From the bestselling author of The Woman in the Fifth and The Pursuit of Happiness comes a devastating new novel.
Years after ... read full description
Years after ... read full description
reviews
Dec 27, 2010
Karen
rated it: 
It's a wild ride and I'm surprised by the way the author is connecting with a female lead character. I can honestly say I'm hooked and I'm intrigued by the writers musical references and descriptions to the point where I would like to do some research.
I must say I had a hard time putting the book down. The author spends about 3/4 of the book painting the lead character and circumstances leading up to the major event then the last 1/4 with a mystery and how the character changes. I More...
I must say I had a hard time putting the book down. The author spends about 3/4 of the book painting the lead character and circumstances leading up to the major event then the last 1/4 with a mystery and how the character changes. I More...
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Jan 05, 2012
Chocolate & Croissants
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Do you ever read a book by an author that you have read before and expect it to be similar? Initially you may be disappointed because it is not the same and then the book just grabs up. Having read one of Kennedy's other books I picked up Leaving the World with pre-conceived notions which is always dangerous when reading. I liked the way the novel started and then felt that I had been dating the book for too long and we were just going through the steps together without any excitement. Just as I
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May 03, 2011
Faustine
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This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers.
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Aug 30, 2010
RNOCEAN
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On the night of her thirteenth birthday, Jane Howard made a vow to her warring parents: she would never get married, and she would never have children.
But life, as Jane comes to discover, is a profoundly random business. Many years and many lives later, she is a professor in Boston, in love with a brilliant, erratic man named Theo. And then Jane becomes pregnant. Motherhood turns out to be a great welcome surprise—but when a devastating turn of events tears her existence apart she has no c More...
But life, as Jane comes to discover, is a profoundly random business. Many years and many lives later, she is a professor in Boston, in love with a brilliant, erratic man named Theo. And then Jane becomes pregnant. Motherhood turns out to be a great welcome surprise—but when a devastating turn of events tears her existence apart she has no c More...
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Jul 16, 2010
Leaving the World was an entertaining book that kept me interested throughout. There was certainly a lot going on plot wise. (A little too much to be easily believable actually.) It is told in the first person and the narration flows well. Jane, the protagonist, is a character who is easy to warm to because of her flaws and complications. There are a lot of quirky supporting characters that help to add interest also. The book is divided into sections that correspond to major changes in Jane's li
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Jul 09, 2010
K
rated it: 
This was a tough read, and not due simply to the 480 pages. As I recall, I made it to page 260 before the water-works began ... but I'm a pretty strong reader so I think for many the tears would've come sooner. At times I was bored with the main character's life, though (or despite that) it, to be colloquial and/or crass, sucked hard-core for the most part. I skimmed several times, which I hate to do, but I wanted to know what happened to Jane more than I cared about some of the extraneous de
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Dec 02, 2011
Amy
rated it:
I really, REALLY liked it at first. I thought the writing was smart and intelligent and I would stop periodically and think, "Wow, that sentence was really profound!" But then after about 250 pages I was getting tired of all the profound-ness and then I got almost irritated and I started thinking it was more...I don't know, pretentious? Examples...the digressions into the merits of certain musical genres and the literary analyses of great works of literature. It left me thinking I was
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Jun 04, 2011
This is the worst book I have ever read, and I have read A LOT of books. What makes it bad? Where should I start? An unlikable, poorly characterized protagonist; implausibilities that border on the laughable; dialogue that is the most poorly written I've ever seen outside a Patricia Cornwell novel; loose ends never tied up (let's face it -- in everyday literature, the reader appreciates a little closure now and then)...these are a few of my un-favorite things. Add to this the sheer awfulness
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Dec 24, 2010
Rhonda
rated it:
On her 13th birthday, Jane tells her continually-fighting parents that she never will marry, or have children. The next day her father leaves them, and her mother blames her statement. Jane carries this guilt with her through her life. This lengthy book is an engaging journey through Jane's life, college, relationships, loves, and trials. I could not wait to get back to reading to see what happened next, and it was full of surprises.
The male author did a great job of telling the More...
The male author did a great job of telling the More...
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Aug 09, 2010
Lynn
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The first two-hundred pages of the book were actually fairly engaging... with the tragedies at least tolerable. Jane's father was on the run (and stole money from her); her mother was an absurd narcissist who blamed her daughter for her divorce; Jane's lover was killed in a dubious bicycling accident after a slew of terrible reviews for his book; and her eccentric, cinephile boyfriend and baby daddy ran off with an anorexic wannabe film producer. Each of these episodes became less and less aut
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Jul 12, 2010
Kate
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Q: What do you get when you take a chronically mistreated woman and put her through even more unthinkable (if boring) abuse? A: The absolute worst book I've read all year.
Jane Howard is a boring, bland, insufferable academic. So it's hard to feel sorry about her sh*tty childhood, her string of sorry lovers, her unremarkable career, or even -- God have mercy on my soul -- the death of her child. Her thoughts and feelings are about as compelling as an article out of some obscure More...
Jane Howard is a boring, bland, insufferable academic. So it's hard to feel sorry about her sh*tty childhood, her string of sorry lovers, her unremarkable career, or even -- God have mercy on my soul -- the death of her child. Her thoughts and feelings are about as compelling as an article out of some obscure More...
Jun 09, 2011
marg
rated it:
Everyone picks up a novel hoping to get lost in a story. That simply won't happen with a narrator (author) who refuses to shut up. I kept wanting to yell, "Let me read, will you??" since the yapping protagonist never seemed willing to just have a story happen. I went to the store. I parked. I thought about the following sad memories and was sad. Then it was time for something else to happen.
Plot? HA. For about eighty percent of the book NOTHING happens and you think this is all b More...
Plot? HA. For about eighty percent of the book NOTHING happens and you think this is all b More...
Apr 25, 2009
Nancy (Hrdcovers)
rated it:
Let me start off by saying that I never met a Douglas Kennedy book that I didn't love!! This book had arrived a few days ago (ordered from the UK because it came out there first) and, each time I passed the table where it was sitting, I actually got a tingle just seeing the name Douglas Kennedy on the cover and knowing that something great was between those covers.
I like to think I discovered Douglas Kennedy all on my own many, many years ago when I read The Big Picture. At that tim More...
I like to think I discovered Douglas Kennedy all on my own many, many years ago when I read The Big Picture. At that tim More...
Jul 31, 2011
Steve.lovell
rated it: 
Sam de Brito is a favourite Melbourne Age columnist. I loved, but not necessarily agreed with, a recent scribing on his part about a certain type of woman he scathingly labelled 'the princess' - "...highly groomed, rarely seen out of high heels or air-conditioning , the princess smells good, tastes even better but, like taffy stuck to your back molar, soon starts a poisonous throb in your jaw." - the same sort of throb I had in ploughing through Douglas' novel about a most unappealing
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Apr 07, 2011
Jenn
rated it:
"I am never get married and I am never having children" is the powerful sentence that a 13 yr old Jane Howard speaks to start the novel.
What a ride this book was. There was something that just kept enraptured with the story. I just had to keep reading to see how Jane Howard's life would turn out. The author did a beautiful job of making Jane real. Just like in life people can get annoying and I felt this way a couple times about her.
I really felt that this coul More...
What a ride this book was. There was something that just kept enraptured with the story. I just had to keep reading to see how Jane Howard's life would turn out. The author did a beautiful job of making Jane real. Just like in life people can get annoying and I felt this way a couple times about her.
I really felt that this coul More...
Jun 11, 2010
Paula
rated it:
This was a whim purchase while in the supermarket (darn them for stocking books, lol, I can never leave without picking one up!) Turns out it was a good whim, as the book was thoroughly enjoyable.
It does take quite a while to pick up though as the first 100 odd pages are quite slow and wordy. After that though, I became really engrossed and found myself wanting to read it through quickly to find out what happens!
I did find the addition of Jane, the central character, so More...
It does take quite a while to pick up though as the first 100 odd pages are quite slow and wordy. After that though, I became really engrossed and found myself wanting to read it through quickly to find out what happens!
I did find the addition of Jane, the central character, so More...
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Jun 26, 2011
Ang Han
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This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers.
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Nov 09, 2010
Anna
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This book started really promising and sets you up for Jane's reaction to her life on page six when she says she hasn't got it in her to be cruel to others but can become withdrawn "whenever I felt hurt or simply overwhelmed by life's frequent inequities." However, her sheer refusal to learn or have any kind of insight into the tragedies that befall her is quite frustrating, for a woman who has a Ph.D, written an esteeemed academic book and can make all sorts of lucid and insightful po
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Sep 12, 2011
Danielle
rated it:
Plot galore! The story revolves around the heroine, Jane, who on the night of her 13th birthday announced to her always-feuding, alcholoic parents that she is never getting married or having children. When her father walks out on the family the next morning, Jane’s mother blames her daughter for the catastrophe. The story continues its twisting, turning path through Jane's time at Harvard and a not-so-as-private-as-she-thinks affair with a professor, a short-lived gig at a high-paying stock fir
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Jul 12, 2010
Elizabeth
rated it:
Wonderful and Insightful Date: July 12, 2010
This review is for the Print format.
"Douglas Kennedy has once again shown in "Leaving the World" that he can express the uncertainity and angst in a person's life, no matter how smart or successful they are. He has shown as well the love a person can have for their child (even one they weren't sure they wanted) when they have not been shown the same sort of love from their own parents.
I couldn't put the book do More...
This review is for the Print format.
"Douglas Kennedy has once again shown in "Leaving the World" that he can express the uncertainity and angst in a person's life, no matter how smart or successful they are. He has shown as well the love a person can have for their child (even one they weren't sure they wanted) when they have not been shown the same sort of love from their own parents.
I couldn't put the book do More...
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Apr 17, 2011
Katrina
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Feb 17, 2011
Krista
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Although there are some good moments, it ended up being a bit flat. Some reviews say that he writes women well, but I beg to differ. Leaving the World is a picaresque novel about a female academic who has many bad things happen to her. The central idea, or theme, is a good one: What would have happened if I didn't do that?? Despite the thoughtful theme, I'm not sure I'd want to revisit this story. Most of the characters are unlikeable, and Kennedy likes to hump a thesaurus or two int he pro
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Aug 02, 2010
Carla
rated it:
Maybe if this novel had been written as two books it would have read better. I actually went back after I finished and added up the years over which the main events took place, because so much happened. On her thirteenth birthday, Jane vowed never to have children. Her father left the family the next day (lots more comes to light about him later) and her mother never lets her forget that Jane is to blame for his leaving. Jane then begins her journey down a long road of misfortune and poor choice
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Jul 29, 2011
Jessica
rated it:
I was not a fan. Not even sure this deserves a star. I give it one just because I did manage to get through it - but it was a chore. The writing was pompous (too many 12 letter words) and there was so much content (obscure literary references) that just made the book long and somewhat confusing and so much of it was irrelevant to the plot... wait, that assumes the book has a plot. The book tracks the life of one woman from affairs, to motherhood, to her absolutely horrid upbringing - her
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Apr 12, 2011
Enjoyed it, although it's plot twists were VERY unlikely!
GOOD READS SYNOPSIS Jane Howard is a professor in Boston, in love with a brilliant, erratic man named Theo, and she becomes pregnant. Motherhood turns out to be a great welcome surprise--but when a devastating turn of events tears her existence apart she has no choice but to flee all she knows and leave the world. Just when she has renounced life itself, the disappearance of a young girl pulls her back from the edge and into an obs More...
GOOD READS SYNOPSIS Jane Howard is a professor in Boston, in love with a brilliant, erratic man named Theo, and she becomes pregnant. Motherhood turns out to be a great welcome surprise--but when a devastating turn of events tears her existence apart she has no choice but to flee all she knows and leave the world. Just when she has renounced life itself, the disappearance of a young girl pulls her back from the edge and into an obs More...
Jun 14, 2009
Vicky
rated it:
Douglas Kennedy did not disappoint me in his new book. As always in his books, the story is interesting to the last page, the language is intelligent and the characters are memorable. What is amazing that the whole story written by a male author from the female point, about a woman who transformed herself through the tragic motherhood, relationship heartbreak and different challenges. Kennedy does not simply write as a female author, he feels like one, like he became one. I had the same experie
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Jul 22, 2011
Tasos
rated it:
One thing is for sure this book must have taken such a long time to be completely written and if not it must be considered as a major achievement since there should have been such a thorough research to find so many data needed about the several different issues that this novel refers to...
Jane Howard is a woman that has been to many difficult situations in her life starting from just a little girl. She was blamed that she was the one that caused her father to abandon his wife and daug More...
Jane Howard is a woman that has been to many difficult situations in her life starting from just a little girl. She was blamed that she was the one that caused her father to abandon his wife and daug More...
Sep 17, 2011
Michele
rated it:
As I started to read this book I liked it because it had a highly-intelligent writing style. I was intrigued by the concept of destiny as it relates to Jane, the main character, since I often wonder about that and the effect that our decisions have on the outcomes of different situations in our lives. I was also intrigued by the book when I read that the author spent many years as an expat. He nailed his main character's "voice" as a woman, to the point that at the beginning of the
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Aug 26, 2010
Robin
rated it:
Usually one of my favorite authors, but this was a disappointment. It was just depressing. The main character does have a hard start to her life with parents that fight constantly and then a mother who blames her for the breakup of that marriage. However, every choice she makes throughout her life works against her. It is HER fault that she has no friends, that she keeps herself isolated, that she is not happy or open. It is a choice she is making. I don't have much patience for people who
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Jul 11, 2010
Cathrine
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On her 13th birthday Jane Howard decided that she would never get married and have children, but as we all know life is random. Many years later Jane is is both in love and pregnant. When several tragic events occur Jane knows no other way than to leave this would.
Douglas Kennedy has always been good at creating complex female characters and describing intense depression without getting bogged down in it. This book is no exception. Compared to A special relationship which I read 5 More...
Douglas Kennedy has always been good at creating complex female characters and describing intense depression without getting bogged down in it. This book is no exception. Compared to A special relationship which I read 5 More...
