A review by adamcetra
Exit West by Mohsin Hamid

2.0

Read this a while ago, so this won't be too detailed. Every sentence follows the same syntax. (Not a direct quote, but something like "He wanted to say it, thought he should say it, couldn't say it." Seriously. It's so repetitive.). Also, I don't understand the choice of taking a real life, dangerous and often deadly journey that real, desperate people have to take, and fictionalizing it to be as easy as walking through a door. My last point: this book is all TELL and little SHOW. For example, we're often told about conversations that happen instead of letting us hear them. It's an unnecessary shortcut that contributes to the distance I felt from the characters, when I should have (and really wanted to) empathize with them. Spend your time reading Our Women on the Ground instead.