Leave The World Behind By: Rumaan Alam

I have a love hate relationship with NY resolutions. 

I love them- it’s like opening a new book. I can almost feel the thick crispness of unopened pages, smell the untouched words in the fresh start of a New Year. 

Admittedly, I’m a huge fan of self help and listen to Brene Browns audiobooks on repeat, interspersed with Rahit Sethi and Jen Hatmaker, amongst others. So it should be no surprise that New Year’s resolutions are totally my jam. 

I have many this year. This is the year I’m getting my finances in order! I’m losing 20 lbs and running a 10k! My house will be uncluttered - and I won’t buy more stuff to junk it up! Date night at least once a month! More game nights, less phone scrolling! 

And this is the year I’m going to review every book I read. 

All 100+.

 Starting today. 

I began Rumaan Alam's Leave The World Behind in 2023, but was sidetracked by the holidays, so it gets to be my first book of 2024! I had been hearing about this book for a few months. 

When the Julia Roberts adaptation came out on Netflix, the book got a revival (at least it did in the book clubs I’m a part of) and it became very polarizing. Readers either loved it or hated it. I LOVE books that are hated. I don't trust books that everyone likes AND get good reviews, so I was very excited to try this one.

 I was less than one chapter in when I began rolling my eyes at the writing. It was so over the top, so superfluous that I wondered if he had his thesaurus open on one screen while typing the manuscript on another. Copy paste. Insert new word here. 

Then as I read further, I either stop noticing it in the flow of the story, or the author stopped doing it. I started to think the word usage was intentional- the flowery writing was an extension of the characters. None of the characters were particularly likable or noteworthy. In fact, they had such indistinctive qualities that I kept getting Ruth and Rose confused - two female characters with practically nothing in common. One an older black woman, the other a white tween daughter. But the similarities in name and sameness among them all had me rereading sentences. 

The first half of the book was hard to get through, but after that, the pages flew by until all of a sudden I only had two chapters left and I was wondering how the author was going to wrap this all up. 

I try to avoid spoilers, so I won’t tell you how it ends. But it turns out I’m in neither the love it or hate it camp. I’ve hated books before - books I couldn’t get through at all or ones I finished and threw across the room, eager to get away from it as quick as possible. This was merely meh. I absolutely loved some of the plot points, such as the descriptions of and plot points of the animals. I also love psychological thrillers and apocalyptic stories, both of which fit neatly within this storyline. But I didn’t feel the terror or doom I wanted to feel, merely a “hmmm” and a thought of what I would do, how I would react.

I gave Leave The World Behind a solid 3 stars on Goodreads. Rumaan Alam is an excellent writer, although it can take some time to get used to the flowery writing style. I wouldn’t recommend it, won’t read it again and have no desire to see the movie (even if it is starring the amazing Julia Roberts) but I wouldn’t talk anyone out of reading it. I can see how the right audience might enjoy it.

Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir

"I love Rocky!" My daughter said from the backseat of the car.

"Me too. Can we listen to it again?" asked my on from the passenger seat beside me.

"Happy Happy Happy!" I heard from the backseat. 

"Yes!" said my son. "Happy Happy Happy!"

It was my second time reading Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir, and the first time on audiobook. I had read the book soon after its 2021 release. I had read his previously released books Artemis and The Martian, and searched his authors profile. He is a self-professed space nerd (as you can guess) and used to be a computer programmer. And he's very witty. Slyly funny. Sneak up on you, chuckle to yourself smart funny. I love that trait in people, but especially in authors.

I was almost 7 hours into my 15 hour read when we had two hockey games in one weekend, with a 2 hour drive roundtrip each time. Normally I listen to the audiobooks while on walks, or while cleaning and the kids are at school. That way I don't have to worry about certain words or mature situations they shouldn't hear. But with almost 8 hours in the car over three days, I wanted to use my time finish the book.  The kids headphones were glued to their ears anyways, so I would be listening alone.

Or so I thought. 

I'm not sure when it actually happened, but at some point in our first day driving to hockey, my 12 year old son began listening. 

"What is this?" He asked. I gave a brief synopsis of the story and resumed the audiobook. Over the next hour he would occasionally press pause and ask questions. "What is xenon? Where is Erid? What is the Hail Mary?" We'd discuss and continue listening.

After the hockey game (he won!), we had barely pulled out of the parking lot before he piped up again. "We can listen to your book again. If you want."

Oh, I did want. 

I knew after reading Project Hail Mary that I would want to listen to the audiobook, too. Some books were just made to be audiobooks (Hello, Daisy Jones and the Six!). Or maybe it is just that the narration is THAT good. Narrator Ray Porter sounds exactly as I imagine Dr. Ryland Grace to sound, and Rocky... well, Rocky is Rocky. Wonderful, serious Rocky.

My 10 year old daughter jumped into Project Hail Mary with an hour or two left in the book.  "Who is Rocky?"  

Which, after a lot of explanation and the finishing of the last chapter, led to her exclamation. "I love Rocky!"

We then began a deep dive into audiobooks. We finished Project Hail Mary on a Monday night, on our way home from hockey practice. Immediately, the question became "What next?'

Since then, we have listened to Refugee by Alan Gratz (my son's choice), Atomic Habits by James Clear (my choice), Bomb by Steve Sheinken (my son's choice),  and The Bicycle Spy (both kids choice). All because one day we listened to a really interesting book on a really long drive.  So, thanks, Andy Weir and Ray Porter for writing and narrating a book so well that even my tween kids approve. 

Carl Hiassen Squeeze Me

 Carl Hiassen Squeeze Me

It reads like an over-the-hill name-dropping slightly redneck Crazy Rich Asians meets I Feel Bad About My Neck. It's a tongue in cheek fictional story using easily recognizable political figures as a backdrop for a story that spans more and more crazy, but, which surprisingly, does not make it any less believable. 

That's part of the charm of using such an easily recognizable figure as a plot point. We, the reader, can see how point A leads to point B which leads to point C and so on and on. Crazy begets crazy. Foolishness leads to other foolishness. 

As usual, Carl Hiassen gives the reader a fun, easy read with his usual dry humor and biting wit. 

This was a recent book, published in 2020, and within it are tidbits that make it memorable to these pandemic years. These little nuggets pop up occasionally, treats that make me wonder - in twenty (thirty, forty) years when a reader chooses this book, will they read this part and even understand it? Or will we as a society, as a world, be in a different place and the reader will think 'What? What does that even mean?'?

Like this quote: 

"Later, he and 18.4 million other Americans would watch the viral YouTube video, almost all of them wondering why the President of the United States was holding a Bakongo tribal fertility mask over his face, how he had come to choose such an unusual artifact, and whether it was a safe alternative for an N95."

If that don't scream 2020, I don't know what does. 

Clay's Ark by Octavia Butler

 It's disconcerting to pick up a book about a raging, unknown virus and find that it is set in the year 2021. It was written in 1984.

Ironically (or maybe not??), when I read 1984, it was probably 1998 or '99, so it was a book set in the future that was already in my past. Therefore, the idea that 1984 may actually look like that was intriguing in a creative sense, but couldn't actually happen, because, well, it hadn't. 

But to read a futuristic novel published 37 years before this year that coincidentally (or maybe not??) is set in this year, and then to have it be similar to events we are currently dealing with.....well, it's uncanny. 

It makes me wonder - why 2021? Why did the author take that particular year in the future and think, yes, this would make a great year for my futuristic virus novel? It almost feels deja vu-like, similar to how in a dream you KNOW you are in a dream and you know that whatever you are thinking you can make happen because it isn't real, but it still feels so dang real. Just knowing that out of all the future years she could have chosen, Octavia Butler chose the year 2021 for her book Clay's Ark is eerie. 

It got weirder as I continued to read. While the storyline and virus complications don't mirror this past year or this particular Coronavirus in our current pandemic, certain lines startle me with their clairvoyance.

'Listen! We're infectious for as much as two weeks before we start to show symptoms - except for people like you who won't have two weeks between infection and symptoms. How many people do you think the average person could infect in two weeks of city life? How many could his victims infect?'

So eerie when compared to today's CDC recommendations for quarantine for those who have been around people with Covid 19 - but who are not showing any symptoms. 

'"You're worse than a Goddamn Typhoid Mary!"

"A what?" ..... 

"A carrier," Zeriam said.  "A disease carrier so irresponsible she had to be locked up to keep her from spreading her disease."'

Clay's Ark was part of the latest book bundle I received from my local library. (Yes, I caved and asked for more sci-fi! I'm still in my rut/kick. What can I say? I enjoy this genre!) Also included were Michael Crichtons' Andromeda Strain, Blake Crouch's Recursion (which I have already read and highly recommend!), and Steven James Synapse. 

I chose to read Andromeda Strain first, since I have read others by Crichton and have enjoyed them. It was interesting, but I was a little let down by the end of it. In fact, it was so forgettable that I actually just googled "how did Andromeda Strain end" to remind myself. 

Next, I picked up Steven James Synapse and was less than two pages in when my brain screamed "trigger warning!!!". Maybe it's because I know people who have dealt with or are dealing with childlessness or losing a child, but I felt that this book needed a warning stamped on the front cover for this particular wrenching situation. I immediately put the book away. 

Blake Crouch was a pandemic find of mine in late2020 and I highly recommend his books. If you are into time travel, pandemics and the human psyche, definitely check out both Dark Matter and Recursion. 

The Mothers by Brit Bennett

 You know how some books take time to ease you into the story, developing characters and plotlines and then halfway through - or even at the very very end (I'm looking at you The Silent Patient!) they drop a bomb that makes the whole book explode?

The Mothers by Brit Bennett is not one of these stories. 

The Mothers dives right into the hard, heavy stuff. Within two pages of reading, there is a suicide and a teenage abortion. I don't like to tell much about plot, because I hate hate hate book spoilers. But with that information being thrown at the reader within the first chapter, it's not much of a spoiler. 

It doesn't let up the entire book. 

Page after page these characters are dealing with their actions (both in the present and in the past) in the ways that seem so achingly human to me. We, as a species, do not act and feel in linear lines. We have waves of highs and lows, of feeling happy and sad, aware of how our actions affect others and focused so intently on ourselves that we forget to include the rest of the world.  These characters changed and grew, but are always completely and totally themselves. 

It wasn't an easy read, or a light read, but I think it was an important one.

I read this story on the kindle app on my phone and I took screenshot after screenshot of lines and ideas to remember and write down. Moments in the book that shouted out at me to listen to them. 

A few of those lines:

"Like most girls, she's already learned that pretty exposes you, and pretty hides you and like most girls, she hadn't yet learned how to navigate the difference."

 "Poorness never left you, she told him. It was a hunger that embedded itself into your bones. It starved you, even when you were full." 

"magic you wanted was a miracle, magic you didn't want was a haunting."

What You Wish For by Katherine Center

 I like to support local, so when I found out that an author I recently read lived near me, I jumped to read as much of her writing as I could.

And by 'near me', I mean in the same great state of Texas,  and even better, down South near Houston and visits Galveston to have book-writing getaways and I LIVE IN HOUSTON AND GO TO GALVESTON FOR STAYCATIONS AND DAY VISITS.

So we are practically besties.

Oh, who is this local best-friend writer?

Katherine Center, author of some of the happiest writing ever to have been written about unhappy events. 

Her latest novel, What You Wish For, was no different for me. The book is a testament to resilient and optimistic thinking, to overcoming your own emotions and mistakes, but she covers some of the heaviest stuff out there. I felt that with her novel How to Walk Away, and it is no different with What You Wish For. 

I promise no spoilers in these posts, so I won't get into exactly what the heavy stuff actually is, but each time another piece of the puzzle fell in place, my  heart broke a little more. And then the main character, Samantha, would speak or think or act and my heart would magically mend itself back together again. And break again. Katherine writes about some of the toughest situations with the most optimistic of feelings. It's beautiful when it comes together like that, because to me, that IS life. The bad, the ugly, the heartbreaking and then the picking back up of oneself and just smiling through it. 

It reminds me of how I often quote the book 'We're Going on a Bear Hunt' to my kids when faced with what seems to be insurmountable obstacles (virtual schooling, cancelled playdates, a mean friend); we can't go over it, we can't go under it. We just have to go through it. So, lets get through it - with a smile. 

Did I also mention that Katherine Center is besties with Brene Brown? Which, again, practically means that I'm also besties with Brene Brown because she too is from Houston and how could we not all be part of one big, happy friendship circle? 

I discovered this fun fact when, during this stay-at-home time, I stumbled upon a live podcast with Brene Brown interviewing Katherine Center. They touched on their lasting friendship, vulnerability in writing and how KC named a character in one of her books after BB. I was smitten. 

But, back to my point. I tend to get off topic. 

The book. What You Wish For. I listened to it on audiobook, which I have just discovered some people think is cheating if you then say that you read the book. I call BS on that, because if you are listening to it, having someone else reading it to you, using your fingers to read it in Braille or probably a dozen other ways that I have not thought of yet, you are reading. You are taking in the written words of an author, and that is reading. 

Which is an interesting point, seeing as Samantha is an elementary school librarian (a dream job of mine, and she reinforces that belief in me!) and is told by one of the parents that reading comic books is not "real reading". To which, Samantha couldn't agree less, insisting instead that reading is reading and should be enjoyed. KC writes one of my favorite lines of the book  - that this kid deserves not a secret shelf away from his parents for his comic books, but an entire "secret cabinet of Garfields". I love Garfield.

A lifelong reader, I remember reading Archie and Veronica as a child. I remember months of reading nothing but joke books and Ripley's Believe it or Not. Which further whet my appetite for reading, leading me to RL Stine, Sweet Valley Twins and The Babysitters Club. The road continued, and widened in high school, to include Fahrenheit 451, The Catcher in the Rye and The Bell Jar. Then I went to college, majoring in English Literature and all of a sudden the road encompassed the entire world of books, and nothing was left out. See, comic books can be gateway books. They can help to show a reader how fun reading can be. They can be leading the horse to water and then having that horse drink the whole damn lake. They can also be reading in and of themselves, and that may be the only book a reader ever enjoys. And that is OKAY. Because, I don't know if you realize it, but a comic BOOK? It's still a book.  

So, I listened to it on audio and I loved the narrators voice. Occasionally the narrator doesn't fit with the story and it's distracting but this narrator, Therese Plummer, is perfect to read the story aloud. I spent most of the my next few days fitting in the story whenever I could, soaking it all in. 

I found myself with 30 minutes to spare one day and I knew I needed a workout, but really wanted to finish the book. I hopped on my Peloton for a scenic ride, plugged in my headphones and biked through the French Countryside while listening to the last few chapters. It was a perfect way to end the book. 

While I may be biased, seeing as how Katherine Center and I are both living in the suburbs of the fourth most populous city in the United States, so we are obviously superclose,  What You Wish For is a book worth reading for anyone who has loved, wanted to be loved, or wondered if they were ready to be loved. 

Which reminds me of the Victor Hugo quote that sits for all time under my senior picture in the school yearbook. "The greatest of virtues is to know that we are loved for ourselves, or rather, to be loved in spite of ourselves." 

Truer words.  

Book Bundle Book One: The Taliban Cricket Club

I tend to read in groupings. 

Back in  March 2020 when the world halted and the word "pandemic" became an everyday term, I binge read book after book on pandemics. Some of the books were based on true events (As Bright as Heaven) while others were fantastical (The Passage and The Dreamers). A series on a vampire type creature that emerged after a virus ravages the world? Read it. A novel about a deadly virus we first see in a London theatre, and a troupe of actors who afterwards travel the country bringing the joy of stories to those who are left? (Station Eleven) Read it.  

---- Side note. One of my favorite quotes of the year is from one of these pandemic books, The Dreamers by Karen Thompson Walker. "This is how the sickness travels best: through all the same channels as do fondness and friendship and love." Wow. If that doesn't sum up 2020 right there! Okay, now back to your regularly scheduled program. ----

I do the same with authors. Recently, I discovered one book by Blake Crouch (Recursion), and when  I finished, I immediately searched out other novels I could find by him and dug in (Dark Matter). Same with Matt Haig (The Midnight Library, How to Stop Time).  

But then a friend told me about a service our local library offers. I can call the library and they will put together a book bundle for me. The bundle can be determined by genre, author, style - really anything you want, they will pull books for you to read. I decided that this would be the perfect way to step out of my comfort zone and try something new. 

Wanting to get out of the science fiction kick (rut?) I had been in lately, I chose for the books to be historical fiction. 

'I want to try something new,' I told the librarian on the phone. 'I love historical fiction, but I'd like to stay away from my favorite authors. I have read most every Erik Larson, Phillipa Gregory and Marie Benedict book out there. So, let's try new authors. And no WWII. The more obscure, the better.'

They definitely delivered on that request! Out of the books I received, two were by authors I recognized, but one I had never read (Barbara Taylor Bradford), and the other I hadn't read since my Literature courses in college (Willa Cather). 

I've been reading mostly on my kindle app, so these books were a bit daunting. It's easy to start a book when you have no idea how long it is, but intimidating when you see its true heft in person! I chose to begin with an average length book, with an interesting title and background I was only slightly familiar with. 

Enter: The Taliban Cricket Club by Timeri N. Murari.

To sum it up quickly, the book is written in the view of a woman (Rukshana) in the mid 1990s in Afghanistan. She had attended college in Delhi, and returned to Afghanistan to be near her family and continue her work in journalism. When the Talib took control, she went from being a woman with a voice and a brain and a pen to just another female in a country determined to keep her down.

At times, this was a tough read. There are public executions, and discussions of past executions and punishments. The entire book has an underlying current of fear and anxiety running through it. While the main characters themselves are optimistic thinkers, with views beyond their country and the regime they live under, it feels that the entire book is laced with fear. I really felt that every moment could be their last. 

My 11 yo saw the cover and asked me what I was reading. I tired to explain it. "There is an evil group who took over the government of a country, oppressing the women and scaring the people. Those who talked back, or did something they didn't like were killed or severely punished. Silenced. There was no such thing as freedom of speech. Women had to cover themselves from head to toe in a burqa, with only a tiny area from which to look at the world." 

"Could they even see out of it?" he asked.

Rukshana had touched on that in the book. It was hard to see out of, merely a thin slit of mesh for their eyes, and they had to practice walking up the stairs without tripping over the long robes, but also without lifting them enough to show even a glimpse of ankle - an action that would get women punished.

 

My son and I talked about oppressive governments and googled current and past events. One thing I love about kids who are readers is their drive to know more, to understand more, and to apply it to other books or to life. 

While the feeling of fear and control did permeate the book, I would say that the overall theme of the book focused more on resilience and perseverance, on the ability of humans to overcome.  And I learned a bit about cricket in the process. I would not normally have chosen a book such as The Taliban Cricket Club, but I'm glad it was picked for me. I recommend it for anyone who (like me) was too young or too sheltered or naive in America in the 90s to understand what was happening in Afghanistan.