In her seventh novel, Exit Party, Emily St. John Mandel continues to explore themes of identity, freedom, and survival in a fractured world. Set in 2031, the story follows Ari Waker, who has recently been released from an 18-year prison sentence for the attempted murder of her cousin Anton. The United States no longer exists, having been replaced by the independent State of California, which is celebrating the end of violence and the lifting of curfews. Ari and her flatmate Gloria are invited to a party at the home of Gloria’s friend, Kareem. Ari feels a premonition that she is meant to be there, a sensation she has experienced before and learned to trust. At the party, Ari is addressed by a woman she has never met before as Ibari, the name that is legally hers but never used. A painting disappears from the wall, and someone mentions "extra people" and the party being "a door that swings both ways." Kareem, the host, senses something is wrong and leaves, never to return. Ari is left to navigate the aftermath alone, spending the next few years working menial jobs while feeling a pull toward a different future. Old habits resurface as Ari falls back into criminal company, taking on a surveillance job. The woman she is spying on turns out to be the doppelganger of Gloria, leading to a sense of déjà vu. Ari’s world is marked by scarcity, systemic instability, and the ravages of climate change. Her ability to adapt has helped her survive, but it has also hindered her from forming lasting attachments, a fact she acknowledges but does not regret. In the novel’s second half, titled B-Side, the narrative shifts to a United States where environmental catastrophe has been averted and resources are equitably distributed. However, this society is ruled by universal surveillance, with the presidency passed from father to son and dissenters quietly disappeared. This peaceful dystopia, with its glittering streetscapes and self-styled progressivism, bears resemblance to Huxley’s Brave New World rather than Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four. In this alternate reality, Ari’s doppelganger, Ibari, is a high-ranking detective in a government secret police force known as Service. Ibari, reticent and calculating, contrasts with Ari’s fiercely driven and anarchic nature. However, both women are capable of similar acts of recklessness and loyalty. The novel raises the question of whether the price of stability is necessarily the loss of freedom, a theme that resonates in contemporary political discourse. Mandel’s novel, like her earlier works, explores the aftermath of catastrophe and the human condition. The stolen painting Swan Dive, which appeared in her previous novel The Glass Hotel, reappears in Exit Party, symbolizing themes of freedom, risk, and self-destruction. The novel’s structural cohesiveness, its expert use of symbols, and psychological realism mark it as a superlative example of the science fiction genre. Mandel’s ability to weave complex narratives while maintaining focus on the human story reaches new heights in Exit Party.