This Way Out is beautiful, emotional, and such a great story of Amar figuring out how to reconcile being gay with being Muslim, being Bangladeshi while loving a white Englishman.
This Way Out opens with Amar telling his family via WhatsApp that he’s engaged and his fiancée is a man, but then he hides from the responses from his siblings because he doesn’t actually feel ready for what their response will be. His family’s reaction is complicated and because he’s still coping with grief of his mother’s death three years prior, the prospect of losing his family causes him to spiral, which is further compounded by learning the bookshop that he works at and that kept him afloat in many ways is about to be forced to close and dealing with racist microaggressions and unconscious bias from his future mother-in-law.
I expected more of a romance novel, but this is much more just Amar’s story and emotional journey. I loved seeing his emotional growth and how much therapy helped him learn better communication and coping skills. I found this difficult to put down and it hits so many different emotional beats, but I promise there is a happy ending and so many things are resolved in the best way they could be. I loved this book and highly recommend it for an emotional contemporary story full of heart and warmth.
