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From the Bookshelf of Constant Reader…

Exit West

Mohsin Hamid

Start date: September 15, 2017

Finish date: October 1, 2017

Discussion: Reading List

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Reading List

* The Schedule for July through Dec. 2025
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What Members Thought

May 25, 2017 Jenny (Reading Envy) rated it liked it

Shelves: own, botm, booker-winners-and-listed, read2017, newest-literary-fiction-group, borders-2017

I was really looking forward to this book. It was burning a hole in my pocket because I had heard such good things, and was happy when it was picked as a book club pick for one of my groups.

I ended up disappointed for a few reasons. I think it's a decent read, a quick read certainly, but not the five-star read I was hoping for. The basic premise is a bit of a spoiler, better discovered as you read the book, so I will put it all behind a spoiler tag.

(view spoiler) I was really looking forward to this book. It was burning a hole in my pocket because I had heard such good things, and was happy when it was picked as a book club pick for one of my groups.

I ended up disappointed for a few reasons. I think it's a decent read, a quick read certainly, but not the five-star read I was hoping for. The basic premise is a bit of a spoiler, better discovered as you read the book, so I will put it all behind a spoiler tag.

(view spoiler) ...more

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Jan 14, 2018 Jennifer rated it it was amazing

In long, lyrical, run-on sentences that often turn into whole paragraphs, Hamid wryly and candidly captures the flourishing, faltering, and dissolution of a relationship, one that might have continued to flourish--or might have just as likely flickered and faded--had it not been for militancy, migration, and the hardships that follow in the wake of violent change.

I pondered the doors quite a bit as I read, thinking about how they allow the characters to bypass the act of migration itself and al In long, lyrical, run-on sentences that often turn into whole paragraphs, Hamid wryly and candidly captures the flourishing, faltering, and dissolution of a relationship, one that might have continued to flourish--or might have just as likely flickered and faded--had it not been for militancy, migration, and the hardships that follow in the wake of violent change.

I pondered the doors quite a bit as I read, thinking about how they allow the characters to bypass the act of migration itself and all the danger this so often entails for refugees. The doors are metaphorical, of course, the passage through them described in details akin to birth, but in their blankness, their total opacity, they also seemed to symbolize the trauma of migration, the unfathomable wound of passage. Other books might better portray the facts of those crossings; Hamid chooses not to focus on this wound, but rather on what comes before and after it, how people cope in the aftermath, what they discover there. I appreciated that Nadia's and Saeed's emotional journeys weren't the only paths the book illuminated; their story was punctuated by scenes that allowed glimpses into the lives of other migrants (and non-migrants), so we might begin to consider how these other lives are also affected by migration.

There were many sections of the book I copied down, since many scenes ended with an epiphanic burst that I wanted to be able to recall later. Of all of these, this one--in which Nadia recognizes how the fury of the nativists in her new country is like the fury of the militants in her former home--is my favorite:

She wondered whether she and Saeed had done anything by moving, whether the faces and buildings had changed but the basic reality of their predicament had not.
But then around her she saw all these people of all these different colors in all these different attires and she was relieved, better here than there she thought, and it occurred to her that she had been stifled in the place of her birth for virtually her entire life, that its time for her had passed, and a new time was here, and, fraught or not, she relished this like the wind in her face on a hot day when she rode her motorcycle and lifted the visor of her helmet and embraced the dust and the pollution and the little bugs that sometimes went into your mouth and made you recoil and even spit, but after spitting grin, and grin with a wildness.

...more

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Apr 22, 2019 Clifford rated it really liked it

Shelves: novels

I think there's some fuzziness to the novel's purpose that keeps it from being great--should borders be eliminated? should people stay put? should migrants always be welcomed with open arms?--but it certainly raises these important issues. The introduction of the magical realist element in an otherwise realistic story reminded me of The Underground Railroad. ...more

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Apr 13, 2017 Kate rated it it was amazing

This book is gorgeous and so appropriate for the times we are living in now. It is a love story, a refugee story, a story about two people trying to find their way in the world. I inhaled this book. to me, Mohsin Hamid's books get better and better. Please read this. ...more

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Jun 20, 2024 Ardita rated it really liked it

It has a gentle beginning of two people who got closer amid an escalating war. The middle part is about their journey for a more peaceful life.

The story focuses on experiences and emotions that reflect factual details. It has a dash of magical realism that may bother people who expect true-story inspiration out of Hamid's story. It reads like an essay to some extent. Almost no conversational scenes.

I would say Hamid presents the alternate universe of The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini) meets The ...more

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