Exit Party – Emily St John Mandel

Exit Party is undoubtedly one of the buzziest books of 2026 – with good reason! Emily St John Mandel already has a string of best-sellers under her belt, so the world has been awaiting her next novel with breath that is bated. My friends at Macmillan Australia were kind enough to send me a copy for review.

The story is told in three parts, starting in Los Angeles. The year is 2031, and the United States plunged into chaos after a coup d’état, but things are finally starting to stabilise in the new “Republic of California”. As the nighttime curfew is lifted and Californians celebrate, protagonist Ari is adjusting to her new life off the back of an 18 year stretch in a federal prison. A friend of her new roommate is throwing a party, and they cautiously venture out to attend.

That’s about all I want to tell you about Exit Party, as what follows is an incredible story that’s best experienced when you have no idea what to expect. It’s a Something Is Going On book, with doppelgängers and disappearances and gun runners and state surveillance and art heists and more. And yet, as mysterious and chaotic as all that sounds, the exposition is masterfully balanced, connecting just enough of the dots to keep the reader from getting frustrated while remaining cryptic enough to keep you curious.

Ari is the perfect protagonist, in my view. She’s pragmatic, wry, and exactly the kind of person you’d want to have around in a crisis. And not just because she has premonitions! (Not cheesy ones, just certainty in her sense of what’s about to happen.)

Exit Party is a surprisingly allusive novel, too: from the real-world response to COVID-19 lockdowns, to the literary works of George Orwell, to the artwork of the mid-20th century, to the calming effect of classical music. Mandel even works in a few overlaps with her previous novels (The Singer’s Gun and The Glass Hotel), which make for nice little Easter eggs for fans. The one that surprised me most, though, was the reference to a PostSecret note (“Everyone who knew me before 9/11 believes I’m dead”) that also served as inspiration for Jodi Picoult’s new novel released last month.

Exit Party is superbly written, defying expectations at every turn and creating a story that is so immersive it feels impossible to explain – each reader must experience it for themselves.

Read Exit Party on audiobook via Libro.fm here. (affiliate link)