This Way Out – Tufayel Ahmed

Expectation: A contemporary comedy about merging two cultures together. 

Reality: By diving deep into family drama rooted in religion, it was a cut above other  coming out novels, but it still buckled under its own weight in the middle.

My Take:

Lately I’ve been finding myself stuck in a cycle of British coming out novels that have nearly identical plots — a struggle with acceptance, found family and religious baggage — even though the main characters represent different cultures. 

While it’s clear these novels — Elvin James Mensah’s “Small Joys” and Ryan Love’s “Arthur and Teddy Are Coming Out” — are personal reflections masked with the tropes of contemporary romance, they have lacked narrative momentum and strong characterizations. 

Tufayel Ahmed’s “This Way Out” tread similar ground as the aforementioned, but the author succeeded in creating a world that felt organic and enlightening — until it didn’t. 

Our protagonist, Amar, has found happiness with Joshua, but he can’t share this joy with his deeply Muslim Bangladeshi family. Guilt and unresolved grief have stilted his growth — as a partner and professional — will coming out be the answer? 

What helped “This Way Out” more than anything was that Ahmed cut deep quickly. Almost immediately we get an answer as to how Amar’s family reacts to his disclosure and it’s a tense, heartbreaking showdown. 

I appreciated how Ahmed explored the complexities of being Muslim and South Asian, and how any perceived slight of tradition is grounds for exile from the family. There aren’t enough of these stories in adult fiction, and it was refreshing to have conversations go deeper than in the young adult genre where non-white queer stories are commonly relegated. 

As the story progresses, we see how Amar seeks community with other gay Muslims, and it is a poignant, nuanced and interesting perspective of gay life. Adulthood can be chaotic and coming out can be messy, but just when “This Way Out” seemed to be finding its footing it buckled under its own weight. 

There was enough conflict with Amar trying to reconcile being a gay Muslim in an effort to seek acceptance from his family. We didn’t need a plot device about Joshua and his family’s unconscious bias to allow him to explore it. 

When he called off the engagement, I almost quit reading the book. While unanticipated plot twists are usually welcomed, the core issue was rooted in a lack of communication that could’ve been resolved long before a single row. For as adult as this book was in dealing with the religious subject matter, this felt juvenile.  

Throw in Amar’s effort to save his employer, a local bookstore, and a failed flirtation with a new friend, and the second half turned into a repetitive, unfocused and nostalgia-soaked exercise in frustration. In other words, what I expected. 

Still, I’m giving this higher marks and a very loose recommendation because it pulled at my heartstrings. If you love these types of novels, this is well worth the time. If you usually shy away from contemporary queer fiction rooted in romance, well, this won’t convert you. 

Rating (story): 3/5 stars

Rating (narration): N/A

Format: eBook (personal library)

Dates read: March 23 – April 11, 2024

Multi-tasking: N/A