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    Do Not Become Alarmed: A Novel
    Unavailable
    Do Not Become Alarmed: A Novel
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    Do Not Become Alarmed: A Novel
    Audiobook8 hours

    Do Not Become Alarmed: A Novel

    Published by Penguin Random House Audio

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    The moving and suspenseful new novel that Ann Patchett calls "smart and thrilling and impossible to put down... the book that every reader longs for."

    "This summer's undoubtable smash hit… an addictive, heart-palpitating story." —Marie Claire

    The sun is shining, the sea is blue, the children have disappeared.

    When Liv and Nora decide to take their husbands and children on a holiday cruise, everyone is thrilled. The adults are lulled by the ship's comfort and ease. The four children—ages six to eleven—love the nonstop buffet and their newfound independence. But when they all go ashore for an adventure in Central America, a series of minor misfortunes and miscalculations leads the families farther from the safety of the ship. One minute the children are there, and the next they're gone.
     
    The disintegration of the world the families knew—told from the perspectives of both the adults and the children—is both riveting and revealing. The parents, accustomed to security and control, turn on each other and blame themselves, while the seemingly helpless children discover resources they never knew they possessed.
     
    Do Not Become Alarmed is a story about the protective force of innocence and the limits of parental power, and an insightful look at privileged illusions of safety. Celebrated for her spare and moving fiction, Maile Meloy has written a gripping novel about how quickly what we count on can fall away, and the way a crisis shifts our perceptions of what matters most.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateJun 6, 2017
    ISBN9781524777210
    Unavailable
    Do Not Become Alarmed: A Novel

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    Reviews for Do Not Become Alarmed

    3.5/5

    142 ratings18 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Three couples on a cruise ship go ashore in Costa Rica and get separated from their 6 children. Their story is told alternately by the parents and the children. I thought it was a good adventure story and fairly suspenseful, dealing not only with the children's attempts to get back to their parents, but also the emotional impact on all of the parties. The Argentinian couple, compared to the two American couples, gets short shrift which I found unfortunate. It would make a good movie.
    • 4/5
      This was a unique read--it's sort of a chick lit thriller type that alternates the perspective of parents - moms and dads both with that of their children. I can't recall having read a book with a similar premise (the closest is maybe The Deep End of the Ocean and it's not a perfect comparison). Points for uniqueness.Set in Central America, this book centers on two families who go on a cruise together and make friends with a third family. The moms take all the kids on a zipline excursion while the dads go golfing. Moms and kids are separated from each other, kids go missing, and the rest of the book tells what happens to the kids from their perspective and how the parents react from theirs. That they're affluent Americans in Central America and dealing with the police, crime and corruption adds to the interest.Killer story idea that doesn't quite have the payload it should. Mostly because there's really no likable or relatable adult and for various reasons, it's difficult to connect emotionally with any of the kids. TW: rape of a minor - it's not gratuitous, but for some, that it's there will be too much.You're not left hanging at the end, but the way the plot resolves is a little too...pat. Or something. There really aren't any consequences or emotional aftermath, which is weird. It's like everything's changed and nothing has...ending with an emotional whimper without even the pretense of trying to make a point. This is the type of book you read at the beach or by the pool, but there's not enough emotional heft to discuss in a book group. Entertaining diversion, but that's about it.
    • 2/5
      Poorly written, poor character development, not worth the time
    • 4/5
      Really enjoyed the book. Kept my interest from the first page!
    • 4/5
      Do Not Become Alarmed was like a thrilling roller coaster ride! It starts with the families enjoying a relaxing vacation on a cruise ship...but things take a turn for the worse quick. I devoured this fast-paced, and exciting novel in 2 days but could have done it in one sitting. Yeah, it's that good. Meloy is a talented writer and I want more! Fortunately, she has a few previous books so do not become alarmed. One thing I appreciated was Meloy accurately incorporates Spanish phrases and other isms from different Latin American countries (you go girl!). Curiously, it is never revealed which Central American country they visit while ashore (Costa Rica?). The chapters are alternated so you get the perspectives of both the adults and children. You also know what's happening to the kids at all times, so no need to guess. Do Not Become Alarmed makes for a great, easy summer read -- add it to your list today!

      Thanks to Edelweiss and Riverhead Books for graciously providing me an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
    • 1/5
      The story was OK, but every character made such idiotic choices, that I just could not get into it - and one character, Penny, I absolutely despised. If I had read the book, I might have rated it higher, but the author read the audiobook with such a melancholoy tone that it just heightened the idiocy of the characters.
    • 2/5
      A remarkably unremarkable book. It's got the plot of a serviceable thriller, but the characters are paper-thin and the writing purely functional. There's the odd incisive comment - mainly on the darker sides of parenting - but I'm not sure I'd even recommend this as some pool-side fluff.
    • 4/5
      I really enjoyed reading about the two couples and their families, and the family dynamics. I knew something bad was going to happen (the book jacket tells you), but I was shocked when the children disappeared. Then the story is told both from the perspective of the parents, and the children. They are all so very human, and make mistakes, and think terrible thoughts. We all do. The story has a "somewhat" happy ending. These children, and their families, will never be the same. Well written, with well-developed characters and plot.
    • 5/5
      I was initially confused with so many different characters but once I figured out who was who the story just FLEW! Tightly written with really one thing right after another, page after page.
    • 4/5
      Two cousins, Liv and Nora, decide to take their well to do spouses and kids on a Christmas cruise to South America. While on the trip they take a shore excursion with another family and it goes horribly wrong. What happened next kept me glued to the pages of this book. I don't want to say too much more about the plot because not knowing what was going to happen was the real enjoyment of this book. Just when you think things are bad enough they get worse and the surprises kept coming right up until the very end. Normally I would be jealous that I wasn't on such a glamorous cruise but this is one book that made me glad I was sitting safely on my couch. This is a great summer beach read, I thoroughly enjoyed it.
    • 4/5
      Two couples and their children are on a vacation cruise when the children disappear. Definitely a compelling read and a more complex story than I might have expected.
    • 3/5
      Wow this book was sure different for me, than it was for many others based on all of the praise and hype it received. 1. For me this book was as not a thriller in any sense of the imagination. Like watching a movie such as Top Gun, as soon as you heard each pilots callsign/nickname you knew who wouldn't be around at the end of the movie, the same was true of this book.2. There were two sex scenes if you want to call them that, the first one is as sexy and steamy as a set of IKEA instructions. The second one was so completely implausible and was made raunchier than the first with the addition of a couple of four letter words, oh my!3. The writing was like what you would find in a Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew mystery. It was very basic.The two American couples were stereotypical, loaded with cliches and never surprised me. If you enjoy husbands who are boring and predictable, and wives who are socially conscious, devoutly liberal, concerned about the planet, the way poor immigrants are treated who just want to come to America, the fact that Americans behave entitled, and expect the world to do all their bidding, oh and these couples have pretentious and or precocious children, and they all reside in either Southern California or NYC, then this will be a great book for you this summer when you are finished with the latest New Yorker.Obviously this was not the book for me.
    • 4/5
      Two couples, Liv and Nora, their spouses and four children between the ages of six and eleven, decide to take a two week cruise to South America. On the ship they meet an Argentinian couple vwith two children of their own and become friends. At first at the various ports they stay on the ship but eventually decide to go ashore and take the children zip lining. The men decide to play golf instead, leaving the women and the children with their excursion guide. Things will go horribly awry, and due to a few different circumstances the children will become separated from their mothers.A strange country, a terrifying loss, this book was so very suspenseful. In alternating chapter we hear from the adults and also some of the children. That one of the youngest children has a medical condition makes this even more terrifying. As we follow the attempts to find the whereabouts of those lost we watch as the parents blame each other, blame themselves. A parents worst nightmare, in a county ruled by various drug factions, crooked police and violence, they with the aid of a few must try to connect the pieces and follow the flow of happenings. Things do keep happening, new pieces uncovered consistently, creating a very fast paced story full of tension.Well plotted, culturally aware, this story is very frightening in its reality. Motto: Do not ever, but especially in a foreign country, take your eyes off your children.ARC from Riverhead publishers.Release date, June 6th.
    • 4/5
      4.5 stars. Simply keeping up with the sheer number of characters and points of view is impressive enough, but Maile Meloy also ratchets up the tension and turns this into a great thriller as well as a powerful psychological study of character, of choices and guilt and resolve.
    • 4/5
      Two couples decide to take a cruise with their children during Christmas break. They meet an Argentinian couple with their own children on the cruise. While in the "Switzerland of Latin America" (Costa Rica), the 3 fathers go golfing, and the 3 mothers and 6 children, decide to take a zip-line trip. However, things go awry on the way to the excursion, and they end up at a beach. The children go off to play in the water, and the moms are otherwise occupied. Suddenly, the children are gone. This sets off an adventure of trying to recover the missing children. There are drug lords, police on the take, children being smuggled across the borders, many unscrupulous people but also some good people, murders, and all-around terror knowing the children are missing. It is a quick read, and full of high-paced action. A good thriller.
    • 4/5
      Kept you reading because WHO WOULDN'T read to find out how kids can get away from an impossible situation. Ending was a bit lacking, but the "read" was good.
    • 3/5
      This novel focuses on three families taking a two-week cruise over Christmas from Los Angeles down the coast of Mexico and Central America. Two of the families are American: adults Liv and Nora are close cousins, and Liv proposed the trip to help Nora get over the recent death of her mother. Their children are close as well: Liv and Benjamin are the parents of Sebastian, 8, and Penny, 11. Nora is married to Raymond, and their children are June, 6, and Marcus, aged 11. On board ship, both parents and adults befriend an Argentinean family, the parents Gunter and Camila, and kids Hector, 15, and Isabel, 14. The kids are all close enough in age that they hang out together.Very early into the story, the families go on an excursion - the three men golfing, and the three women and six kids on a zipline adventure. But the van for the zipline trip breaks down, and the kids ends up swimming in a nearby river instead. It happens that the mothers are not paying attention, however, when the kids get swept away by a change in the tide.The parents enlist local authorities as well as their embassy representatives to try to find their children. There is added pressure to find them fast (if indeed they are still alive) because Sebastian has diabetes: he can’t survive for long without his insulin, which of course he left behind to go in the water.Liv, the primary narrator, is convinced she has been cursed by fate: “The karmic bus had mowed her down. She was being punished for living in a false world, spongy and insulated from the reality around her. For living in a house with an alarm system, in a neighborhood where the only Latinos were gardeners and day laborers. For sending her kids to a private school that was almost entirely white in a city that wasn’t.”In alternate chapters we learn about what is happening with the kids, who fall into the hands of drug dealers after they witness something they should not have. The children are now in graver peril than they had been in the water, and their situation goes downhill fast.Meanwhile, all the parents are turning on each other, displacing guilt, blame, anger, and frustration. Some nationalist resentment plays a role as well, with Gunther musing: “He had come to despise the American parents, who thought nothing terrible could happen to them, even in these days of debt and war and warming seas, much of it visited on the world by their own rich, childish country.”And in fact, Gunther has a point in a meta sense as well. There is an uncomfortable amount of negative stereotyping by the author about the people and events encountered in Latin America by the North American families. Moreover, the North Americans are spared from the worst repercussions of what happened, unlike the South Americans.As the hours pass, the tension level picks up, and we don’t know until close to the very end who will make it, and who will not, and in what condition if they do survive.Discussion: In reading this book I was reminded of the complaints in reviews one often sees that pose the question, why is it that primarily people of color or gays or other minorities suffer the worse consequences in movies, tv shows, and books? Along those lines, in this book there were also two side characters- illegal migrants - who mainly seemed to be there not only to add to the "red herring" element but also to hit the rest of the South American stereotype buttons.The scenes involving the children and drug dealers did not seem to me to be well-written. The dialogue was a bit caricatured (as were the bad guys) and the laconic reactions of the children didn’t seem all that realistic. In fact, none of the characters were all that fleshed out. We didn’t really know who the American parents were, besides that they were shallow and overly concerned with their self-images. The Argentinean parents were so underdrawn it was almost astounding. In fact, in the critical moment of the book, when the kids go missing, we are only told why the two American moms didn’t see the kids disappear. The Argentinean mom was with them, but what about her? She wasn’t worth talking about, it seems. Even the bad things that happened are taken more seriously as they applied to the Americans. Benjamin’s self-centered regrets about the trip show no awareness of, or compassion about, the suffering of the Argentineans, who continue to be mostly ignored by the author. Benjamin, feeling unjustly burdened, muses:“So now they would all have to reenter their life, carrying this beast they’d picked up on vacation: a hulking creature of reproach, grief, fear, guilt, and untoward luck, shaggily cloaked in the world’s lurid interest.”Overall, to the extent that we got a glimpse into who the characters were, few of them were likable. Who were they before this? We don’t really know, and we aren’t inspired to want to know. The plot and the people in the story mostly seemed to validate the observation of Liv’s mother, a lawyer:“Civilization, her mother had told her since was small, was a series of agreements about what was good for everyone, enforced by law. And civilization was only a thin veneer over the savagery and greed that were the human default.”Evaluation: In spite of the parts I disliked about this book, it definitely is a page-turner, and would make a great choice for book clubs, where members would no doubt have lively discussions dissecting the parents’ reactions.
    • 5/5
      It’s been a long time since I had to stay up until 2:30 AM to finish a book, but I couldn’t put down Do Not Become Alarmed. It was every parent’s worst nightmare, and yet it was a fabulous read. The author captured cruise life, and although the book is a thriller, it brought up ethical issues about Americans in foreign countries, marital relationships and friendships. I found it much more substantial than the typical beach read, and I highly recommend it.