Exit West in Book Riot's Read Harder Challenge

Aug 10, 2017 Jenni rated it liked it · review of another edition

I was really excited for this... but I just don't think it lives up to expectation.

Now first, I have no experience with refugees or migrants and thus cannot speak to how well the story is told from that aspect. I do feel like it gave me a lot to think about as far as refugees and migrants.

I just didn't think this was very well written. Every time I felt like I was getting attached or invested in the story of our two main character, the story would jump to a completely unrelated story about peop ...more

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Aug 31, 2017 Shannon rated it really liked it · review of another edition

This book is hard to describe because it teeters between realism and magical realism and fantasy. Regardless of its category, this book is about relationship and immigration and how we grow and evolve as people. Read it to see the world differently and with more compassion. Read it to give yourself the grace to change into who you might really be.

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May 08, 2017 Alison rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, bookclub, z2017-read-harder-challenge

This was wonderful - the story of two young people who decide to flee the war in their country, and take off into the unknown together. The book is very much about their relationship, and how it changes over time - how their environment and surroundings impact their feelings for one another. I really enjoyed this.

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May 20, 2017 Jenny rated it really liked it · review of another edition

“It might seem odd that in cities teetering at the edge of the abyss young people still go to class—in this case an evening class on corporate identity and product branding—but that is the way of things, with cities as with life, for one moment we are pottering about our errands as usual and the next we are dying and our eternally impending ending does not put a stop to our transient beginnings and middles until the instant when it does” (3-4)

This passage, written by the Mohsin Hamid early on i

“It might seem odd that in cities teetering at the edge of the abyss young people still go to class—in this case an evening class on corporate identity and product branding—but that is the way of things, with cities as with life, for one moment we are pottering about our errands as usual and the next we are dying and our eternally impending ending does not put a stop to our transient beginnings and middles until the instant when it does” (3-4)

This passage, written by the Mohsin Hamid early on in Exit West, grabbed my attention and pulled me into the story of Nadia and Saeed, who live in an unnamed country on the brink of civil war. They meet at the above-mentioned night class and are immediately drawn to each other. Their relationship develops quickly against the backdrop of a country and city becoming more restrictive and dangerous by the day. While conditions worsen, Nadia and Saeed hear rumors of mysterious doors that appear in random places but lead to locations continents away. Though the military and the rebels guard many of these doors, others are still available if you know the right person and can pay the right price.

Because this is a novel about both the reasons for and the act of immigration, we follow Nadia and Saeed as a door takes them away from their home city and on a journey to find a safe place to live.
This isn’t a novel of action and adventure (though you often fear for the main characters' safety), it’s more an exploration of the act of leaving and arriving, and how migration changes both the places left and the places people escape to as well as the people leaving and arriving. In some ways, this is a good companion piece to The Underground Railroad because in both novels, the authors have created realistic stories with one simple element that is fantastical. Like Whitehead’s novel, Hamid's Exit West is all about now, even as it is told in kind of a “timeless” way. Nadia and Saeed’s experiences as refugees at every point in their travels mirror experiences people are currently having as they attempt to leave countries like Syria and Sudan and make new lives in Toronto or Chicago or Brighton.

I was intrigued by the details that I had heard about this book from a Fresh Air interview Terri Gross did with Mohsin Hamid a few weeks ago. Also, I read and enjoyed (though I don’t know if enjoyed is the right word) one of Hamid’s earlier novels, The Reluctant Fundamentalist. All this is to say that I came into reading this primed for a novel that would make me think and feel (but mostly think) and I was not disappointed.
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