Thanks to Ecco for the ARC.

I can’t say much without giving away major parts of the book, but there are major themes touted in press materials for the book that are not as prevalent as said materials make it seem. It is a book about so many things, but it mostly focuses on how people show their true selves in the face of a crisis — whatever that crisis may be. Focusing on ethno/sociopolitical conflicts between characters is minor and, to be honest, jarring and forced when it does come up. Also, the all-too-omniscient narrator gives too much away of some things (but definitely keeps certain important details hidden), and outwardly mocks characters/the reader throughout. I could go into great detail, but it would be a spoiler.

Great premise and pretty good story, regardless.

Is there such a thing as a pre-apocalyptic novel? If so, this is it! ⁣
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LEAVE THE WORLD BEHIND is a tense, tightly written novel that will surely draw comparisons to the movie GET OUT. During the initial chapters, we follow an upper middle class white family during their vacation at a rented home outside New York City. A few days into their stay, there’s a knock at the door in the middle of the night. The house’s owners, an older Black couple, have arrived seeking shelter after a major power outage in the city. ⁣
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The book unfolds over a short period of time. It is unclear to both the characters and the readers exactly what is happening, but within the confusion, the author has sharp insights about how race and class emerge/intersect during moments of fear. There never seemed to be a true climax or resolution, which is why I feel it’s “pre-apocalyptic”; instead of examining what happens after the end of the world, LEAVE THE WORLD BEHIND explores what happens in the final moments before total collapse. I’m curious how this book will be received when it’s published in October. ⁣
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Thank you to NetGalley and Ecco Books for providing an eARC in exchange for this review.

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.

Deeply unsettling in the best possible way, and perfectly positioned for these pandemic time. I know that a number of the images and scenes will stick with me for a long time. All of the characters are so perfectly drawn.

Prepare to be freaked the fuck out!!!

Amanda and Clay along with their two teenage children head out to a luxurious vacation home in the Hamptons. They spend the day lounging poolside, eating, drinking, and enjoying each others company which is easy to do when the wi-fi is so spotty where they are. After enjoying a nice dinner and after the kids have turned into bed Amanda and Clay just want to lounge around after a glorious summer day of sunshine but then there is a knock on the door. This late in the evening? Who even know they are there?

"There it was, undeniable: noise. A cough, a voice, a step, a hesitation, that uncatergorizable animal knowledge that there's another of the species nearby and the pause, pregnant, to see if they mean harm. There was a knock at the door. A knock at the door of this house, where no one knew they were, not even the global positioning system, this house near the ocean but also lost in farmland, this house of red brick painted white, the very material the smartest little piggy chose because it would keep them safest. There was a knock at the door."

At the door are the homeowners, G.H. and Ruth, an older black couple. They have come from their home in the city due to a black out. They felt it would be safer here. Amanda and Clay are hesitant. These are strangers. They may not even be the homeowners but their need to be kind compassionate to these older folks outweighs everything and so they let them in.

That's all I'm saying because everything after this is straight out of a pandemic nightmare.

"You told yourself you'd be attuned to a holocaust unfolding a world away, but you weren't. It was immaterial, thanks to distance. People weren't that connected to one another. Terrible things happened constantly and never prevented you from going out for ice cream or celebrating birthdays or going to movies or paying your taxes or fucking you wife or worrying about the mortgage."

Holy hell this was good, good, good. And freaky. And intelligent - I used my dictionary quite a bit with this one but that's okay because I love learning new words. I will say the ending is abrupt and it looks like some readers aren't enjoying it but honestly I don't think that this author could have ended it in any other way. It's sometimes the not knowing that makes something truly scary. There are so may themes to discuss that this would make an excellent choice for book clubs. 5 *terrifying* stars!

Thank you to NetGalley and Ecco for providing me with a digital ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Leave the World Behind is a book full of unexpected twists and turns that will keep you on the edge of your seat, and keep you turning the pages! It is a book you can not put down, but when you are finished you want to re-read it immediately to glean any detail you may have missed. The novel begins as what appears to be a story about a family on a luxury vacation in the Hamptons, but then with one late night knock on the door everything changes. Rumaan Alam explores family dynamics, questions of race, and overall humanity. The story makes you question the type of person you would be if you were forced out of your comfort zone, and into an unknown world fraught with the possibility of danger at every turn. It makes you consider who you would trust, and who you could count on. This timely and relevant novel leaves you questioning what you would do to keep yourself and your family safe should your world become an unsafe place to live.

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. Alam describes the two families' struggle to gain their bearings, while alluding to the chaos that's going on elsewhere. That narrator is clever, but the rest of the characters are unlikable and infuriating. It is sometimes difficult to tell who is speaking. The story may have benefited from being longer and going into the implied apocalypse more thoroughly.

This is a rather benign apocalypse novel, which is somewhat a relief as we are enduring a pandemic. Two families, strangers, end up sharing a house after the owners return early from their trip and their renters are at their home, after they hear an explosive sound, and everyone bunkers in the house in this rural area. The couple who own the home drive an $80,000 car, and live in an extravagant home, which makes me wonder why they AirBNB it to strangers, and the other couple end up their for a getaway trip near their home, with their two older kids so they can enjoy the luxurious house and pools in the country, giving them a break from the city.

The author's engaging prose kept me more interested in the novel than the plot: is the world coming to an end, is America at war, what disaster is happening, is NYC still there? More interesting was how the flamingoes found the pool after their stressful day of filling the bathtubs to prepare for the mysterious disaster which they knew nothing of since their internet and TV service no longer worked, and the 16-year-old son falls mildly ill, and the adults find themselves in the hot tub, somewhat inebriated when they hear splashing in the pool, and once again fear the worse, only to find the flamingoes, and they come up with theories about how they surfaced, none knowing much about birds, but from that point onward, whenever someone vomits, the vomit is pink, and we are forced to remember the flamingoes. A neighbor mentioned he saw hundreds of deer cross his property that same night, and I wondered what would have happened had these two families witnessed the deer instead of the birds.

The novel ends without readers knowing what is happening, and we are to see that this is just how life is, another day, another reaction, and the teenaged daughter somehow seems to have everything figured out, while the family wonder where she is and desperately search for her, as she proudly takes things from a house in the woods to prove not only her bravery, but that she's responsible, and we are left wondering what happens to these families, their teeth (you'll see), their future...

What a whirlwind...I found myself constantly wondering, along with the characters, what in the world was going on with the world. Is this the end of the world? And if so, in what way? And what do we do as it happens? "Leave the World Behind" took these questions to such interesting places as what starts out as a thriller dealing with a mysterious couples' intrusion into a families vacation evolves into so much more.

Well, I'm wrecked now. This was my first book by this author and I can't fathom waiting a few weeks for my hold on her first book to come in. Gorgeous writing and immaculate character building.

Tackles the end of the world with quiet precision. A book about the invulnerability of selfishness, the insidiousness of stereotypes, and our inability to face what's in front of us. This book, which must have been drafted a couple of years ago, is frighteningly prescient. Alam imagines America imploding and white people hoping they'll still be able to get a reservation at their favorite restaurant. Whelp.

The end of the world? We don’t know but we suspect it is. A family vacationing hears a loud boom, the next morning hundreds of deer show up, then flamingos. The owners of the vacation house show up to be a bit of sanity. What is going on? No phones, no television, but out in the country there is electricity, lights and water. It seems safer to stay put and one little girl seems to know what to do, but she is only a little girl and no one listens to little girls.
Dark, sad and very end of the world. Well written, beautiful descriptions but it doesn’t look like there will be a happy ending.

Wow! Thrilling, thoughtful, and unlike anything I’ve read before. If left me wanting more, but this book will stay with me!

Such a sneaker of a dark horse book! I was so taken aback at how wonderful Leave the World Behind was! Even reading the grocery lists was interesting. It was so atmospheric and eerie with just an impending sense of doom throughout. I did feel a little incomplete at the end, I wanted a little more "this is what happens and why" but at the same time, I had no problems drawing my own conclusions thanks to a really well thought out book!

I had to sit on this one for a few days to think about because I couldn't decide on a rating. Aside from the sometimes long winded details (that grocery list) I was hooked right away with this book. It could have been shorter without all the extra verbiage or longer if more was added on to what had happened. (I am still not sure what exactly happened in the end).

I honestly don't know how to describe this book because it's got a lot of underlying themes going on. However, I will say that it was very tense and given what's going on in the world right now, particularly frightening! Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the arc copy.

Loved this book! Thank you so much for the advanced copy. I think that the story was intriguing and claustrophic. It really kept me on my toes and I was dying to see what happened.

It’s been awhile since I spent time with horror literature. But I got a tip from a good friend of mine who knows me well, i.e. how I was a big H.P. Lovecraft fan and how I just had to see “Get Out” three times to make sure that I caught all the nuances. She said that I must read “Leave the World Behind” by Rumaan Alam. And, oh, how right she was.

It didn’t take long to get into the rhythm. It’s not just Alam’s use of character and plot, it’s more language and syntax. There are lots of short, choppy, staccato sentences. Word choice is spot on alliterative, clever, and creepy.
I’m not one to get into debates about genre but, suffice it to say that “Leave the World Behind” is way more than lost in the woods horror. There is serious treatment of race, class, gender, mental health, and climate change among other topical themes. Nothing is slapped on and added for effect. It all fits together until nothing fits together.

You tell me what happens next. Maybe a sequel. Definitely fodder for a mini-series. Excellent stuff.

Thanks to Harper Collins and NetGalley for the eARC. Much appreciated.

Leave the World Behind by Rumaan Alam is a suspenseful work of literary fiction. It starts slowly with Amanda and Clay renting a remote country house to spend a vacation with their teen children. As the story progresses, the owners of the rental home seek shelter due to a dramatic blackout on the east coast, so they arrive unannounced after dark. The drama increases after their unexpected arrival as suspicions arise and mysterious catastrophic world events unfold. This novel reminded me of a Twilight Zone episode where communities will either unite or dissolve due to suspicion and paranoia of the unknowable "enemy" and I found it to be cinematic in its scope. There are underlying threads of racism, current US politics, and survival of the fittest.

I am rating it a 4.5 because I feel like several elements could have been explored a bit more and the ending felt abrupt, but I recommend this book to those who enjoy suspenseful gothic narratives.

Advanced copy provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This book - oh my goodness. What started as a slow burn - a wealthy family goes on vacation from NYC to a rural Air BNB rental - kicks into high gear and I could. not. stop. reading!!!
Enter the couple that actually owns the Air BNB home. At first, I was convinced that they were not friendly, this has to be the plot twist that spells out doom right? Nope!
Enter in some sort of power outage, blackout, possible war or terror attack that is outside in the world and since there is no news source available - these folks have no clue what is going on - and neither do we!
The author seamlessly weaves little hints and glimpses about the exterior world events, but we never do really get a full picture of what is happening.
Meanwhile, there are animals migrating in herds and a weird illness has struck one of the household members too.
This book was riveting - I could not put it down. The ending left me unsatisfied as there are no concrete answers and no real closure provided. I am sure this was purposeful, but it left me a little Meh at the end since I was so heavily involved with the plot.
I would give this a 5 if not for the ending, ultimately it's a 4.5 for me but I'll mark as a 5.
Great read, stays with you!

good novel about parental anxieties. a bit slow to start, and there's not nearly as much thought given to race as there should be--does crisis cause prejudice and power to melt away? I don't think so.