By Ruuman Alam
Let me start by saying that I was so hyped for this book. It has gotten great reviews and its own table at the front of Barnes and Noble, so I figured I’d enjoy it. The novel is about a white family on vacation in an AirBnB when the Black owners return home and bring news of a major blackout in New York City. The official synopsis and reviews by major publications strongly implied that there would be timely discussions of race, as well as a fun end-of-the-world plotline. I’m a sucker for a good apocalypse. But unfortunately, neither race discussions nor impending dooms were really present in the book. The author mentioned both families’ races and had a couple of the white characters quietly muse about their difference for a line or two, but there was nothing that could be considered a discussion of race on the level of current antiracist discourse. There were no eye-opening moments or calls to action, or even any condemnation of specific racist activity. Instead, race was just offered as background element that the reader could consider on his own if he had too much time on his hands. Likewise, the end of the world is left very much in the background – if it can even be called that. There is a power outage in New York City which does not affect the vacation home, so odd animal activity, and some deployed aircraft. The characters all oscillate between various levels of concern, but no one does anything about it and nothing remarkably terrible happens to any of them. What should have built to a startling climax instead sort of fizzled out. With these two major elements of the book left deep in the background, there’s really not much in the foreground of the plot. There’s lots of descriptions of characters eating and swimming, including detailed grocery lists. Ultimately, what could have a quite exciting book turned into a bit of a snoozefest.
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