amyvl93's reviews
902 reviews

emotional reflective medium-paced

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

2.5

On paper, I should have really enjoyed Exciting Times. It's written by a young female author and follows an acerbic young woman who is trying to figure out her relationships. I fully expected it to fit into my Sally Rooney loving heart, so I was quite disappointed when it didn't.

Exciting Times follows Ava, who is 22 and relocates from Dublin to Hong Kong to try and find some meaning in her life whilst teaching English to rich children. She also starts meets Julian, a British banker, who she lives with rent free and sleeps with whilst they both dodge any form of commitment, mostly led by him. Ava then meets Edith, a Hong Kong resident who works in law, and who actually treats her like a person and wants to be her girlfriend. We're then treated to pages of Ava trying to work out what she should do. If the choice seems obvious to you, then you will not enjoy this book.

Dolan writes some brilliant sentences in here, and the writing particularly towards the end of the novel is good at attempting to unpick the messy power play in relationships. However, at other times the language feels quite pretentious and frustrating. We also don't learn that much about Ava, we're given the sense that things were not good at home in Dublin but there's not much expansion on that. Julian gets some character development in the latter half of the book but is otherwise uncompelling as part of a love triangle. I found myself wishing the centre of the narrative had been Edith, who at least had something about her.

There's also been some criticism of this novel by own voice reviewers which I can't comment on, what I can say is that Hong Kong doesn't play as big a role in this story as you may expect - Ava doesn't really go anywhere, doesn't engage with the political situation (despite apparently being interested in politics) and is surrounded by incredibly wealthy people all the time (mostly because she avoids making friends with anyone else) - which did make me wonder why Dolan chose to place the novel here as Ava's separation from home could have happened anywhere.

Dolan is definitely a talented writer, but I'm not sure Exciting Times quite hit the mark for me

Golden Age by Jane Smiley

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emotional reflective slow-paced

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

3.0

I have really enjoyed this trilogy, so it feels like a bit of a shame that this third and final installment fell a bit short for me.

The books have followed the Langdons from their rural farm as they disperse across the US - this final installment finds the family living in New York, Washington DC, California and, of course, still in rural Iowa. Opening in the late 1980s, Smiley takes us through to an alternative 2019 (this novel was published in 2015) - with characters being touched by all the main events of the past 30 years.

As the families have expanded there are therefore more and more viewpoints, even as characters pass away which does make the pacing feel a little slow, which was also impacted by Smiley packing in much more contemporary thinking on climate change in particular which whilst interesting did feel like it detracted from the growth of characters.

I felt that Smiley's writing was most impactful when she was writing about Guthrie, who enlists in the military and finds himself fighting in Iraq, and then attempting to manage returning to civilian life. The twins arc also continued to be interesting, though I felt got a little too on the nose towards the end.

Overall, I did enjoy this series and I'll definitely be picking up more Jane Smiley in the future.

The Promise by Damon Galgut

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dark reflective medium-paced