A beautifully unsettling literary fiction with creepy and compelling writing
—Amanda Khong, Bookish Brews
Bookish Brews Snapshot
Leave the World Behind by Rumaan Alam
Amanda and Clay just want a vacation away from everything, but things don’t go as planned when they get a knock on the door in the middle of the night from a couple they don’t know…
💫 Atmospheric 📖 Couldn’t Put It Down 🎢 Thriller 📕 Literary Fiction
Book Review
Creepy, unsettling, atmospheric, brilliant, mundane, impressive, thought-provoking
I feel like I spontaneously picked up Leave the World Behind because I was really itching for another short audiobook. This book hit the spot. It’s simple, creepy, and incredibly written. The best part is that it’s a quick read, so it’s the perfect binge read. Being able to finish an entire book in one sitting (or in one day) is my favorite and this one you could do just that.
Leave the World Behind is the story of Amanda and Clay as they take a family vacation to a remote but luxurious house in Long Island. Pretty quickly into their vacation, they get a knock on their door in the middle of the night. It’s an older Black couple who have arrived in a panicked state, saying that this is their house, and speaking about a big blackout in the city even though the power in the house works. Can Amanda and Clay trust this couple? Should they let them stay? How do they know what to believe?
The absolute brilliance of this book is the writing. The way that the author can describe completely mundane tasks that still make a statement on white supremacy is simply stunning. Simply describing a shopping list manages to be compelling. It highlights the mundane pieces of white supremacy, a side of it that we don’t often ever see in literature. I was blown away the entire time by the social comments that managed to slip their way into descriptions of inanimate objects in a way that I have never seen before.
Another stroke of brilliance in this book was the way that it uses fear. Fear is not given in what is written, but in what is not written. The entire book shows only small pieces of what is happening in the world, and the reader is left to speculate on the rest. Just as Rumaan Alam manages to be compelling in the mundane, he also manages to keep you on the edge of your seat by giving you just the right amount to keep you interested and not an ounce more. The balance was stunning.
The horror in Leave the World Behind leaves much up to the imagination. It forces the reader into gaslighting themselves into believing nothing could be happening (Seriously, mid-book I asked Sarah if anything was happening at all). Everything that happens is something that you can explain away as if it didn’t happen. However, as the story progresses, things get more and more unsettling. Fear sneaks up on you and makes you question the entire book. It truly gives you the same unease as a reader as the main characters must feel. Exceptional!
Leave the World Behind is truly written wonderfully. Even though not much happened, the writing is compelling enough to keep you on the edge of your seat. The brilliance of this novel is in the writing and the way that it leaves so much to your imagination, but encourages you to imagine the worst. Chilling!
Book Club Questions
- What is the significance of the deer that keep popping up? Have you seen this happen in any other book or movie? Quickly google the symbolism of deer and discuss your findings. How does that change what you thought of them during your read?
- How did you feel about the way the author presented the mundane side of white supremacy? What statements do you think he was trying to make on race and class? Did you feel uncomfortable at any point?
- Hypothesize what you think was happening in the world outside of the remote home that the characters are staying in. Did all of your assumptions match up? Did you all have different ideas of what was happening to the world? Discuss the similarities and differences between all of your hypothesis and try to figure out why they differ.
