A review by whitneyonline
No Exit by Taylor Adams

challenging dark tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

1.0

This book got a one star from me as soon as the author, who is white, had a white character use the n-word. A character that wasn’t even relevant to the plot, which infuriates me even more. So the “joke” in which the slur was used was completely unnecessary. This book was published in 2019, the author should know better than to use racial slurs. I feel that it is completely unnecessary for white authors to use racial slurs, even when the character is supposed to be a terrible, racist person. There are plenty of ways to convey racism without using racial slurs, especially as a white person. You’re an author, after all - be creative!! I’m not trying to “cancel” Taylor Adams, I’m just expressing my extreme disappointment and surprise.

Outside of that incident I still didn’t really enjoy the plot twists. They weren’t very effective - like, textbook “everything has gone wrong oh no what do we do” - and I found that there were many times I had trouble suspending my disbelief. The characters weren’t really well developed and there were some loose ends that didn’t get explained - like why the bus driver decided to help with the kidnapping in the first place, and how they even came into contact with the kidnapper. I’ll be interested to see if the Hulu movie adaptation is any better. 
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