What's Next? discussion

Story of a white middle aged couple with two teens renting a luxury home in secluded Long Island (the book’s title is a quote from the home’s travel brochure). They’re interrupted by an older Black couple who claim the house is theirs, that something terrible is happening in the world and no one has phone or internet access to prove otherwise. Most blurbs stop there and one can imagine this is a thriller in the vein of “Get Out” with a heavy focus on racial tensions but the book turns out to be something else (there is an interlude when the families first meet where buried racist proclivities rear their head and the Black couple sadly anticipates how to behave to diffuse tensions but it doesn’t turn out to be a main focus of the story). The book takes place over just 1.5 days and is a pre-apocalyptic thriller. Some mad shit goes down later in the book. It’s very short at 240 pgs and to me, a page turner. I thought the writing was too self-conscious at first (negative reviews have called it pretentious) but I found many analogies fresh and inventive. The “hook” of the story and the prose is what sold me on this book. 4/5 stars.