One of The New York Times’s 100 Best Books of the 21st Century FINALIST FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE & WINNER OF THE L.A. TIMES BOOK PRIZE FOR FICTION and THE ASPEN WORDS LITERARY PRIZE “It was as if Hamid knew what was going to happen to America and the world, and gave us a road map to our future… At once terrifying and … oddly hopeful.” —Ayelet Waldman, The New York Times Book Review “Moving, audacious, and indelibly human.” —Entertainment Weekly, “A” rating The New York Times bestselling novel: an astonishingly visionary love story that imagines the forces that drive ordinary people from their homes into the uncertain embrace of new lands, from the author of The Reluctant Fundamentalist and the forthcoming The Last White Man. In a country teetering on the brink of civil war, two young people meet—sensual, fiercely independent Nadia and gentle, restrained Saeed. They embark on a furtive love affair, and are soon cloistered in a premature intimacy by the unrest roiling their city. When it explodes, turning familiar streets into a patchwork of checkpoints and bomb blasts, they begin to hear whispers about doors—doors that can whisk people far away, if perilously and for a price. As the violence escalates, Nadia and Saeed decide that they no longer have a choice. Leaving their homeland and their old lives behind, they find a door and step through. . . . Exit West follows these remarkable characters as they emerge into an alien and uncertain future, struggling to hold on to each other, to their past, to the very sense of who they are. Profoundly intimate and powerfully inventive, it tells an unforgettable story of love, loyalty, and courage that is both completely of our time and for all time.

Exit West started strong for everyone at NUBClub. The core metaphor of doors that allow people to teleport was a very powerful symbol for the experiences of immigration and diaspora. There was a beautiful fable-like quality to the way that the doors were kept secret, shared, and used that formed a very compelling world. But about halfway through the book, about half of NUBClub dropped off. For those who got disenchanted, the issue was with worldbuilding. The author effectively painted himself into a corner with too many doors and too much travel, and those of us against the book felt that the plot became unwieldy and ridiculous as Hamid tried to maintain a consistent setting. Those of us who liked the book argued that the metaphor remained potent even if the world didn't make sense any more, and the plights of the characters traversing the doors stayed a powerful symbol. Our horns locked on this point, and while everyone could see where the other side was coming from, no one who didn't like the plot direction could forget its sloppiness, while no one who was moved by the fable could care about the plot holes. Overall, everyone agreed that the concept and start of the book was great, so differences about the ending only divided us between considering Exit West a decent or a good read.