Exit West in Book Riot's Read Harder Challenge

Mar 03, 2017 Rincey rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites, poc-author, 2017

Watch my full review: https://youtu.be/3jU1bjXtHWg ...more

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Jun 02, 2018 Kristen rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: literary-fiction, aoc, audio-book, 2018, read-harder-2018

Exit West takes place initially in an unnamed country that begins peaceful and then erupts into violence and warfare. Though it is explicitly not named, I read it to be a place like Syria, though really it is so politically relevant that pretty much anywhere in the world could be the setting. The narrative follows Saeed, a fairly traditional and sweet young man, and Nadia, a feisty and independent young woman. They meet in a class they are taking together and begin a relationship. When their cit Exit West takes place initially in an unnamed country that begins peaceful and then erupts into violence and warfare. Though it is explicitly not named, I read it to be a place like Syria, though really it is so politically relevant that pretty much anywhere in the world could be the setting. The narrative follows Saeed, a fairly traditional and sweet young man, and Nadia, a feisty and independent young woman. They meet in a class they are taking together and begin a relationship. When their city breaks out into violence, Nadia and Saeed are torn as to whether they should stay, or if they will try to escape. Then they learn about mysterious doors that are opening around the city which will whisk people away to faraway places of safety. However, the doors are usually found quickly and are heavily guarded, either by the military and thus forbidden, or by the rebels and thus exorbitantly expensive to get through. Nadia and Saeed eventually decide to try their luck with the doors and flee the city, joining the flood of refugees worldwide, not knowing where the door will take them or if what they find on the other side will be worse than what they left behind.

This was one of those books that, at first, I thought was going to be an interesting read that I would get through quickly (which I did) and then move on from. I was not expecting the way it casually sucker punched me right in the feels when I wasn’t looking. It was unexpected because the book overall was so quiet. It just floated along and then BAM! A line comes along that is just so beautiful, or painful, or touching, or all three, that I found myself without breath, and a couple times actually crying. This highlights the struggles of the immigrant experience, and how it is hard to leave a place you have called home no matter how bad things might be getting there. It also shows that, while the physical leaving might in the end be easy, it is not easy to be an immigrant, which is not something that should need to be explained to anyone, but apparently it is.

The doors were interesting, reminiscent of the train system in Colson Whitehead’s Underground Railroad. They are magic doors and no one knows where they come from or where they will take you, except that it will be to a safer, better place than where you are now. I do wish the way out of Saeed and Nadia’s country had been portrayed in a more realistic manner. But maybe it doesn’t matter how they get out but that they get out. The doors are also an intriguing discussion on liminality and the in-between, neither here nor there places of the world, which could be a huge long paper in and of itself and which I can’t write about here at the moment.

I confess I had a hard time really identifying much with either Saeed or Nadia, because they seemed at times to be kind of flat. However, I think this is intentional. I think if I were a refugee and had lived through the things they had, I would be fairly numbed to a lot of things and probably come across as flat to a lot of people as well. I might be hard to relate to or to understand, too.

The prose was fabulous and fabulistic, creating a setting that was simultaneously sharp and dangerous yet magical and somehow hopeful in the end. The only thing I didn’t care for was that I listened to this on audio and the author narrated it himself. I thought his reading was a little monotonous. But the story itself was so good that it hardly made a difference to the overall experience.

Highly recommended. ...more

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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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Dec 03, 2017 Kate rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Some people didn't like the magical-realism bit about the doors, but another reviewer pointed out that it freed Hamid from having to write about the struggles of travel and focus on the impacts of emigrating. If you are easily distracted by a device like the doors or if you are expecting a grand treatise on refugees and nativism, this isn't for you. If you're interested in how individuals navigate their relationships and senses of self through the intense effects migration, then go for it. I als ...more

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Apr 29, 2018 Jen rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites, popular-fiction

In some ways this book is very simple but overall it is incredibly profound. It explores the reality of our moving population and what motivates them to seek new homes. It explores a relationship and what stress and crisis can do to that and overall it is a commentary on the human condition. My favorite line I think sums up the book well: "…for personalities are not single immutable color, like white or blue, but rather illuminated screens, and the shades we reflect depend much on what is around ...more

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