A review by babyitsallright
Exciting Times by Naoise Dolan

funny reflective slow-paced

3.0

Hailed as the medicinal replacement for all of us longing for the new Sally Rooney novel, desperately trying to befriend someone with a lucky golden proof copy, Exciting Times sees Ava, a teacher in Hong Kong caught between Julian, a banker who likes to spend money on her and lets her live in his spare room and Edith, a lawyer Ava meets while Julian is away, who actually wants to date her, as opposed to whatever it is that Julian is offering. 

Not a lot happens in this book but I didn’t really mind. It was a enjoyable read, sharply narrated and heartfelt, read fast but slow paced in structure. It captured that desperate longing for someone when the emotions and power dynamics between you are unclear and those moments of feeling completely lost in the world, unsure of where you are or where you’re heading. 

Generally, I didn’t always feel the insights many hailed as entirely fresh and previously unwritten felt particularly new, but one moment did stand out for me:
 
 ‘You could tell who’d been through it and who hadn’t because when you told someone who hadn’t, they were hungry for details. They’d say ir was so they could experience their moral outrage with a loftier precision. They were liars and we hated them.’ 

This was something that really did strike me as something I’d often felt but never quite managed to articulate. 

Sometimes I felt like I’d missed some of the sparkle a lot of other people felt for this book, because it didn’t always feel completely new to me, but I think its just that I’ve read a lot of contemporary female confessional writing that now I’m maybe a bit more critical. It was good and I would recommend it but my mind remained unblown.