A review by epeolatri
Leave the World Behind by Rumaan Alam

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

1.5

Okay, I can see what this book was trying to do. It’s rare to read books about the start of the end of the world, and for that it’s unique and interesting. The characters were terribly boring and so one-dimensional. I didn’t care even a bit about any of them. The use of the third person omniscient narrator had its purpose when it could give us small bits of information on what was happening in the world outside these two families, but other than that I feel like it did a disservice to the story. Had it been written in first person maybe the urgency of the situation and the terror the characters felt would’ve seemed more real to the reader. I was mostly annoyed at their choices and the way they only ever seemed to talk about what they should do but never actually did any of it. This book needed more action and less words. 
On that note, the author really really likes his metaphors and similes. Without them this book could’ve been about 100 pages shorter. An entire two or three pages were just a list of what a woman bought at the grocery store. The author also seemed weirdly obsessed with sex. At least three times I was made to read through a paragraph of a character masturbating, one of which was a minor. There was a description of a thirteen year old in a bathing suit that made me very uncomfortable. I’m not sure why the characters genitals were deemed so important to the plot. 
This book should have been a lot of things, but ended up just a weird, overly wordy mess that I barely managed to get through. Maybe the netflix movie will be better. 
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