Reviews with content warning for Toxic relationship - Exciting Times

Reviews tagging 'Toxic relationship'

Exciting Times by Naoise Dolan

48 reviews

areadingstan's review against another edition

emotional funny reflective relaxing medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I’d been wanting to read this book for ages, eyeing its cover up in the library and remembering someone had recommended it to me because I like Sally Rooney.

I really enjoyed this book. It’s like many contemporary novels about dating, but is unique in its own way too. Dolan’s language often made me go back and read a paragraph again just because of how creative and inventive the words were.

I didn’t necessarily like the main character Ava, but I don’t think I was supposed to, but I did see the humanity in all of the characters because their ‘flaws’ were not hidden but quite visible.

This is a book about modern dating, class, social media and also, language. I loved it.

Content Warnings

pyoung's review against another edition

Go to review page

funny reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

To be honest, while I was reading this book I was constantly wondering if I would like it. Halfway through I still didn't really LOVE it.

Now that I finished it and went through all my annotations I can't seem to stop thinking about this book and how genius and beautifully written it is.

If you are a Sally Rooney stan like me, def check this book out!

all my annotations from this book: might include !spoilers!

'Because I lacked warmth, I was mainly assigned grammer classes, where children not liking you was a positive performance indicator. I found this an invigorating respite from how people usually assessed women.' (p.6)

'His sheets were very white. I once left a blot he called a wine stain, either euphemistically or because he could more readily picture me sipping Merlot than menstruating.' (p.20)

'I flinched, and he asked if I liked girls. I wanted to say: my chief sexual preference is that I don't like you.' (p.29)

'You could go manless entirely, and I saw a great deal of elegance in that approach, but enough people felt otherwise that I thought it best to have one. You had to pretend to feel sad if you'd been single too long. I hated doing that because there were other things I was actually sad about.' (p.29)

'When he said that, I wanted to go to his potentially matrimonial wine rack, choose his jammiest Cabernet Sauvignon, open it tenderly, and empty it over his MacBook. I didn't. He'd buy a new laptop tomorrow, be pleased with the improved touch bar, and deny to my face that I had done that thing with the wine until a point in some future argument where he suddenly needed evidence I was crazy.' (p.35)

'His honesty hurt my pride, so I told myself he was a liar. And I couldn't even feel truly, sumptuously sorry for myself, because it wasn't reciprocation I was craving. My desire was for Julian's feelings to be stronger than mine. No one would sympathise with that. I wanted a power imbalance, and I wanted it to benefit me.' (p.39)

'Sometimes I was good at him, sometimes he was good at me, sometimes we were good at each other, and sometimes neither of us was any good at anything.' (p.40)

'But historians could debate all that when we were dead and interesting.' (p.51)

'I never knew what to do when someone had obviously asked me a question to include me in the conversation. How much could I say in response before I was abusing their generosity?' (p.52)

'I usually spoke softly too, and sometimes thought: a little lower and no one can hear us.' (p.57)

'On the walk back he offered me a cigarette. I said I have enough problems without adopting his just for company. ..... I felt protective when he smoked. This made no sense when he was jeopardising my lifespan, but I supposed he was endangering his own even more.' (p.63)

'It was becoming clearer than ever that the other teachers found me odd. I'd encountered this opinion so many times, in so many places, that I'd come to find it comforting. It doesn't matter if a fact is good or bad, I thought. You don't mind once everyone agrees. Their consensus makes it true, and truth feels safe.' (p.65)

'It was as if someone else ironed everything for her - her whole life - and her role was to make new creases.' (p.84)

'That wasn't true. I often lied to spare others' feelings or to make them like me. Most of my directness was by accident.' (p.131)

'When it arrived it was so strong it actually did. She said I was a baby and then shuddered herself when she tried it. Julian had called me that once, a baby, and I felt this proved that words took their meaning from context.' (p.138/139)

'Just tell youself you're doing it ironically,' I said.'
'Do people still do that?' Edith said.'
'I cast for sincerity.'
'I like girls,' I said. Then: 'I like you.'
'She kissed me.' (p.141)

'You keep describing yourself as this uniquely damaged person, when a lot of it is completely normal. I think you want to feel special - which is fair, who doesn't - but you won't allow yourself to feel special in a good way, so you tell yourself you're especially bad.' (p.149)

'It was like the riddle with two doors and two guards, one who told the truth and the other who lied. And I had a privilege rarely afforded to stage professionals: I could choose which was a character, and which the real me. Could choose, as in no one else would choose for me - and couldn't choose, as in couldn't.' (p.186)

'Women took care of men and let them pretend we didn't.' (p.216)

'If someone said something to hurt me, it wasn't because they meant to, but because they'd surrounded themselves with unkind people in the past.' (p.228)

'When we were together I felt too much sometimes and I'd go and talk to him to calm down. He doesn't make me as happy or as sad as you do. That means I care less about him, but it also makes it hard to leave him entirely. He's like the gulf stream. Did you learn about the gulf stream? It keeps Ireland temperate.' (p.234)

'I thought if I let anyone in, they'd find out what was broken about me. And then not only would they now, I'd know too.' (p.237)

'When I learned what love meant, it was liking girls. But when I learned what liking girls meant, it was an accusation.' (p.240)

'I'd felt different away from the cockroaches, but I saw now we had plenty in common - insects, climbers, cold inside. We thrived in hostile settings. There were places we did better, but nowhere could kill us. .... Living uphill, away from them, I'd forgotten that. I'd thought my blood was hot.' (p.258)

'I wondered which other phrases he'd plucked. I felt like a bird he kept for quills. I remembered the times I'd lain on my stomach and he'd rubbed my back, and I thought very sensibly: thief.' (p.265)

Content Warnings