I think I like the idea of this book more than the actual book. To be clear, I quite liked the book, but I kept expecting it to do something...more.
It's not that kind of book.
Like Wells' Artificial Condition, actually, it's the kind of book that expects the reader to do the thinking with the material it provides. So the story is about transitions and the choices people make and the way we grow as humans--and the omniscience of the narrator distances the reader from the people making the choices and invites us to analyze them and sympathize with them rather than empathize. But the premise of the novel and the dissolution of borders is not so much unexplored as deliberately left blank. Genre fiction wants to talk about exactly how and why and what the global ramifications of such things are. But Hamid is astute in his focus and his understanding of how humans in the thick of situations respond.
This is a book that gets better the more you talk about it. The book inspires conversation and grows in the talking and, I think, is only 2/3s of a book if you just put it down when you are done.