Exit Party

by Emily St. John Mandel

First published 2026

Ari Waker navigates the checkpoints and refugee camps of a broken Los Angeles in 2031. The United States has collapsed, peacekeeping forces have pulled out, and the city exists under military curfew. At a party in Silverlake, Ari watches the crowd celebrate their newfound freedom when something impossible happens. A confused double appears among the dancers, and Kareem, their host, disappears completely. Ari finds herself pulled into a mystery that spans multiple realities and timelines. Her search takes her from the ruins of America to Greek cliffs where arms dealers operate from luxury resorts, from the enclosed city of Paris to lunar colonies. As she uncovers the truth behind that strange night, Ari discovers connections between surveillance systems, parallel worlds, and the cost of security in a surveillance state. The investigation forces her to confront what survival means when reality itself becomes unstable.

Genres: science-fiction, dystopia, 21st-century, alternate-history

Vibes: intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking

Tropes: found-family, unreliable-narrator

Setting: Los Angeles, Paris, Greece, Lunar Colonies

Period: 2031

320 pages · Hardcover · Knopf

Content warnings: violence

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