I really enjoyed this read! With such an interesting premise, This Way Out follows main character Amar has he navigates his engagement to fiancé Joshua and simultaneously coming out to his Bengali family. It explores both queerness and race and the way the two intersect whilst Amar also deals with the grief of losing his mother.
I found at times characters could be quite one dimension wishing for more depth such as in Amar's relationship with his sister- although this could just be a symptom of first person narrative. The plot itself however was really well paced- never feeling rushed.
This is a super important read that covers lots of questions that should be being asked. 3.5/5! (Rounded up)

<i>Thank you to Netgalley, Lake Union Publishing, and Amazon Publishing for an eARC!</i>

An emotional, heartwarming and heartbreaking story. While it deals with heavy topics such as issues around race and religion, it is in no way grim. Over all it was an enjoyable read. Fans of contemporary romance will get their fill here!

Thank you so much for allowing me to read and review your titles. I really not the opportunity!

I do appreciate it and continue to review books that I get the chance to read.
Thanks again!

Thank you, Lak Union Publishing, for allowing me to read This Way Out early.

Don't be fouled by the cover or the synopsis. I saw some reviewers saying they expected a romcom and that's not what this book is. This story is emotional and presenting heavier topics but at the same time it's pretty easy readable. I loved to read about the struggles of a Muslim queer man and really liked the overall story.

I gave it 4 stars.

Here's why;

First of all, I liked how realistic the events were. It was a cute story with events of real life, I liked the portrayal of characters. Life is not always happy but this book shows how to get through.

I also enjoyed reading Amar and Joshua's love story, I don't want to label it as gay romance because it's a romance book. Love is love after all.

This book is highly recommended and if you read this you won't be dissapointed. I really enjoyed reading this.

This Way Out is beautiful, emotional, and such a great story of Amar figuring out how to reconcile being gay with being Muslim, being Bangladeshi while loving a white Englishman.

This Way Out opens with Amar telling his family via WhatsApp that he’s engaged and his fiancée is a man, but then he hides from the responses from his siblings because he doesn’t actually feel ready for what their response will be. His family’s reaction is complicated and because he’s still coping with grief of his mother’s death three years prior, the prospect of losing his family causes him to spiral, which is further compounded by learning the bookshop that he works at and that kept him afloat in many ways is about to be forced to close and dealing with racist microaggressions and unconscious bias from his future mother-in-law.

I expected more of a romance novel, but this is much more just Amar’s story and emotional journey. I loved seeing his emotional growth and how much therapy helped him learn better communication and coping skills. I found this difficult to put down and it hits so many different emotional beats, but I promise there is a happy ending and so many things are resolved in the best way they could be. I loved this book and highly recommend it for an emotional contemporary story full of heart and warmth.

I LOVE LOVE LOVED Amar. This coming out story was a brilliant masterpiece ! Being brown in a predominately white country is definitely known to have it's trials and tribulations. But to be brown, gay, Muslim, and in a relationship with a white man, that almost unheard of ?

Haha or so Amar thinks. Reading Amar's story and getting to see how he navigates through the difficult issues that he is facing in his life was so much fun. Granted he is dealing with hard issues for some and things that can be very sensitive but the story is about growth and acceptance of ones self. Learning that you don't need your family to accept you to validate you, and who you truly are.

This story was just so well told I wish I hadn't read it as quickly as I do. Don't mind me while I go and run to add this to my Amazon cart so I can have a physical copy for my shelves.

Thank you for the chance to read an arc of this book.

This book brought up so many important topics and I liked that it didn’t let people get away with ignorance or micro aggressions. The story handled mental health in a very respectful way once Amar had accepted that seeing a therapist wasn’t just for white people, and I enjoyed his journey to self love.

While I did enjoy the story, please be aware that there are numerous size shaming remarks throughout the book.

This book really just melted my whole soul. I wish it had come out during Pride Month because it would've been the PERFECT time to debut!

28 Amar has to deal with the fall out of coming out to his Muslim family, and how it affects him. This was a heartwarming novel that deals with some heavy and important subject matter. The writing fell a bit flat for me, but I look forward to the author's future books.

I like the idea of this book.... but the execution is lacking. The characters are half-baked and the first bit of exposition just flew by me. I can't really care about his depressive episode when I just learn about him and his mom's death two paragraphs ago. this book is an example of an author that told instead of showing.

DNF at chapter 9/25%

I feel the blurb on this was a bit misleading. I was expecting a cute romcom, where the heavier topics of religion, race and sexuality weren’t quite as prominent. I believe this is the reason I couldn’t really get into the story, since I was prepared for something quite different.

That being said, I found no flaws in the autor’s writing or the story itself. I feel like this story is very unique and has representation I don’t feel is explored much, especially own voices, and is certainly not present in most of the books i usually read. I think it would be highly impactful for something going through the same thing as our main character - dealing with coming out to your muslim family, not knowing exactly how they´ll react. I did feel like this is a book I could really learn from and that could open my eyes to a different perspective than my own. I will definitely try this story again when I am a bit more emotionally prepared for the turmoil...

I give it 1 star simply because it was a DNF, and my full thoughts are required to give a fair (and probably higher) star rating.

The overall premise is great the first few chapters felt like it was trying to cater a non Muslim, non Bangledeshi, non immigrant audiance. Throughout the first few chapters the narrator is telling me of the cultural stakes of coming out to his family instead of allowing the story to show me which slows down the pacing significantly. I'm not Muslim, nor Bangledeshi, nor from an immigrant family and I think that story would have benefited from dropping the reader into Amar's world and shown the stakes without holding their hand. For this reason, I didn't finish the book.

Enjoyable book. I thought that it was an emotional story and I found the main character and the family very intriguing. I am looking forward to future work by Tufayel Ahmed.

A fantastic debut about coming out, grief, navigating family, religion, self love, self acceptance, and love.

Amar, is a queer, Bangladeshi Muslim, who was born and raised in East London, who after 3 years is still dealing with his mothers death. Recently engaged to the love of his life Joshua, Amar decides it is finally time to come out to his family. He decides to send a message in the family group text and come out to his siblings en masse. He meets up with all of them a few days later to talk in person and it is safe to say it does not go well. This oldest sister and brother do not take it well and question him and his "decision" to be gay. Amar tries to explain himself and how much he has struggled over the years but they don't see reason and none of his other siblings stand up for him. His partner Josh does his best to help him through it, as does his welcoming family, but everything seems to be crumbling around him. He begins going to therapy, reluctantly at first, and working out his issues, but not without some bumps in the road.

This story really shows the perspective finding yourself in a culture and religion that seems to condemn who you are. What being an ally really is, and how you always have to strive for better to understand the difference and challenges those in your life are facing. How you can always grow as a person and work towards fighting your biases.

7/10
This Way Out is a contemporary fiction about Amar, a 28 year old gay, Bangladeshi, Muslim man coming to terms with his religion and sexuality. It follows him as he tells his family he is gay and engaged to a white man he's been dating for two years, starting therapy, his job at a bookstore that is going out of business, and grieving over the loss of his mother three years prior.

I loved the character development that both Amar and his boyfriend, Joshua, have and how their relationship grows together. They both come to terms with the fact that they have been avoiding discussion certain things about their relationship but that the fault is not on one of them, but on both of them. I also really enjoyed Amar being able to find and connect with other queer Muslim's in the area. Finally, I appreciated that Amar's family is not seen as lesser than Joshua's family, and it's shown that they all have issues because they are all human.

While I enjoyed the character development, for the first half of the story I thought Amar was annoying and thought about not finishing because it was difficult for me to like him. I also felt some parts were repetitive.

Unwilling to continue keeping his sexuality secret forever, and still grieving the loss of his mother, overwhelmed and struggling Amar decides the best way to let his strict Muslim Bangladeshi family know he is engaged to Joshua is through a group WhatsApp message. When sharing his truth sends shockwaves through his family, Amar is forced to question everything he once believed. As cracks begin to show in his relationship, and his family seem more fractured than ever, can Amar find his happy ending?

First, I'll say the story of This Way Out deserves five stars. I have never before read an Own Voices book about a gay second-generation British Muslim Bangladeshi man, and I thought the author did an excellent job at navigating the nuances of identity; sexuality; culture; religion; microaggressions; grief; and much more. Not to mention addressing mental health through cultural, religious and gendered complexities. Amar is a complex and troubled protagonist, and I thought he was characterised very well; the love for his family battling with the inherent need to live truthfully and without shame. I loved seeing open representations of therapy on the page; showing a committed couple working through deeply complex issues in supportive and loving ways; and seeing Amar attend the inclusive mosque with his LGBTQIAP+ friends.

Unfortunately, I really disliked the narrative style of the book. This comes down to personal preference, in the end. Absolutely everything is told to the reader, which makes it a very easy read in some ways, but also a fairly detached and emotionally flat one. It might be sensible to consider This Way Out as a series of journal entries, or a long inner monologue, because everything is told from a psychological distance, I found it quite a shame, because the content and depth of the story itself gets richer and richer as the book goes on, and I do think this is a fundamentally important book to read, but I wish it had been written in a more engaging style, to make it more like a novel and less like a report. That's why I've averaged out my rating to 3.5*, rounded up to 4.

I would say that I think the book is somewhat mis-marketed. From the blurb, I was expecting a kind of romcom, but actually the book deals with very deep and tough topics. While important, they are not light or fluffy in any respect, and from the beginning of the story it's clear that the crux of the conflict will be concerning the matter of whether Amar can manage to stay true to himself without having his family turn their backs on him for religious and cultural reasons, which would obviously be quite complex and difficult reading material for some.

cw: religious trauma; racism; Islamophobia; f-slurs; homophobia; grief; depression