Reviews with content warning for Sexual harassment - Exit West

Hmm. I’m not quite sure what to make of this book. I might just not be the type of person who can appreciate it fully, but I was left rather baffled by the whole thing.

Representation:
- the main characters are all from an unnamed West or South Asian country (someone said it felt a lot like Pakistan)
- one of the main characters (Nadia) is bi

Exit West is a story about immigration and about the life of one couple during the hardship and terror of war. About what all that does to a relationship and what that does to people and societies as a whole.

It’s beautiful and thought provoking. But I struggled to connect with the characters and their personal story because of the writing style. I’m not trying to be pretentious, and I know the style and its (mis)use of grammar is fully intentional, but reading wordy run-on sentences over and over and over gets exhausting really fast. There’s even one page that consists of a single run-on sentence containing 60 commas (as one reviewer counted).

The writing is also very detached, telling everything and showing almost nothing. We’re told what the characters feel, but there’s no feeling it, no experiencing anything in real time. It’s like reading events from an encyclopedia or wikipedia entry. The story is a good one, but I could never feel it or get absorbed by it.

What I did love were the magical realism elements. It really added a beautiful and almost uplifting element to an otherwise somber story. And the writing style isn’t bad; the author is clearly very talented. It’s just not my thing. This book is still definitely worth reading … but maybe just once.

Content Warnings

moonytoast's review against another edition

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emotional reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

2.75

“we are all migrants through time.”

maybe would’ve rated this higher if there weren’t sentences verging on seven or more lines long…. if it would necessitate a block quote, it shouldn’t be a single sentence! trust me, this is coming from a resident long sentence girlie who constantly got feedback about how long my sentences were in my essays for high school.

all in all though, this was a nice read and an interesting examination of how magical realism could impact our world’s sociopolitical climate and policies (i.e. nativism and immigration politics).

Content Warnings