Hello and welcome back! I'm glad you've joined me for my second Reading Review. If you haven't had a chance yet, check out my first reading review of Babel. This week, I'm reviewing Leave the World Behind by Rumaan Alam. Andiamo!
Summary
Leave the World Behind is a suspense/thriller story about a family that vacations in Long Island to escape the hustle and bustle of New York City. Amanda and Clay, the husband and wife, arrive with their teenage son and daughter. However, their vacation takes a turn after an elderly couple shows up and claims to be the owners of the Airbnb. The elderly couple's names are Ruth and G.H. They claim a city-wide power outage has occurred across all of New York City. Ruth and G.H. left the apartment they stayed in when their Airbnb was rented to return to their house, the Airbnb, in hopes of staying safe by getting out of the city. Amanda and Clay are unsure if they should trust them, but the power outage has reached them in the countryside. There is no access to television, internet, or cell service. As the four of them work on trying to trust each other they go to neighbors who also live in the countryside to try and figure out what is going on, only to get the cold shoulder and advised to board up their houses and start saving resources. Amanda, Clay, G.H., and Ruth are unsure of what this means and try to figure out what is going on and what they need to do to keep the kids and themselves safe from whatever is out there.
Literary Information
Leave the World Behind seems to be a very divided book among readers and reviewers. It seems like people either really hate it or really love it. Part of this, in my opinion, seems to stem from the book being a little bit of an experimental piece of literature. It's a slow build to the suspense/thriller portion of the book and once it gets there it takes off. It almost reminds me of a movie structure rather than a novel structure. I don't know if that was the intent, but it seems to be how the story is told and that's why I classify it under experimental. Most of the time with suspense/thriller books the suspense is there at the start, but Leave the World Behind starts as a regular vacation and it isn't until G.H. and Ruth show up that the suspense sets in. It reminds me very much of The Shining from how it is set up.
The story itself teeters between the standard suspense/thriller and touching on real-world issues. It takes you through some discussions and lessons on race, class, and parenthood. It plays with ideas of how relationships are born, forged, and grown through the lenses of a crisis. It also attempts to break down humanity and remind us, at our core, that we are all humans trying to live our lives.
As for the suspense/thriller portions of the book, it does take some time to get into it. Alam builds the world, gives us a glimpse into who the characters are, and then the world falls apart. By the time you get to the end of the book, there have been some worrisome and freaky events happening in the world and with the characters themselves. The book ends with answers but also with questions. That is the best way to describe it without spoiling anything.
Personal Opinion
Overall, I am in the group of people that liked the book. I tend to be sympathetic towards stories that push the boundaries and are more experimental with how they tell the story. I usually give more respect to those authors just for attempting it. That probably has swayed my feelings toward the book. I also read this during the COVID-19 shutdown of 2020 AND while I was hopping between Airbnb to Airbnb while the house we lived in was getting foundation work. So the book felt a little too real and a little too close to home when I read it late at night before bed. That for sure affected my feelings for the book too.
Now, the book does have its flaws. The characters are not super flushed out or grand, the story is pretty linear without much depth to the story, and the prose is a little different than what I'm used to. Reading this book, however, I felt those choices were purposeful. Almost like giving us the chance to be in the characters' spot and form our own opinions of the situation.
Ranking
Now for the part everyone has been waiting for and why you probably scrolled down when you opened this article; the ranking of Leave the World Behind.
Overall, I enjoyed the book and respect Alam's experimental choices. The story's atmosphere stuck with me because of the similarity to the real world when I read the book, but the characters and the story's depth don't go that far. So, my ranking for Leave the World Behind is.....
B-TIER
I'm not sure how much the book would have affected me if I wasn't living in an Airbnb during a pandemic while I read it, but that's just how it happened. And it has stuck with me. Overall, I enjoyed the book despite its flaws and respect the choices that were made. If you can look past all of that and appreciate the choices Alam made and the atmosphere he built, I think you'll enjoy it.
I hope this helps you decide if this book is for you or not. Have you read it? What did you think? Want me to review one of your favorite books? Let me know and I'll see you next week on Reading Reviews!!