Exit West

I still have the voice of the main character from Mohsin Hamid's previous book, The Reluctant Fundamentalist, in my head, an acculturated Westerner, seemingly, commenting rationally and thoughtfully on the world he has taken on, yet unexpectedly and searingly angry inside. But I nevertheless passed over this book for many months until it was on a kajillion end of the year best books lists, and I decided I had to read it.

What do I think about it? It reminds me of Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go; I read many pages before realizing that this book is not realistic fiction. Like Never Let Me Go, I felt jarred by the intrusion of the science fiction elements.

I wasn't ever deeply invested in the relationship between the man and the woman, though I was taken with the woman's brave ventures out in a closed-off world. I liked how the author allowed the characters explore their native culture before war, their native culture after war, and an alien culture.

It won't be on my best of 2018 books, but it was completely fresh and it felt completely true and those are wonderful things for stories.