Reviews with content warning for Sexual harassment - Exciting Times

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Exciting Times by Naoise Dolan

3 reviews

irammy's review against another edition

funny reflective medium-paced

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

4.25

Thoroughly enjoyed. Lovely prose without being verbose. I found the first part a little frustrating but became hooked in the second part and inhaled the rest of the book.

In particular I loved how the relationship escalator is (relatively nonchalantly) challenged. I also found<Ava's relationship with men and her sexuality interesting.

Content Warnings

lucylou's review against another edition

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medium-paced

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

1.0

I feel like I’m being generous giving this book a two star rating. The main character Ava is insufferable; she’s self-centered, insecure, indecisive, and only self-aware enough to feel guilty about hurting people, but not enough to try to fix anything. I pushed through the book to get to the sapphic romance around the half-way mark, but it was not worth it. Ava is so self-absorbed that when talking about Edith she spends more time comparing herself to her. I did not feel like Ava even liked Edith as a person, let alone fell in love her. Ava seems to have no idea why Edith would be angry that

Ava had a sexual relationship with Julian and never told her about it, and instead acting like Edith wasn’t open-minded to polyamory. Like, no, you lied through your entire relationship with Edith. You are an ass.

The last third has some interesting parts, like when Ava gave us more insight into how she “actually” felt about Edith after their breakup, but for the most part this story left me unsatisfied and annoyed.
Edit: after writing this review, I knocked it down to 1 star. Every character was boring or insufferable except for Edith.

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annoyedhumanoid's review against another edition

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emotional reflective medium-paced

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

4.25

very similar to the only Sally Rooney book i've read, Normal People, (in fact, both audiobooks were read by the same person) but where i found NP depressing, i found Exciting Times *comforting*. i think it's in the narration: NP's is third-person, detached, and almost cold, while ET's is first-person, familiar, and didn't make everything feel completely futile? it helped that i related a lot, more than i would like, to the narrator 🥲 she's just like me fr. i loved her character's voice (in the literary sense, not the audiobook, though that was good too), i saw myself reflected in it a bit.
i want to talk about the ending. at first i was disappointed, asking myself how the author could think that's a good place to stop. but i read it back and there's more to it:

the comparison of exiting the subway station to ascending into the clouds—heavenly, or at least stepping out of the dark and into the light. and to spot & run after Edith there? and Ava's admission to herself that she loves Edith, and that Edith changed her life… i think it says more about me that i wasn't against her moving to Frankfurt with Julian. because at least she had someone who ostensibly wanted her, and what more is there, right? but that's not what i was meant to take away. it's a little bit romcom, but chase after the person you wronged in a transit hub and get them back; don't settle for the emotionally stunted man-child. (i do actually kind of like Julian though, despite his politics [Miles is right]).

i also appreciate that the book is a vessel for talking about these things: even though you lovely storygraphians did not ask to hear any of this, it's nice to be able to express it.

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