Exit grabbed me with its premise of assisted suicide gone wrong, but it didn't quite turn out the way I was hoping.
Felix is an old man past his prime. He doesn't have much going on, but he is part of a small organization of like-minded individuals who help those suffering at the end of life find a way out with grace and dignity. When one of those sessions goes horribly awry, it seems he will go down for murder unless he can figure out what really happened.
The beginning of this book was riveting, and I was immediately sucked into this interesting and unusual premise. The first 100 pages flew by while I tried to figure out where the story was going. I find assisted suicide to be a fascinating topic, and was looking forward to seeing how the book would explore this complex and worthwhile idea.
But then we reached the core of the story, and it just started dragging on. The pacing slowed way down. There were frequent asides about horse gambling, boats, and sailing terminology. My eyes glazed over. Lots of seemingly irrelevant characters were introduced (some with multiple names), and I started having trouble keeping them straight. Meanwhile, the actual murder investigation stalled.
The pacing did pick up at the very end, but the story itself left me somewhat bewildered. All of a sudden, random people started showing up and crazy things started to happen. Yes, there were lots of twists near the end, but they didn't feel like the satisfying sort. Rather, they left me confused, and I didn't really understand what was going on or who was who.
Part of my detachment from this story is that I never connected with the characters, in particular Felix. I can see that he is meant to be a bumbling and endearing old man, but I found him really trying. He couldn't figure out the right things to do and often went in circles with decisions. This book also employs a pet peeve of mine, in which conflicts come from misunderstandings that could be immediately cleared up by the characters just talking to each other. But they don't, so I am stuck reading 200 extra pages of puzzling subterfuge.
The other thing that disappointed me is the way assisted suicide was presented in this book. I know it can be a contentious topic, which is why I was so looking forward to seeing how it would be explored in this story. But no insightful tidbits were offered. Almost everyone in here seems to think assisted suicide is akin to murder, and their views did not change throughout. There were no subtlety or complexity offered, and in fact, there was hardly any discussion about it at all.
While I enjoyed the story enough, I didn't quite connect with it the way I wanted. I had gone in hoping for a smart and insightful commentary on assisted suicide, something that would give me a new way of thinking about this complicated topic. But instead, this became more of a dithering story with a large cast of characters, which ended on a muddled explanation that left me more confused than satisfied.
Readaroo Rating: 3 stars
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