Reviews with content warning for Child death - Leave the World Behind

Reviews tagging 'Child death'

Leave the World Behind by Rumaan Alam

20 reviews

deanchaudhri's review against another edition

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challenging mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

3.0

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emory's review against another edition

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challenging dark sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

A horrifyingly amazing read, with a terribly inaccurate summary on the back! I was expecting a run of the mill thriller but was beyond satisfied with the shockingly relevant horror of two families facing what might be the end of the world.

The writing, while seeming unnecessarily ornate at the beginning of the novel (before the narrative reaches its point), is gorgeously poignant and haunting. My only complaint is the writing sometimes tilted into purple, with words clearly added only to show off the vocabulary of the author ("alee" to describe the inside of a Starbucks?), and the strange fixation and return to sex and what sex could metaphorically represent for these characters. Annoying, but not damning, and worth slogging through for the story itself.

The use of dramatic irony of knowing what is really happening while the vividly human portagonists stumble through figuring out what is going on, their dynamics with and what they owe to one another, and what course of action they have to take carries the novel to it's gut wrenching relevance and takeaway. A story couldn't be more frightening in the current climate of knowing how bad it is, knowing society's place perched on the edge of disaster, that something's about to give. Alam's masterful prose wanders through the particular scenario of a family finding out you can never really look away.

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bandysbooks's review

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dark emotional mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

A group of characters observing the end of the world

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ellenlemon's review against another edition

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mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

I think I should preface this review by saying I’ve just finished this book in March 2022, when at current we are just coming out of a global pandemic and the prospect of a major war in Europe is all too real given the invasion of Ukraine. That said, for me personally, I struggle with anxiety and a sense of impending doom, this probably wasn’t the right book for me at the moment!
It’s a good book, well written (albeit too many fancy words used), and the story keeps you interested. I like the difference in the families and found the characters quite easy to imagine as actual real people. Honestly I think if I wasn’t such an anxious person right now I would rate this higher. I think I would recommend this but to the right kind of people.

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franknforter's review against another edition

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reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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sarah984's review against another edition

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challenging dark reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

There were some things here that had the potential to be interesting - the "guess who’s coming to dinner" scenario with the white people who desperately want to believe they're not racist (or that they don't SEEM racist, these characters are preoccupied with seeming) but resent the class/race divisions not going the way they would expect, the mundane weirdness of living through a disaster, some of the things with the animals. However, the prose is extremely dense, full of short sentences, weird metaphors and unpleasant sexuality, and in the end it just kind of felt like a chore to read it. It also drove me insane that they spent all that time complaining about not knowing anything but refused to listen to the radio.

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