washingtons are black and wealthy bring aspects of racism and class into the narrative. At one point Amanda thinks to herself: “This didn’t seem to her like the sort of house where black people lived,” and then questions why that thought had so easily come to her. After some awkwardness the two couples work together in order to figure out what’s going on.

Odd things happen, including the local deer behaving in strange ways. Then there’s the noise. “This was a noise, yes, but one so loud that it was almost a physical presence, so sudden because of course there was no precedent. There was nothing (real life!), and then there was a noise. Of course they’d never heard a noise like that before. You didn’t hear such a noise; you experienced it, endured it, survived it, witnessed it. You could fairly say that their lives could be divided into two: the period before they’d heard that noise and the period after.”

The hope that this is just something minor and explainable contrasts with the universal narrator providing tantalising glimpses of events that are occurring in the wider world.

I consider this one of the best novels that I have read in 2020. Given its release during the pandemic, it effectively identifies the disquiet running through society and even the denial of reality evident in some quarters.

I expect that it will be quickly hailed as a modern classic to stand alongside works such as Cormac McCarthy's ‘The Road’. I also feel that its multilayered narrative and accessibility will make it a popular choice for reading groups. I certainly will be suggesting it to mine for 2021.

No surprise given its quality and topicality that it has been quickly optioned by Netflix.

I don't even know what genre this is. Is it horror? Psychological thriller? Apocalyptic? Family drama? I'd say that "Leave The World Behind" is all of these and more. Rumaan Alam's nerve-wracking novel is terrifyingly plausible. The tension just continues to ramp up throughout, worsened by the fact that we don't know exactly what's going on. I hear there's a major Netflix production in the pipeline so I look forward to that too.

This is a shape shifting book. It begins as a thriller. Amanda , Clay and their children have hired an Air B and B house in a rural location well away from the city. On their first night a couple arrive who claim to be the owners who want to stay as some sort of mass blackout has happened. Should they trust GH and Ruth the black "owners"?

Already the author has taken an anthropological approach, dissecting social class, attitudes to race, parenting and much more. Now the novel shifts shape again as it becomes apparent that there has been some sort of disaster and none of the adults knows what to do. The son becomes sick and there are strange phenomena like 100s of deer, flamingos in the pool, a strange loud noise.etc. With no links to the outside world what can they do?

In the novel Suite Francaise, Nemirovsky looks at what happens when Paris is evacuated and the "trappings" of society mean nothing in the struggle for survival with basic human needs of food, water and shelter. Alam does some of this and hints at worse to come.

I was wondering, like the characters, about the nature of the disaster. Was it terrorist related, linked to climate change or something else?

Amanda and Clay are well "dissected" but I am not sure that enough attention was given to GH and Ruth, maybe because of the plot impetus?

However it was a thought provoking, twister of a book about what it is to be human.

The Clay family are on holiday in a remote location, they have indeed left the world behind for a short time. When news of a blackout in the city pops up then disappears, a strange couple turn up on the doorstep and contact is lost beyond the immediate, things take a dark turn.

This is a bit of genius plotting – the author on occasion offering the reader more information than the protagonists have – so each thing that is happening on the page holds deeper resonance. At the same time it is a compelling look at how we form bonds under pressure and also has the sense and atmosphere of any edgy thriller and intriguing mystery.

I won’t give anything more away but Leave The World Behind is a literary page turner, with fully formed, layered characters that engage and an underlying sense of unease that stays with you long after you’ve reached the intelligent, pitch perfect finale.

Highly recommended.

When Amanda and Clay, with their children Archie and Rose, rent a home in a remote area for their summer holiday, they do not anticipate a late night visit by the homeowners bringing distressing news whilst asking to stay the night. The host/guest dynamic is tipped on its head as homeowners must work to persuade their renters to take pity on them. No one is clear what has happened but it is no small thing as hints dropped throughout the novel lead the reader to believe it's seriously troubling.

There are two elements that make me rate Leave the World Behind with 5 stars. The first is its rawness. There are no feelings, thoughts or activities that are off limits here which is refreshingly different. Initially, it felt too intimate - I am not sure I am comfortable with Amanda pondering her children's farting and belching - but it transforms the invasion of her family's personal space by the unexpected arrival of the Washingtons into a transgression on another level. Family comfort has no bounds but that limit is challenged when guests are present. As the world seems to shut down around them, no one would expect the lack of internet and gps to be such a monumental thing, but it is. Frightfully so. We, as people, are so reliant on tech that we simply cannot function without it. Not knowing what has happened becomes a specter worth fearing in a time when we are so used to having any information we desire in a moment's notice. The fear of the unknown is a raw thing that means something different to each character. What makes for a crisis? What should we do when we feel under treat but have no solid facts to back that up? This novel really made me think.

The second element, that kept me transfixed by this novel until the last page, is the subtle feel of menace. For a book where not much happens, emotionally this novel is a roller coaster. We face the unknown from the perspective of a family who want to flee back to their home in Brooklyn and that of G.H. and Ruth who are home and want to stay here. The menace dripping from each page is not that of a creature or killer but of...well, what? We don't know. And that makes it even scarier. Not knowing what to fear makes the characters, and me as a reader, dissect every little thing looking for a place to direct fear. It's so well done! The edginess made me shift my alliance from Amanda and Clay to Ruth and G.H. Maybe it was their mature perspective or their comfort level with the location and lack of knowledge but I did find Amanda and Clay rather poor parents who had no chance of safeguarding their children. The contrast between the two really made this book sing. I honestly loved it. Though it felt a bit stressful it was such a good read.

I just couldn’t get into this one. I made several attempts and it just wasn’t capturing my attention. I can see its beautifully written and evocative with intelligent themes but right now I’m getting nowhere. I suggest checking out other reviews than mine as to whether you might like this book since I did not manage to finish it.

With echoes of Station Eleven in the way it confronts the human impact of a globa event, Leave the World Behind is a beautifully crafted, emotionally insightful novel about how humans react when faced with uncertainty. When New York experiences a blackout and unsettling things begin to occur, neither an academic nor a senior financier can comprehend what is happening to the world around them. Knowledge is no longer power, and expectations are flipped.

....what did I just read?

First things first. The language is lyrical and involved; Rumaan has obviously thought very carefully about every sentence in here. The language is thoughtful and absorbing.

The story is intriguing, but it's a strange mix between not enough being explained to us and too much being explained to us. The characters have no way of gaining any information about what's happening anywhere outside the house. That's fine; that's a great idea, actually, an apocalypse at ground level, so to speak. But the narration breaks off every so often to tell us about people drowning in the subways of New York, or that the man who ran their laundromat is trapped in a lift and will die 'many hours in the future', things that the characters can't possibly know. Point of view seems to jump between characters in the same scene, too, which can be confusing.

The narration makes a point of telling us that one character was bitten by a tick, so we're expecting illness, a staple of apocalypse. The actual illness doesn't seem to have anything to do with the tick, though. Misdirection is classic in writing, but this feels like straight up lying.

And of course, the ending. It doesn't; it stops instead, with nothing solved, even the minor problems of the moment. (Sick character on the way to hospital, missing child; neither is resolved by the end.) Life isn't always wrapped up neatly, of course, but books stopping instead of finishing is a peeve of mine. Maybe there's going to be another novel to wrap things up.

The language is good, the story idea is clever, but the execution just didn't work for me personally.


BE AWARE this novel contains sexual language and situations.

I was so excited to read this book, the burb made it sound amazing. Unfortunately I did not enjoy it. I didn't like the writing style and just coouldnt get on to it. Definitely not the book I was expecting.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC.

This may not have been the best time to read this book, as it definitely didn't help my low-level pandemic anxiety! But that's to Alam's credit, as he creates an atmosphere of tension and apprehension that pervades the narrative. The characters discover how they really would react in a crisis and the random flash-forwards give the reader an omnipotence that only increases the tension in the plot. Maybe not one for anxious readers to delve into right now, but it definitely resonates with the current situation.

I was really looking forward to reading this book as I’ve heard so many good things about it. Clearly the glowing reviews must have been referring to another book altogether. I love dystopian fiction and fiction that takes the end of the world as a springboard. The blurb for this book sounds amazing. Unfortunately, the whole thing is poorly executed. The language used throughout the book is very dense and overwritten, almost to comic effect. I don’t think it was supposed to be funny. I also don’t see the need for a reference to genitalia to be shoehorned in every couple of pages. Maybe I missed the point but this is not for me.

This would be an extraordinary book to read in normal times. In 2020, it is almost too much to take. Don't look away: read this book that tells you so much about the state of modern America.
An affluent white family go to an Airbnb house in the Hampton for a short break. Everything seems fine until one night when the owners of the house knock on the door. They are black. The mother of the white family does not expect a black family to own that sort of house.
That would be enough drama for most books. As the two families have to co-exist, terrible things happen not far away. We do not learn what they are and the world we know is over. Read on.

~ Leave The World Behind by Rumaan Alam ~

The concept of this book should have been really interesting. A white family are on holidays in an AirBNB in Long Island, when the black couple who own the place arrive in the night insisting there's been a blackout and that the city isn't safe.

I had been looking forward to reading this book, especially considering I hadn't seen one negative review on it on instagram. However, after five chapters I was wondering if I should leave the book behind. But I thought I should give it more of a chance...

Look, the idea was there but the prose was overwritten and largely inconsequential. I spent a lot of my time reading this book laughing at the overly verbose language and shaking my head at the constant allusions to genitalia. slide into my DMs if you want some laughable quotes.

I don't like posting negative reviews. I think if you're looking for some 5h1ts and giggles then definitely go for this book. You might even think it's a thrilling page-turner. However, I personally felt hoodwinked into reading it and wanted to post an honest review.

⭐

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A curiously inconclusive ending to this book but one that does in fact make the growing sense of a deep, dark future - if indeed there is one - all the more sinister. Good character portrayal with a realistic, honest and blunt sense of how just such a situation could affect regular individuals.

This is a book where not a lot happens but it's still brilliantly weird and attention grabbing. Set over 3 days it's tense, claustrophobic and the sense of panic is overwhelming. With phones, internet and TV not working, Amanda and Clay  have no idea what's going on. They feel helpless without information. They have to take the word of these strangers who have turned up in the middle of the night. Often I find the scarier situation is not knowing what is going on, the fear of the unknown, rather than the author spelling it out. I love the mystery. As the reader we do not know whate fate is going to bestow on these people.

I liked how the relationships changed between the two couples. They are relying on each other, safety in numbers and it definitely does feel safer to stay in the house. As one couple are white and one couple are black, I liked the social commentary on racial stereotypes. And I agree with one newspaper review which said it had undertones of the Jordan Peele movie Get Out.

Reading this book now, in the middle of a pandemic does give a heightened experience. The author drip feeds us information of the terrible things that are happening in the outside world. But we don't get any answers. In fact, for the majority of the book, we don't know what's going on, but that makes it all the more weird and wonderful. A great example of the genre.

This book was really really enjoyable. Massively unnerving, tense and possibly not the best choice to read during an already claustrophobic pandemic. It’s fairly short, perhaps too short as I felt as though it lacked a real punch beyond invoking a lot of tension. A lot is touched on, briefly, but never really explored. You can tell the author wants to speak to parenthood, race, class and humanity, and he begins to but never really fully delivers. I’d have like it to be fleshed out a little more but otherwise it definitely managed to spook me out!

I didn’t finish this one. I found the style so annoying, I just couldn’t continue. I’ve seen all these wonderful reviews in goodreads, but this novel is not for me I’m afraid.

How would you react if there was a major blackout and you had no way of finding out what has happened? This book is a definite page turner but I did find the first half of the book was stuff full of obscure and complex words that didn’t really need to be there. This tailed off towards the end of the book so maybe Rumaan had lost his dictionary by then! I am also not sure the sexual references really fit with the book. However, I did enjoy it but not sure I will be rushing to tell everyone about it. I can imagine if this is made into a film by Netflix it will get everyone talking about it!

An interesting read about a family going on a break to a house in the middle of nowhere. The owners turn up with an excuse to be there which starts everything in motion. A family drama with racism and class wars thrown in. Enjoyable read

Many thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the chance to read this book, which I finished in two sittings. I loved it, wanted more, and cried at the end, which weirdly felt like not the end.