Wow, Exit Management is not the type of book I've been reading lately, but this book got beneath my skin and dragged me into an exploration of the darker sides of human nature. This book explores class, compassion, xenophobia, ambition and how our choices come to haunt us. There are three core characters that the novel centres around. Jozsef, an old man who escaped Budapest under communist rule who now lives in London with a nice house, and a fine art collection. Then there is young Callum; he's an innocent at heart, he lacks direction in his life and his job as a GuestHouses worker brings him into contact with Jozsef. There he befriends the elderly and ailing Jozsef who is seeking company and support as his health begins to fail. Finally, there is Lauren who is driven by her need to escape her working-class roots, haunted by events in her youth and seemingly obsessed with the future.

The novel explores as these three characters lives intersect and how ambition and compassion come into conflict and can result in life spiralling out of control. The novel certainly touches on the darker sides of life as we see Lauren's drive to succeed impact on her choices. Her job is based in human resourcing and her speciality gives the novel its name Exit Management. She gets rid of people and this already gives the novel and her character a sinister feel. She's an interesting character when paired with Callum who appears much more fragile, compassionate and unambitious it almost makes her actions so much worse.

However, for me both characters had issues with their life directions, with their actions and with their past to resolve throughout the novel. I think the novel also served to engage with ideas of image; how we view ourselves, how we view others, how we want ourselves to be perceived, how we enable other's perceptions to guide our actions, choices and lifestyle. I think this novel really portrayed these sinister edges of life as we saw Lauren driven by her desire to continuously impress her boss Mina and follow her 'code to success'. By the end of the novel, it didn't feel as though everything were resolved, but it wasn't all dark and despairing.

The ideas of class and xenophobia were seen most strongly in the sections where Lauren talked about her roots and when she returned to her family in West Yorkshire. These chapters I liked as this is really close to home for me and dipped into the working-class background, the poverty, the problems and the xenophobic attitudes that exists in some of these communities. I wish we'd had a little more of Lauren's roots and the West Yorkshire setting as I feel that places outside of London are often overlooked in books. These attitudes and themes were also mirrored in Callum's roots and his family back in their flat in Clapham. I thought this was quite clever as it mirrored two different areas of the UK but highlighted how the same problems existed in both.

The style of the book was a little disjointed to begin with as there are shorter chapters and choppy staccato sentences, mixed up with longer more flowing passages. The dialogue is all in italics so it was sometimes difficult to work out who was speaking but this served to keep the flow of the novel and keep the pace. And as the novel went along I became much more immersed and unable to set it down.

Overall I found Exit Management an enthralling read with many themes and some really complex characters to dig into it. It felt sinister and dark at times, but then it also felt real and haunting. There is a lot to unpack from Exit Management but well worth a read when released on September 10th 2020. Thanks to the publishers Dead Ink Books for a review copy in exchange for an honest review.