Leave the World Behind

This book had so much advance buzz. It was recommended on a literary site that I read, so I bought this and couldn\’t wait to dig in.. What a let down. I found the writing style odd and disjointed. In the first chapter, the author kept saying \”Vacations make you horny\” What ?? The story was meandering and implausible. A family of 4 from NYC, Amanda, Clay and their two children, rent a luxury vacation home on rural Long Island. Early into their stay, cell phones, TV, internet, all cease to function. Something is wrong. Something big. A knock at the door in the dark of night. GH and Ruth Washington, the owners of the home present themselves and sleep in the basement suite. They drove in from NYC, seeking refuge. What happened in the outside world is never really explained. Nuclear war? Terrorist attack? Who knows? The book also ended abruptly and in an unsatisfactory fashion.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Bloomsbury Publishing for a free ARC of this book. I\’ve never read this author before but took a chance when the book description pulled me in. Right off the bat, I\’ll say that this is likely to be one of those Marmite books–you either love it or hate it with no middle ground. The style of the prose annoyed me immensely and I had to persevere. However, I soon grew used to it. A few statements irked me: for example, \’He wore […] those brown pants every man over thirty-five wears.\’ Nope, actually, I rarely see a man of any age wearing brown pants as a matter of course. Add to that the whole page given over to what the wife bought. Yes, you read that correctly … a WHOLE PAGE. …. \’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 … \’ yada yada yada. But then, in complete juxtaposition, I loved some lines: for example, \’filed away in cyberspace, a shelf they could not reach.\’ (Of course, we\’ll need to ignore the comma splice there.) And another line: It was a whisky old enough to vote.\’ At about the halfway point, and certainly in the latter 25%, the tension picked up and had me gripped. Sadly, though, we never do find out what\’s happened. No clue what the actual catastrophe is, aside from the odd hint buried here and there in the vastly flowery prose. A final point is that the narrative is told from omniscient point of view, which leads to chronic head hopping. However, the author did this well enough that I could get along with it for the most part. Only a couple of times did I have to stop and re-read to ascertain who\’s head I was in at a particular point. What didn\’t work was that the voices of the kids read exactly like the voices of the adults. All in all, it\’s an okay read but not my cup of tea. I\’d classify this as descriptive literary fiction. It gets 2 stars from me. *** NOTE ON RATINGS: I consider a 3-star rating a positive review. Picky about which books I give 5 stars to, I reserve this highest rating for the stories I find stunning and which moved me. 5 STARS: IT WAS AMAZING! I COULD NOT PUT IT DOWN! — Highly Recommended. 4 STARS: I WOULD PULL AN ALL-NIGHTER — Go read this book. 3 STARS: IT WAS GOOD! — An okay read. Didn’t love it. Didn’t hate it. 2 STARS: I MAY HAVE LIKED A FEW THINGS —Lacking in some areas: writing, characterisation, and/or problematic plot lines. 1 STAR: NOT MY CUP OF TEA —Lots of issues with this book.

Oh, I’m trying so hard to even “ like” his writing style. It’s one line after another of adjectives, nouns, adverbs jumbled one after the other in what is giving me a headache trying to find a point in this stupid story. Jenna Bush, you are wrong on suggesting this book for your book club. I’m editing my review. I feel like I’ve been duped such as paying pricy admission to a movie and then sitting in the theater thinking, Hollywood pushes such crap and we fall for it. This is another example, this book. If a movie is made, we are all being duped by junk. Tv show, movies, books are being RECREATED because there seems to be low grey matter on new ideas and thought. How did this book even get published? I’m so glad I purchased this bore from Amazon as I can return it and get my refund. I refuse to let this so called author pocket my hard earned money. Hate it. Good Halloween read by butt. This guy must be a friend of Jenna Bush promoting crap/movie .

While the plot premise could have made for a good story, the writing in this book was atrocious. Detail upon detail that didn\’t add to the story. Conversations that couldn\’t be followed as to which character was speaking. Unnatural switching between thoughts of each characters. The ONLY thing that kept me reading (albeit, skimming towards the end) was to see if it would say what had happened. It doesn\’t. It appears that no editing had been done at all. I read a LOT. Not many books fall into the worst category. I was irritated that I paid so much for a kindle version – will never trust an Amazon suggested for you book again.

The writing was terrible, made me more agitated than the confusing story. Characters were annoying and completely unrealistic. If this was one of the most anticipated books of the fall I must begin to question any recommendations. What a frustrating waste of money

Galaxyaudiobook Member Benefit

- Able to comment

- List watched audiobooks

- List favorite audiobooks

- Bookmark will only available for Galaxyaudiobook member