Leave the World Behind | 
so-soWow, this novel wasn‘t a favorite of mine. Two very different families are thrown together in a world that is colliding together. The given facts and explanations of things occurring seem far fetched yet in some ways possible in the world we currently live in. I feel COVID may have assisted in my own thoughts of a potential future this unusual, leaving the reader hanging on to what? Sanity or insanity! 3.5/5
pickThis one left me wondering “so what the heck happened next?” It ended pretty abruptly, but I guess that‘s part of its charm, the reader has to fill in the blanks.
pickMostly a pick, but I do need to sit on it some. It‘s strange and different and I dug the vibe, I‘m just not sure of the ending right now.
panThe worst writing ever. 1⭐
(The background wallpaper makes sense if you've read the book.) See the movie instead, I've heard it's better.
Currently reading for movie/bookclub.
The writing is sooo bad.
"Well, the sun was shining."
#FirstLineFridays
@ShyBookOwl
I've only read the first 4 chapters but this isn't appealing to me at all. I don't usually give up so quickly but I'm thinking I might this time.
pickUnpopular opinion: I loved this book.
I‘ve read so many reviews saying that it‘s boring, pointless, etc. and I suppose that they are sort of right in that nothing is really happening. Something has happened in the world, the characters don‘t have any way of knowing exactly what happened, and they are trying to navigate their fear of this new, unknown reality within the scope of their mundane, flawed lives & selves. But it‘s so beautifully told.
so-so2⭐I listened to the book and a few days later, I watched the movie. This may be one of those rare instances where the movie was better than the book. The overly wordy writing style did not bog the movie down, but I can‘t say I liked either of them. With many added scenes; the movie gave the consumer a few more clues as to what might be going on…although they both left you feeling very…unenlightened and left me with a general feeling of uneasiness.
pickThe tagged is not a Christmas book, and did not help me rack up word search points lol, but it was an excellent read. can‘t wait to watch the movie this weekend.
I will get some holiday fun in this post. One of my favorite ornaments is handmade ❤️
#wintergames #USS #UglySweaterSquad
#christmasornamenthunt
so-soAn odd book but I enjoyed it for the most part 😊
Read for reading prompts
3.75/5
pan⭐️⭐️
This was...not good. The writing was just over the top and pretentious. The idea was promising, but it never delivered. And there were way too many unanswered questions. Audio narration was ok
(4hours x 5thons x 10) +11 = 211 for team #spookyghostclub #scarathlon @clwojick
#rushathon @Andrew65 @GHABI4ROSES @DieAReader #31by31 @Catsandbooks #bookspin @TheAromaofBooks #falling4books @Read4life #littenlisten @aperfectmjk
panThis was a book I knew from the first few chapters what I was in for and it wasn‘t for me
pickThis book is impossible to categorize, a family drama, a thriller, an end-of-the-world novel? It's all of those things. It's insular, giving us a glimpse of 2 families at a Long Island vacation home when technology stops working. We know little except their reactions. It struck me as so human and personal, yet somehow detached in the writing. This book is so hard to explain, but it was also excellent. Not a lot of answers, but beautifully written.
Next up.....cosy blanket included! It's a mixed bag of reviews on this one but many of the reviewers with similar tastes to me seem to like it so 🤞
pick⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ This has been on my tbr since it came out and I finally read it 😅 It was a little slow toward the middle but by about 70% I couldn‘t put it down. I really enjoyed the tension the author created, and how realistically I felt he played on people‘s distrust of each other and even racism. I would not recommend this to people who have to understand what‘s happening - there is no resolution and a lot is unexplained. I‘m weirdly ok with that.
panNot my favorite. It had promise, but got a little dark and Sci fi like about the end of the world. The ending didn't resolve anything in the story and I was simply left with questions.
pickA pick because it was compulsive listening to find out what was happening, what was going to happen. Alas, it was infuriatingly slow too! 😜
Outside my wheelhouse for sure, but the premise was intriguing enough to lure me in. Speaks to human nature on several levels.
“We‘re just a bunch of adults who don‘t know anything about birds.”
“Enjoying a moment is a victory. I think we need to hold on to those.”
“You never know when a time is the last time, because if you did you could never go on with life.”
“Perhaps that was why, in his estimation, true intelligence was accepting how limited one‘s intelligence always is.”
1. Several Christmases ago I read Mystery In White. A classic Christmas locked room mystery where a blizzard causes the setup
2. The tagged book is about a NYC blackout. They‘re sometimes caused by natural weather phenomena & sometimes not, but having lived through citywide blackouts I can say that to NYers it feels a little like being stuck in a dangerous blizzard in the country
3. When I had a fireplace it was ❄️, now 🤷🏻♀️
#sundayfunday
The narrator is oddly misanthropic, as well as keenly aware of the low grade climate anxiety many people feel. He or she divulges tantalizing bits of information that the characters lack about the mystery that has befallen them.
I picked up Leave the World Behind because Sam Esmail is adapting it into a movie. It's part of the vacation-gone-strange genre. The narrative uses a lot of free indirect discourse, but constantly pivots from one character to another because it's more of an ensemble cast than a book with a single protagonist. The narrator conveys a lot of the perspective of each character but in an acerbic, ironic, almost disdainful way.
pickThat was fantastic!
Took a bit to get used to the style of writing but so very worth it.
Definitely giving this to the daughter next!
pickThis was an interesting vignette into how people would react in an emergency. The book as a whole is commentary on society, how people see themselves, see others, react in a crisis when it feels like the end of the world was triggered. We never know what disaster befalls the world, only getting slightly more details about it beyond what the characters know. It inspires you to think how you would react to this situation. I'm still not sure.
I don‘t know anything about this one but the title sounds intriguing.
so-soSomeone come get me, I'm still at the edge of this cliff!
This novel asks us to face our unconscious (and sometimes conscious) biases when in the face of crisis. Would your actions change when the situation becomes life or death?
Is this book about the apocalypse? A warning against too much screen time? World War 3? Radiation poisoning? Global warming? ... the answer is...
so-so3.0 ⭐️ I have no clue what I just read, but also I couldn‘t stop reading it…that was an interesting experience!
~ L for #AutumnAtoZ
~ Unreliable narrator for #PromptMaze
~ Theme Read and Clue Prompt for #Scarathlon #TeamSlaughter
This one is a pan for me. It wasn‘t a thriller and I found it boring. Probably wouldn‘t have finish it if had been a full length book. #teamslaughter #scarathlon @Clwojick
pickWholly unsettling, yet incredibly captivating. Tension was palpable throughout, and the ambiguity of the ending lends an extra layer of "choose your own terror". Enjoyed it!
My only critique: The author needs to rely less on his Thesaurus - it often feels as if he chooses a random word, and finds the most obscure, complex synonym to use in its place. It was distracting and felt inaccessible, in spite of my own expansive vocabulary.
pickWhat kind of nightmare scenarios were writers coming up with in 2020? ‘Leave the World Behind‘ for one. This modern story mixes family dynamics, race and social class with a slowly creeping sense of dread. At times the writing was bit pretentious but the story was intriguing and third person omniscient insights were perfect. Read if you‘re in the mood for something unnerving.
This is currently in production as a Netflix movie.
pickEntirely unsettling, but it‘s a pick for me. I know the ending (or non-ending) is a point of contention for some. For me, I‘m good with not knowing what happens but being left with enough clues to guess at a couple of outcomes. Alam sprinkles in details about what‘s going on in other places across the US that are really interesting, but I definitely could‘ve done without the unnecessary and unwanted sex/bodily fluids/body parts details.
“She packed a book, as you never knew when you‘d need a book.” My book goes everywhere 🤷♀️✊🤓 #lifemotto
“She wasn‘t terrible, his sister, and she was still a little kid, so she couldn‘t help being a dumbass. Had he been that stupid at thirteen?” 😏😆😂🤩 #siblings
so-soI did like the actual story and I‘m not sure what is creepier- reading it in first lockdown with not a clue what‘s happening to us all or reading now on brink of another war/invasion 🤷♀️ we all know the dread of uncertainty.
But I hated the authors overblown writing style with totally inappropriate sexual descriptions- come on - some of them just made me go ewww.
Exactly Rose! Have to be prepared!
And further to my last post, here's the stack with the lovely edges.
pickI liked this as a lit fict pick but as others have mentioned, the ending left a lot of unanswered questions. Overall it was a solid ⭐⭐⭐
bailed
