Is there an audiobook of Exit Party?

Yes. Exit Party has an Audible audiobook edition, narrated by Kirsten Potter, Kimberly Farr, Peter Ganim, Catherine Ho, and James Aaron Oh.

How long is the Exit Party audiobook?

The Exit Party audiobook runs 12 hr 29 min.

Is Exit Party on Kindle Unlimited?

No. Exit Party was not included with Kindle Unlimited when we last checked on October 9, 2026.

What formats is Exit Party available in?

On Amazon, Exit Party comes as a Kindle ebook, a paperback and a hardcover.

Our review

Exit Party

Name: Exit Party
Author: Emily St. John Mandel

Emily St. John Mandel

4.5/ 5 · Outstanding

Emily St. John Mandel's Exit Party is a literary science fiction novel about a 2031 Los Angeles party where the host disappears and a bewildered double wanders out of the crowd. It travels from a splintered America to Greece, Paris and the moon, and finds a surprising amount of hope along the way.

Narrated by Kirsten Potter and 4 more

Audiobook · 12 hr 29 min

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The Review

Our take

The troops leave, the curfew ends, and the first thing Los Angeles does with its freedom is throw a party. In Exit Party, Emily St. John Mandel's literary science fiction novel, the year is 2031, the United States has come apart, and Ari Waker walks across Silverlake to an apartment full of people who have decided to stop bracing for one night. Then a bewildered stranger who looks uncomfortably like someone else pushes past the guests and out the door, and Kareem, the host, is gone.

What follows is a mystery only in the loosest sense. Somebody is searching for answers, and the person doing it is a woman with an unusual résumé: guns, art, and a job with the State. But the question underneath is bigger than where one man went. The book follows doubles and shadow worlds across decades, and across places that feel deliberately far apart: a resort in Greece where weapons dealers keep out of sight, a domed Paris, a colony on the moon. Mandel is a patient builder of worlds. Each one arrives with just enough detail to feel lived in, and then she moves on before you can get comfortable.

The prose is the first thing I'd point to. It stays lovely even as the setting turns hard, with bomb-sniffing dogs at the gate and shanty towns on the walk to the party, and that choice sets the book's temperature. A collapsed country, a surveillance state and a long list of things people gave up for safety should add up to despair. Instead the novel keeps circling the stubborn human habit of getting on with it, finding a little joy, making a little art. I found that oddly steadying, and it never feels like a pat on the head.

It's not a frictionless read, and it's worth saying so. The book is split like a record, A Side then B Side, two parallel stories, and the first of them asks for patience. The narration changes hands often, and it isn't always clear whose head you're in. The people can stay at arm's length too: easy to like, harder to love, so the emotional pull builds slowly. The payoff is the second half, which moves faster, and by the end the disorienting timeline jumps have settled into a pattern that makes sense of the early confusion.

Why you should read

Literary fiction that borrows from speculative mystery
Novels built on doubles and parallel worlds
Near-future settings with an optimistic streak
Prose-forward books with a puzzle at the center

What to expect

Two parallel halves, an A Side and a B Side
Timeline jumps that clarify as you go
Narrators who change, sometimes without warning
A slow-opening first half and a stronger second

An exit party is a celebration of leaving, and Mandel holds that idea in tension for the whole book. She never lets safety become a simple good or surveillance a simple evil. Everyone in the novel is paying for something, and the interest is steep.

Reviewed by Avery · How our reviews are written

Our verdict

4.5/ 5

Outstanding

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Where to read or listen

Is there an audiobook of Exit Party?: Yes. Exit Party has an Audible audiobook edition, narrated by Kirsten Potter, Kimberly Farr, Peter Ganim, Catherine Ho, and James Aaron Oh.
Listen free with Audible
We earn from qualifying Amazon purchases.
How long is the Exit Party audiobook?: The Exit Party audiobook runs 12 hr 29 min.
Is Exit Party on Kindle Unlimited?: No. Exit Party was not included with Kindle Unlimited when we last checked on October 9, 2026.
What formats is Exit Party available in?: On Amazon, Exit Party comes as a Kindle ebook, a paperback and a hardcover.

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Common questions

What is Exit Party about?: The troops leave, the curfew ends, and the first thing Los Angeles does with its freedom is throw a party. In Exit Party, Emily St. John Mandel's literary science fiction novel, the year is 2031, the United States has come apart, and Ari Waker walks across Silverlake to an apartment full of people…
Is Exit Party worth reading?: We scored Exit Party 4.5 out of 5. Emily St. John Mandel's Exit Party is a literary science fiction novel about a 2031 Los Angeles party where the host disappears and a bewildered double wanders out of the crowd. It travels from a splintered America to Greece, Paris and the moon, and finds a surprising amount of…

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