Reviews with content warning for Racism - Leave the World Behind

Reviews tagging 'Racism'

Leave the World Behind by Rumaan Alam

119 reviews

just_danusch's review against another edition

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mysterious medium-paced

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

2.0

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bloodmaarked'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? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

3* and maybe i’m being a bit generous here. i stopped looking forward to reading leave the world behind after watching the netflix film adaptation (which i also gave 3* over on letterboxd and which, unfortunately, was a pretty faithful adaptation), and then even more so when i spotted the mediocre 3.16* rating on goodreads. however, the randomiser (how i make my most important decisions) gave me this book to read from my tbr, and i spotted that it was thankfully under 300 pages, and so read it i did. and to summarise, it was not disappointing but only because my expectations had already been brought down to a reasonable level.

✧ full review on my tumblr ✧

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starglitters's review

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dark mysterious tense 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

3.5

Tense and unnerving. While the ending does leave a lot to be desired, I certainly respect the artistic intention for ending it the way it does.

What the author would like to convey, I believe, is this: If they didn’t know how it would end—with night, with more terrible noise from the top of Olympus, with bombs, with disease, with blood, with happiness, with deer or something else watching them from the darkened woods—well, wasn’t that true of every day?.

Maybe there would be better execution to the concept and the message that the author would like to deliver, but for now this book deliver it in its own strange and compelling way.

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frozenheartv's review against another edition

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dark mysterious medium-paced

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

3.0

3 stars
🌕🌕🌕

🧠 My thoughts

I’m very disappointed with this book. The premise was promising, the tension-building was done pretty well too, at least it kept me reading to see what was going to happen next. The prose was interesting to read because I haven’t seen this kind in many books but sometimes it could be dry and there were useless fancy words as well. However, it failed to deliver any meaningful details to me, it all fell flat at the end.

It felt to me that the book tried to be deep but couldn’t get there. Maybe there were too many things to talk about but nothing was resolved. The first half of the book felt a bit unrelated to the second half as well. The first half tried to dig into the problems related to racism, political issues, sexism, classism, and so on. However, the second half was more about the story itself, and how the situation developed.

I checked the movie right after reading the book and I thought the movie is far much better. At least, the movie explained why things in the book happened without the disturbing and unrelated sexual scenes.

For example, in the movie they mentioned that Amanda’s work was all about convincing people to buy stuff they didn’t need so that she could sell stuff. This made her become a terrible person as she was, she just hated people and her work. Moreover, the scene where Clay abandoned the Spanish-speaking woman when she was begging him to help her lead to the fact that Ruth didn’t trust white people and she told G.H. to be careful with these people because they might abandon them too if things happened. Even the ending when Rose found the Friends DVD and sat there to watch the series ending was more meaningful. She told Archie before that the world was sad anyway, if there was something happened to it, at least, she wanted to know what happened to Ross and Rachel because Friends made her happy and she was done waiting. That was so relatable and made me feel nostalgic, in the book it was not portrayed like this.

There were more things to talk about here but I think these details are enough to tell you that the movie makes more sense.

👍 What I like

Interesting premise
The prose when it’s bearable

👎 What I don't like

Weird and unrelated sexual scenes
Nothing is resolved, try to be deep but fail to do so
Falls flat and the end

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mel_bee_421's review against another edition

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tense medium-paced

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

1.0

The plot drives the book. Unfortunately, the plot is unrealized. There is random sexual imagery that is out of place. By the end I wasn't rooting for any of them.

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phantomgecko's review against another edition

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dark medium-paced

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

3.0

An interesting character study. I didn't like any of the characters. But their actions and thoughts were interesting to see.

Defos living lives that I cannot relate with.

idk, obvs the point of the book is the people and not what is happening to them, and their personalities are fleshed out and believable. I'd rather have read about what happened than these particular unlikeable character tho.

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irinalast's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense 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

3.0

Dislike what is likely how most people would think, feel, and act when the worst happens. No one is a hero, not much hope in the end.

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ariparip's review

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dark tense slow-paced

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

3.25

I think it would've been better if it had an ending!

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ddclarke's review against another edition

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dark mysterious reflective medium-paced

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

3.25

A literary novel written to sound like a literary novel. Really love the concept and it was pulled off, but without anything that really stood out to me.

Likely hurt by having watched the movie first, which was very faithful and left me little to discover in the pages.

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robynbookworm's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective tense 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

3.75

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