Leave the World Behind- A Read with Jenna Pick by Rumaan Alam
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Web ID: 13393326Perfect
Completely unique, smart, and chilling
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Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
Not For Me
I love post-apocalyptic novels where there’s an information blackout and the characters are trying to figure out what happened and how to survive. While this had all of those things, the story was not for me. The writing was overly wordy and didn’t create the tension that was the intention of this. In particular, the scene where the knock on the door comes, the conversation that follows was overly drawn out and painful. There’s a lot of sexual references and connotations that seem to only be there to try to add complexity to the story which falls short and are out of place. Not at all what I wanted it to be.
Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
THE UNINVITED
New Yorkers Amanda and Clay are renting a house deep in the woods for a vacation with their kids. When an older black couple shows up at the door one night claiming to be the owners--and that they're fleeing a massive power outage back in New York that has left everyone in the dark--the questions are obvious: ARE they the owners? (Amanda and Clay have never met them.) What if they're dangerous? What if they mean to do them harm? There are unmistakable echoes of "The Cabin at the End of the World," particularly at the beginning, but that's where the similarity ends; Rumaan Alam is far more interested in race, class, and parenthood--childhood and survival--than in subjecting us to excessive violence and chilling, end-of-the-world zealotry. His focus is entirely on his characters, while what is happening outside the house (and elsewhere) is very much on the periphery of the action, hinted at but nothing more. (A common technique: showing a character trying to go about their day as normally as possible before switching--often in the same paragraph--to the horrors that, unbeknownst to them, are taking place elsewhere.) What has caused the blackout no one knows for sure, but all they can do, without their TVs and computers and telephones, is wonder, and worry, and speculate. The closer I got to the end, the faster I turned the pages. Like "The Cabin at the End of the World," this is a book that may make you want to climb into bed, pull up the covers, and hide. It's terrifying, and it's a winner. Read it.
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Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
Not like anything I've ever read.
I really enjoyed reading this book. It kept me on the edge of my seat. I liked that he wrote about was in the characters minds, while they were not verbalizing it. I was shaking my head agreeing with so many of the characters observations. I now want to read his other books.
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Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
Save your money and your time
I normally do not write reviews, but I felt compelled to write a review on this book for the sole purpose to save someone's time and money. This book was a chore to finish. There were several times throughout the book where I wanted to just put it back on my bookshelf, but I hate not finishing books. The characters in the book were very shallow and never fully developed in my opinion. This book left the reader with several unanswered questions, but even if the author were to write a follow up book, I don't think I could bring myself to read it. The ending was very anticlimactic. What happened to Archie? Rose? Why did Clay and G.W go to that house at the end? What was the point of it all? No only did the book leave you on a cliffhanger (and not in a good way) the author was very pretentious in his writing. There were also several unnecessary descriptions that added zero depth to the story.
Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
The Climax Was Missed…
I was led on to the ending pages of this book, waiting for an ending that never happened. Rumaan is an AMAZING writer. The way he strings words together is beautiful. But the ending? Underwhelming!!! He gets the terror part right but fails to actually deliver the hype of the terror. Maybe it’s because I finished this book two years into the pandemic but I’m highly disappointed.
Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
Leave The World Behind
Awful. Awful.. just trash.
Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
I want my money back
The summary and reviews were so positive and promising but after I finished I am more angry that I wasted money on this story. Pretentious, judgmental, at some points predictable. The author took so much time describing things we did not need or did not add to the story. There is no ending and I get that they were trying to get us to question everything but all it did was make me frustrated.
Customer review from barnesandnoble.com