I have upgraded by rating to 5* after further reflection

I received a free copy of this novel from Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.
Nadia and Saeed, a young couple living in an unidentified city packed with refugees and imminently threatened by war, attempt to continue their normal lives as the world falls apart around them. As street fighting turns the city into a hellish nightmare they are forced to flee, using the doors that have mysteriously emerged across the world, helping refugees flee their circumstances by stepping into the unknown.
The hysterical response of the Western world means that what will happen to these people is far from certain – the refugees’ precarious position could end in bloodshed at any moment. Hamid’s positioning of a love story within the refugee crisis humanises people who are often demonised by politicians and media coverage – these are people like you and me who just want to live in safety and freedom with their loved ones. Though sympathetically articulating the position of the refugee Hamid avoids a preachy tone, he shows compassion for those concerned about the influx of refugees into their safe Western cities while ultimately making it very clear the dangers and horrors that await – to both refugees but also to the soul of a society that attacks them - if humanity does not prevail.
Exit West is a thought-provoking novel. The emergence of the doors is a clever device – making the flow of people completely unregulated, which plays into the frightened hysteria, drastically increasing the threat of conflict. Mohsin Hamid writes so well – only to be expected by someone nominated for the Booker for his novel The Reluctant Fundamentalist – and this is certainly worth reading.

There are a lot of things I didn't necessarily like about this book, including some unnecessary fluffy sentences and the story looks sometimes unbalanced, but it approaches an interesting daily topic in a creative and interesting way. At the end of the book you are left with more than a challenging idea to consider about identity and the effect of everyday wars on humanity.

Exit West is an intriguing book. On the thinnest skin of surface it’s a love story, set against the backdrop of a refugee crisis. But barely any scratching is needed to reveal what lies beneath: - something that feels more like a parable, or philosophical text, than a novel, asking complex questions about displacement, migration and the resolution of the global tensions they cause.

The success of this book lies in how well that surface layer manages to humanise the refugee experience, to make the issues below seem truly personal. And it does it in the strangest way. Rather than showing the inhuman suffering of the character’s real-life counterparts, Hamid almost strips them of it, both through a distant narratorial style and an unusual plot device. A little depressingly, this makes them more relatable. Instead of a crushing sympathy for the suffering of others, you have an unsettling feeling that this could be you.

It starts in an unnamed city, in a seemingly Middle Eastern country, on the brink of war - an Every-city, a place where normal modern life happens, until it doesn’t. Nadia and Saeed catch each other’s attention at an evening class, start texting incessantly and meet in their lunch breaks from the office. Deep in this flirtatious-text stage of their relationship they have their mobile receptions cut: suddenly they have no way of arranging where to meet next, or even knowing if each other got home safely. This is the kind of hardship most of us can easily imagine.

Their relationship is accelerated unnaturally when war breaks out and they form a unit to survive together, fleeing the country. Here is where the plot device steps in: a bit of unexpected magical realism. Mysterious doors are appearing, which you can step through to another part of the world in an instant. Nadia and Saeed buy access to one on the black market and step through onto a Greek Island, later using them to move to first London, then Northern California. There is none of the threat and peril of the migrant journey, they are just instantly facing the everyday challenges of displacement. Connected now with our characters, the parable begins.

When Saeed, Nadia, and thousands of refugees from all the world’s war torn areas step into London, rather than escaping conflict, they bring it with them. At this point, Exit West seems to be suggesting that migration is doomed. That if we let people escape conflict zones to lands of plenty and peace then all it does is transform everywhere into a conflict zone. But then the book reaches a turning point, where British forces on the brink of a violent military sweep step back. ‘Step back’, we’re told in turn, ‘think about how this response would end, ask what it would solve.’ And Hamid turns to imagine pragmatic solutions, and the parable plays out with positivity and hope.

Towards the end the narrator comments: “It has been said that depression is a failure to imagine a plausible desirable future for oneself” and it’s an idea Hamid expanded on further in an interview with The New Yorker last year, saying: “Part of the great political crisis we face in the world today is a failure to imagine plausible desirable futures. We are surrounded by nostalgic visions, violently nostalgic visions. Fiction can imagine differently.” It is this future he provides for us, no added imagination required.

If Exit West says one thing it’s that the extreme end of mass migration is inevitable, and these people could so easily be you. Stop thinking it’s ‘us’ and ‘them’, either a ‘them’ to resist OR a ‘them’ to sympathise with. Instead, start finding a way for an integrated world to work for everyone now.

New sub-genre alert: refugee-magic-realism.

Apart from a love story, I didn’t really know what to expect from Exit West by Mohsin Hamid.

Saeed and Nadia flee their unnamed, on-the-brink-of-war country to build a new life. Their escape is not by treacherous sea-crossing or a midnight hike – instead, they step through a magical door (at great cost), that opens in another country. It’s a bit like playing pick-a-box because Saeed and Nadia don’t know what’s behind each door, but the first takes them to a refugee camp on a Greek island and the story unfolds from there.

In Exit West, Hamid demonstrates that the refugee experience is universally the same – that is, horrifyingly the same. Nadia and Saeed’s story is interspersed with short passages about other refugees. The stories are similar – finding shelter; food and water; and feeling safe is the priority, regardless of where you land. Hamid also explores the issues around leaving family and friends in the home country, knowing it’s likely to be forever.

Hamid’s staccato style and lack of dialogue (pages and pages of stark, choppy sentences) created a sense of tension but at the cost of investing emotionally with Saeed and Nadia. I understood the urgency of their situation but I didn’t feel it. I understood the horrors of what they were seeing but felt as equally detached as the cool narrator. Saeed’s mother dies while looking for a lost earring in her car – “…a stray heavy-calibre round passing through the windscreen … and taking with it a quarter of her head”. And –

“In times of violence, there is always that first acquaintance or intimate of ours, who, when they are touched, makes what had seemed like a bad dream suddenly, eviscerating real. For Nadia, this person was her cousin … who, along with eighty-five others, was blown by a truck bomb to bits, literally to bits, the largest of which, in Nadia’s cousin’s case, were a head and two-thirds of an arm.”

While there were some interesting themes in this book, I felt they were distorted by the magic realism and dystopian elements of the book.

2/5 I’m breaking up with magic realism.

I received my copy of Exit West from the publisher, Hamish Hamilton, via NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.

I must admit I had higher hopes for this book after thoroughly enjoying the Reluctant Fundamentalist. I enjoyed the magic realism elements to the story with the use of 'doors' to other countries, but the writing style didn't engage me as much as I wanted it to and the characters felt too distant for me to get to know them properly.

This hasn't put me off other books by the author and I do recommend this if you like Literary fiction.
Thanks so much to NetGalley and Penguin Books (UK) Hamish Hamilton for my advanced digital copy.

The city is already at war when Saeed first meets Nadia in an evening class. Yet, there is still something like an ordinary life. Both of them go to work, go shopping and spend time on the Internet. Their love is not passion at first sight, it develops slowly and as they are falling in love, life becomes increasingly difficult and dangerous in their hometown. Violence becomes a normal factor in their lives and when the war finally arrives also in their quarter, they have to make a decision: do they want to spend the rest of their time together? When Saeed’s mother is killed, Nadia moves in with him and his father. But the situation becomes more and more complicated and so they finally decide to leave and follow thousands of others into a better life in the west.

Mohsin Hamid does not give any name to Saeed’s and Nadia’s hometown, from the information we can find in the novel, I gather it must be in Syria or one of the neighbouring countries. What I found quite impressive was, first of all, how everyday life can be arranged in times of war. People adapt to the situation, find ways of coping with limitations in their freedom of moving around when curfews are announced and can even organise their life around religious regulations ordered by the rulers. When food is limited and even their own flats are not secure anymore, they maintain at least the impression of normality.

The second aspect I especially appreciated was the character of Nadia. Even before the story begins, she is a free spirit, lives according to her own rules and does not let herself be dominated by the men in a man-dominated country. The fact that she as a single woman who lives alone is already impressive, but her real strength becomes only obvious when she and Saeed leave the country and have to rearrange their life in foreign places. In contrast to Saeed, she does not look back and search for familiar people who speak the same language and practise the same religion. Nadia can really adapt to new situations and show her intelligence and capacities of bonding with people. She is not afraid, she has already lost her home country, her family and gave up everything.

Exit West contributes to the current politically most discussed topic in Europe. Yet, it does not highlight the political dimension of the quasi exodus of a whole generation, but focuses on the personal perspective. With Saeed and Nadia, we have a loving couple who leave behind different lives and who struggle in very different ways with their role as refugees. How the citizens of London react to the newcomers could be interesting to look at more closely, just as the development of their relationship over the course of time. The role of men and women in the different countries is also worth another thought. Yet, everything cannot be mentioned in a review, particularly if a novel offers that much as Exit West does. It is also Hamid’s style of writing which contributes to making the novel stand out in the masses of new publications. With a plain, very direct way of narration, the author can hit the reader deeply and hinder anybody from just reading the novel, closing the book and forgetting about it.

A superb read in Hamid's trademark style. I love the way the author creates an almost anonymous world, one without a named location but one that can be identified with. In 'Exit West', Saeed and Nadia fall in love; they exist in a war-torn city and conduct their relationship undercover of darkness. The way Nadia throws woman's clothes to Saeed, so their illicit relationship isn't discovered, is incredibly poignant and really highlights the troubles and terrors some people in our extremely divided world go through every single day.

This feels apocalyptic at times - almost it's not the apocalypse but something different. From their escape from their homeland to Mykonos, then London and finally San Francisco, Saeed and Nadia lead a troubled life. In some ways, this is like a fairytale, almost mystical, but in others, it's an example of gritty reality. I definitely recommend 'Exit West' and enjoyed the one-sitting reading of it.

Exit West is one of those novels that I’m still puzzling over, some time after finishing it. The author makes some interesting choices in terms of technique. So this review is really my reflections up to now rather than a settled opinion.

First, Exit West is narrated by an omniscient narrator with a cool, detached voice. This adds to the sense that the events it describes are normal, unsurprising. It tells the story of Saeed and Nadia, who live in an unnamed city in a country on the brink of civil war.

Saeed has light stubble and Nadia wears a black robe, at a time when people could still choose what to wear, ‘so these choices meant something’. They become involved and in contrast to their appearances, it is Nadia who has broken with expectations by living independently, estranged from her family, while Saeed still lives at home.

At first they do the things new couples do. They text incessantly. They use recreational drugs by moonlight. They listen to music and negotiate their attitudes to sex. But the civil war takes first their freedom and then their safety. It seems like the only option is to escape.

Saeed and Nadia leave through one of the ‘doors’ by which refugees leave war zones, generally after handing over money to traffickers. The ‘doors’ open and close apparently randomly, offering an abrupt dislocation from one place to another. It suggests something magical, without human agency, while the reality is anything but.

While Saeed and Nadia’s home city is unnamed, the events described feel contemporary and real. However the places where they go after they leave, which are named, known locations, are subtly different, as if we’re looking at a possible future or an alternate reality. They are in social upheaval, they are more segregated, even less hopeful than they are now.

Then there are vignettes throughout the book interrupting the main narrative, showing immigrants and refugees in other regions suddenly appearing through doors, as if to remind us that this is happening everywhere, all the time.

Saeed and Nadia are well realised characters, at once unique and recognisable. As they leave their home the narrative fragments and their stories become less absorbing. It is as if in becoming refugees, whose main preoccupation is survival, whose choices are circumscribed, they have less time to be psychologically complex and interesting, not only to a reader but perhaps to themselves.

So while the story didn’t engage me throughout the book, the ideas did, and still do. Exit West challenges you to think in new ways about a familiar issue, to question what you understand when you see generic terms like refugee or migrant applied to millions of individuals, who each has their home, their emotional life, their door, and has to make the decision to take that chance, or not, while they can.

There was just not enough narrative development for me, so whilst I was interested to get a idea about the struggles of Refugees as they cross Europe, the beautiful language was not enough to carry the story of a romance under pressure to a satisfying conclusion, at least for me.

A wonderful love story settle in a world just like ours, where special doors bring you around the world and are used by refugees to go away from war lands. As usual Hamid is able to convey the biggest feeling with the simplest words and this time also he didn't disappointed me and remains one of my favorite author.

THANKS TO NETGALLEY FOR THE PREVIEW!

This great author's new book did not disappoint. It was beautifully written and well constructed. The subject of immigration and integration is very timely and the love affair between Saeed and Nadia was poignant. Highly recommended.

At first the style this book was written in out me off but I quickly found that I wasn't at a distance and was fully immersed.
It read as a cautionary tale for our current times and while there was some magical realism it was the realism that shone through. I've been thinking and dreaming about this book since I finished it.

Exit West is a strange fruit.

Set in an unnamed city in an unnamed country, Saeed and Nadia fall in love. Both are middle class, employed and have good lives, stretching the boundaries of what is permissible in a conservative society. They have access to satellite TV, internet, smartphones and transport. They have everything that they could want in a material sense. But we are told from the outset that the city is on the brink of a ten-year war. As Saeed and Nadia become closer and closer, their city and their lives crumble around them. The communications networks fail, their employment evaporates, their families fragment. With nothing left, they exit west. They land up in a world that doesn’t want them and they don’t much want it.

The writing style is breathtaking. It is lucid but poetic, reading almost like a folk tale. There are often references in the past tense to Saeed and Nadia’s destiny, as though written in the far future looking back on contemporary society – with the references to smartphones making it clear that the story is set firmly in the present day. The setting is an enigma. For the first half of the book, the time is now but the location is unclear. The reader may say Syria, but it is never specific. But in the second half of the novel, the locations are clear but the time is more vague; we find a Europe awash with refugees from all over the world (some of whom are white); shanty towns spring up; the army impose containment and surveillance techniques. Perhaps it is a prophecy of a near future or perhaps it is hyperbole for literary effect. The effect of this, though, is to shake the reader’s certainty that Saeed and Nadia are from Syria; they could come from almost anywhere.

The novel strikes a rich balance between the global upheaval and the personal loves and tragedies of Saeed and Nadia. The young lovers are imperfect, but very human. They are not just faceless numbers, they are individuals with education, aspirations and something to offer the world. Their struggle is matched by those around them, and those we see in our lives every day. The people we may perceive to be threatening may well feel frightened and threatened themselves. They will certainly be feeling dislocated. And unlike those western migrants who bounce back and forth between developed nations, the refugees don’t have the option of returning home any time soon, even if home as they knew it might still exist.

To add to the wider perspective, each chapter includes a vignette from another country showing various degrees of upheaval, instability or general uneasiness.

One particularly striking feature of Exit West is the lack of narrative of the physical process of migration. It is portrayed as going through a door from one society to another. This is jarring when first encountered, but as a literary device it allows the focus to be on people in their old lives and their new lives without the attention being diverted to the short and daring journey itself. The device adds to heavy stylisation of the novel where time and location have a dreamlike quality.

Exit West is an important and timely novel. It doesn’t offer easy answers; if anything, it actually justifies the feeling of resistance of the nations in which the refugees land up. There are no winners; there is simply a world of pain caused when nations fragment. Mohsin Hamid gives the reader much to ponder, written in the most beautiful and beguiling language.

I am confident this will be a best seller and required reading for everyone for 2017. Refugees from poverty and crisis are on the move, looking for a better, safer place to live, as they have been throughout history. This book envisages how the world might be as the number of people seeking to escape their first home grows year on year. I was drawn into Hamid’s thoughtful and compassionate vision of a new way of living for both the refugees and the people already living in the desirable places, and was struck by the idea of the moral authority of groups of refugees, regardless of where they came from.

A poignant love story, too. He shows how a couple sees one another differently every time they move to a new place, each of them reacting to and reflecting their new surroundings. Carefully and elegantly written, Saieed and Nadia’s story touched me in ways I wasn’t expecting. I’ll be recommending this as widely as I can.

Many thanks to Penguin UK and NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read this.