And for those unaware, there’s an adaption currently in the works that’s set to star Denzel Washington and Julia Roberts, which I’m positive is going to be amazing. Tommo’s friend Hex is the first person to appear in this eerie illustrated tale. Hex is careless, impulsive, cognizant of the ways he often acts without thinking. On Monday, when a younger child tagging after the boys falls out of a tree and breaks an arm, her big sister blames them, especially Hex. She succumbs to the temptation for retribution offered her by an old woman whose cottage mysteriously appears in the ancient forest nearby. The result? Hex is removed from the world entirely. On Wednesday, Tommo leaves his house in the morning with the sense that someone he knew well is simply no longer; it’s as if he’d never existed. Finding his own way to the cottage, Tommo makes the horrific discovery of Hex’s spiderweb-wrapped form. An official looking woman informs him of an Unauthorized Temporal Reweave and arms him with a device to remove the old woman and her timeline interference from this corner of the world—but Tommo must find the courage to use it. Pinfold’s fine-lined, chiaroscuro drawings—stars against the night sky, characters’ elongated faces and hands—are perfectly in tune with Harrold’s reserved, unsettling narrative voice. This original work, unfolding over the course of five weekdays, is reminiscent of William Sleator’s speculative fiction and will appeal to fans of Neil Gaiman’s Coraline. Characters read White. This book was a wonderful read on so many levels for both middle grade and older readers. It has an almost nostalgic quality that both left me confused about which decade this book is set in and respecting the timeless feel. The illustrations are beautiful and haunting and are a perfect reflection of the book's mood. It truly does evoke the atmosphere and the themes of Stranger Things and also reminds me of select Neil Gaiman's works. This book was delightfully uncanny at times, and pretty terrifying at others. But it is also full of friendship and the freedom of childhood summers, and families both loving and damaged. Professor Stephen Martin, Honorary Professor University of Worcester and Visiting Professor in Learning for Sustainability, University of the West of England, UK

Luxuriantly illustrated by the fabulous Levi Pinfold. This exceptional book about friendship and paths not taken should rake in awards.' Observer The Worlds We Leave Behind: This is an incredible book about friendship, family, and memory. The main character, Hex, or Hector, is blamed for causing an accident, whilst playing in the woods, and runs away. He discovers a clearing in the woods, and just as in any fairy tale, a strange cottage, inhabited by a mysterious old lady. She offers him a deal to remove those who wronged him from the world and Hex can continue to live his life as before. I began writing poetry seriously (and awfully) as a teenager, but I’d had a typewriter as a kid and banged away on it, though I’ve no idea and no memory of what I was writing.Hex never meant for the girl to follow him and his best friend Tommo into the woods. He certainly never meant for her to fall off the rope swing and break her arm. When he gets blamed for the accident, Hex runs deep into the woods, ending up in a strange clearing that he has never come across before. There he meets an old woman who offers him a deal. She'll rid the world of those who wronged him and Hex can carry on his life with them all forgotten and as if nothing ever happened. But what Hex doesn't know is someone else has been offered the same deal. And at the heart of this story - there is also a beautiful story of friendship - the friends we make, the friends we lose, the memories some of us only cling onto, the ones we'll never have a chance to make. I teared up at the ending - not because there was no clear-cut ending, but when Tommo meets Jayce again - in another lifetime, in another world 'this new, older Jayce that did not recognize him for the friends they were, was heart-breaking. And it broke my heart even more, when he thanked him for helping his sister in that incident where it all began, all Tommo heard in his 'Thank you' was 'Thank you for having been my friend in a world you don’t remember, when you were someone else entirely.' 😢 My advice is to go into it blind. Stop reading about the plot and go in without expectations. At the very least, you’ll have a strong reaction by the end either way.

The narrative stance is like a third-person stream of consciousness, jumping in and out of people's heads and full of observations that are both unnecessary and articulated in try-hard style ('the phones worked on them like those bulbous flutes did on cobras', 'Rose was particularly susceptible to the tart charms of vinegar potato chips'). There’s definitely an audience for it and I’m not sorry I read it, but after the buzz dies down and I have a few conversations with my friends.... It also has talk about bodily fluids, and touching of ones own body parts. I wasn’t a big fan of that as I didn’t see the point...nor did I enjoy the ending. I understand why the conclusion happened the way it did, but I personally prefer a denouement with much less ambiguity. There wasn't anything truly wrong with The Worlds We Leave Behind, only that it felt, to me, like the first draft of a greater project. I didn't really get to know the characters - all the boys were much the same to me. According to the plot, the boys were seemingly interchangeable, which was a bit sad. Bestselling author Alexandra Christo, author of TikTok sensation To Kill a Kingdom, introduces her new book, The Night Hunt (Hot Key Books), a dark...

About A. F. Harrold

A compelling, original story that follows parallel events affecting interconnected children that explores themes around friendship and betrayal, and the consequences of revenge and retribution and finding the strength to forgive and seek redemption. Content warnings: depiction of racism, vomit, loss of teeth, disease on unknown origin, alcohol abuse, spiders I do not intend to summarise the plot, that would be just too prosaic an approach for a book that definitely needs reading and sinking into to appreciate it!

I feel that I would have liked it even more if the book was longer. I feel like if had been longer I would have liked to have read more scenes which included character development as I don't feel like we got to know them as much as I would have liked. for me I feel like having some side plots would help, scenes that weren't directly related to the main plot. How many timelines, how many other versions of the world, had there been? Who had been friends with whom? What stories had been told that had been lost forever? Absolutely brilliant. I have never read a book which captures the flaws and the beauty of being human and growing up so well. When Hector causes an accident, he feels the consequences he faces are unjust. He runs away into the woods and encounters a strange old lady in a cottage. She offers him a chance of vengeance: she can literally make those who wronged him disappear. But Hector isn't the only one seeking revenge...A day later, Hector's best friend Tommo wakes up. Everything seems normal at first....but why does he experience fleeting memories of a boy called Hector? Later that day, Tommo is on the scene of an accident in the woods. Fleeing the scene, hurt by someone he considered a friend, he encounters a strange old lady in a cottage... If someone were to ask me what I thought of A.F. Harrold's The World We Leave Behind, I would be at a loss of words. I am at a loss of words, because even though it was a hauntingly dark and captivating tale, but the ending - it still left me with such a profound sadness of incompleteness. Frustrated that this was how the author chose to end it - with a poignant message that belies the meaning 'be careful what you wish for'. - you never know what you will lose in exchange for a vengeful wish granted out of spite and hate. 😔

Premise/plot: Twilight Zone times ten--that's how I'd describe A.F. Harrold's The Worlds We Leave Behind. It begins with two friends--Hex (short for Hector) and Tommo (short for Thomas) hanging out together. They had absolutely NO plans at all of hanging out with a "baby" (Sascha). But this neighbor-kid, Sascha, tags along despite the two trying their hardest to get rid of her. (Who wants to be responsible for a strange neighbor kid in the woods??? Certainly not these two.) Playing on a rope swing turns tragic--in more ways than one. She falls off the swing and breaks her arm--it is way more complicated than that...and the world (yes, the world) will never be the same. It was a noise, but it was transformation. It was a noise, but it was a confirmation. Something had happened, something was happening, it was ongoing, the noise was confirmation even as the noise was mystery.” It felt like Alam did not trust his readers to understand subtext or character development. Everything is spelt out, excrutiatingly. So much that I started to wonder if something really obvious was flying over my head. By the time I finished this book, all goodwill I had towards this book based on the incredible premise was lost.