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A review by liteartha
Exciting Times by Naoise Dolan
reflective
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
1.75
as this isn't going to be the most positive of reviews, i will just start off by saying that i did like dolan's writing style, the exploration of linguistics, and the touch of sapphic yearning, if little else
anyway
i feel like i've read this book before. ava's narration was so similar to that of frances in sally rooney's conversations with friends that i could genuinely have believed they were the same character at times (and i don't think i can blame that on the audiobook narrator being the same for both books)
all the supporting characters were flat and uninteresting to me, which i'll attribute mostly to ava's narration and (at risk of sounding like a broken record) note that that's the exact reason i felt similarly about rooney's aforementioned novel. i felt no emotional connection to anyone or to their relationships with each other, which made for very low stakes
there's a lot of shallow social commentary at play especially in terms or race and class and my god does it feel like this book thinks it's so clever for it all. there's a lot of tongue in cheek acknowledgement of the privilege various characters hold while also really not getting it? or at least not discussing it with the needed depth and nuance? idk
this also feels like it had no business being set in hong kong, imo. it reads like it could've been set in [insert generic major east asian city here] and frankly didn't need the asian setting at all given that ava's there for no bloody reason and spends her time surrounded almost entirely by white people with the exception of edith. there are virtually no other asian characters with speaking lines and the few that do are quite stereotyped
and then there's the bi rep. this one's much harder for me to pick apart, but i'm going to try. it's hard to give context for what gave me pause without explaining the entire plot of the novel so this is spoiler-y, but in essence:
- ava is involved with julian. they aren't dating, they don't say they love each other, but she lives in his flat rent free and knows his father and blah blah blah. julian goes away for work for several months, leaving the flat to ava
- enter edith, who ava is initially friends with but does eventually enter into an actual romantic and loving relationship with all while not disclosing the nature of her relationship with julian or calling things officially off with julian himself
i guess i'm just tired of this?
julian is straight, edith is gay, ava is bisexual
julian isn't clear about his emotions, edith is, ava is deeply undecided even to herself
the dynamic this creates here is just... what am i meant to do with yet another bi character who misleads her romantic partners? and look, i'm bisexual. we are nuanced fucking people. i want to be as open to stories about bisexuals being messy in their romantic relationships as i am to any other story about it, but when these are already the prevalent stories about us, it gets tiring to see it played out again and again
not that this was the point of things, but there's a throwaway line from edith at one point about how compulsory monogamy and heterosexuality can often go hand in hand which would frankly be a much more interesting exploration than what we got, but was also clearly not what this story was doing so there's that
anyway
i feel like i've read this book before. ava's narration was so similar to that of frances in sally rooney's conversations with friends that i could genuinely have believed they were the same character at times (and i don't think i can blame that on the audiobook narrator being the same for both books)
all the supporting characters were flat and uninteresting to me, which i'll attribute mostly to ava's narration and (at risk of sounding like a broken record) note that that's the exact reason i felt similarly about rooney's aforementioned novel. i felt no emotional connection to anyone or to their relationships with each other, which made for very low stakes
there's a lot of shallow social commentary at play especially in terms or race and class and my god does it feel like this book thinks it's so clever for it all. there's a lot of tongue in cheek acknowledgement of the privilege various characters hold while also really not getting it? or at least not discussing it with the needed depth and nuance? idk
this also feels like it had no business being set in hong kong, imo. it reads like it could've been set in [insert generic major east asian city here] and frankly didn't need the asian setting at all given that ava's there for no bloody reason and spends her time surrounded almost entirely by white people with the exception of edith. there are virtually no other asian characters with speaking lines and the few that do are quite stereotyped
and then there's the bi rep. this one's much harder for me to pick apart, but i'm going to try. it's hard to give context for what gave me pause without explaining the entire plot of the novel so this is spoiler-y, but in essence:
- ava is involved with julian. they aren't dating, they don't say they love each other, but she lives in his flat rent free and knows his father and blah blah blah. julian goes away for work for several months, leaving the flat to ava
- enter edith, who ava is initially friends with but does eventually enter into an actual romantic and loving relationship with all while not disclosing the nature of her relationship with julian or calling things officially off with julian himself
i guess i'm just tired of this?
julian is straight, edith is gay, ava is bisexual
julian isn't clear about his emotions, edith is, ava is deeply undecided even to herself
the dynamic this creates here is just... what am i meant to do with yet another bi character who misleads her romantic partners? and look, i'm bisexual. we are nuanced fucking people. i want to be as open to stories about bisexuals being messy in their romantic relationships as i am to any other story about it, but when these are already the prevalent stories about us, it gets tiring to see it played out again and again
not that this was the point of things, but there's a throwaway line from edith at one point about how compulsory monogamy and heterosexuality can often go hand in hand which would frankly be a much more interesting exploration than what we got, but was also clearly not what this story was doing so there's that
Content Warnings
Moderate: Racism and Sexism
Minor: Body shaming, Homophobia, and Sexual assault