Kurze Inhaltsangabe
Amanda und Clay wollen mit ihren beiden Kindern eine unbeschwerte Ferienwoche auf Long Island verbringen. In einem Haus am Ende der Welt, weit weg von allem. Doch mitten in der Nacht steht dort plötzlich ein älteres, schwarzes Ehepaar vor der Tür. Die beiden behaupten, das Haus gehöre ihnen. Sie berichten, dass ganz New York im Dunkeln liege, das Leben an der Ostküste komplett lahmgelegt sei. Hier draussen jedoch, an diesem abgeschiedenen Ort, ohne Internet, Handy- oder Fernsehempfang, wissen Amanda und Clay nicht, was sie davon halten sollen. Können sie den beiden trauen?
Rumaan Alam hat einen modernen Klassiker geschrieben. Einen brillanten Gesellschaftsroman, der sich mit den brennenden Fragen unserer Zeit auseinandersetzt - mit der Irrationalität unseres Lebensstils, sozialem Status, Rassismus und mit einer Welt, die unerwartet aus den Fugen gerät ... ( )

This book is closer to a 2.5 rating. I feel like this book, had the opportunity to have such a psychological pull within its plot; however, there were too many things left, obscured or for my imagination to make up that left me feeling like the story was incomplete. There is potential for this plot to go somewhere, but I feel like it just kept dropping in engagement. This was a book I listened to the audiobook for on my way to and from work. If the book was in hand I probably would have DNF the book. I am happy that I completed it, but I’m not sure I would recommend it because it feels incomplete. I picked up this book so that I could read the author’s perspective of the plot before watching the upcoming movie that will be released. I usually watch anything that Julia Roberts is in and will still watch this film, but I’m not as excited for it as I was before reading the book. The stars were for potential of plot, setting, and type of story. ( )

This book feels like the first third of a thriller/post apocalyptic book. The prose feels kludgy to me, but the worst part is that it just kinda... ends. Suddenly. With absolutely zero conclusion. The characters don't grow. They don't change. There are no discoveries. Several characters start out to do something (the daughter goes off outside and everyone is looking for her, several characters are driving to town because the brother is sick and they need help) and it just STOPS. No resolution. No idea what happened. What?! Definitely did not care for this at all. ( )

I listened to the audiobook of Leave the World Behind by Rumaan Alam AFTER watching the movie adaptation on Neflix.
I'm glad I did! I enjoyed them both, for different reasons.
The cinematography in the movie definitely lent to the story (more of a disaster movie vibe which I love).
The book was more of a slow burning what's going on/implied impending disaster/thriller.
I was surprised by the differences between the book and the screenplay, especially the character of Ruth. The racism seemed more blatant in the movie. ( )

Those first few days are disorienting. You don't know what exactly is happening. You don't know what exactly is changing. You don't know what exactly will have changed for good on the other side. You don't know where the other side is. No one can tell you. You cling to any normalcy you can. Unsettled, your emotions can be precarious.

Alam's novel completely inhabits this space, making for the most anxiety-personifying novel I can recall reading in a long time. And as if it's not enough that his central characters are confusedly facing a world where suddenly, to quote Yeats, "all changed, changed utterly", he forces them together in a rural vacation home with two complete strangers of different race, class, and generation, which would be an anxiety inducing social negotiation in its own right in the best of times. What chance could they have to navigate it gracefully in this situation?

It's the last time. You don't know that. There's always a last time. You'll not know when it is. It seems quotidian and unremarkable, but if you're able to look back later, knowing it was the last time, you may find it miraculous.

Rose was at the kitchen island with a bowl of cereal. Amanda remembered (it was not so long ago) when the girl had needed adult intercession to fetch the bowl, fill it, slice the banana, pour the milk. She had tried not to resent it at the time; she had tried to remember how fleeting those days were. And now they were gone. There was a last time that she had sung the children to sleep, a last time she had wiped the feces from the recesses of their bodies, a last time she had seen her son nude and perfect as he was the day she met him. You never know when a time is the last time, because if you did you could never go on with life.

She bought yogurt and blueberries. She bought sliced turkey, whole-grain bread, that pebbly mud-colored mustard, and mayonnaise. She bought potato chips and tortilla chips and jarred salsa full of cilantro, even though Archie refused to eat cilantro. She bought organic hot dogs and inexpensive buns and the same ketchup everyone bought. She bought cold, hard lemons and seltzer and Tito's vodka and two bottles of nine-dollar red wine. She bought dried spaghetti and salted butter and a head of garlic. She bought thick-cut bacon and a two-pound bag of flour and twelve-dollar maple syrup in a faceted glass bottle like a tacky perfume. She bought a pound of ground coffee, so potent she could smell it through the vacuum seal, and size 4 coffee filters made of recycled paper. If you care? She cared!

I went to a concert. I went to a bar. I went out unmasked.

Our pandemic time will pass soon now but there could be some inflection point coming. We won't know when we're doing something for the last time before whatever's coming has come. We'll be here, in this novel. These characters will not find their known world coming back. It will not resume. It provokes great empathy for them as they struggle. We would struggle. Perhaps our kids would do better.

G.H. knew her. It had been decades! "I think it's something we're going to laugh about when we hear what it was. That's what I think." He didn't think this. But it was right to lie sometimes.

Rose wasn't brave. Kids were merely too young to know to look away from the inexplicable.

( )