22 year old Ava has just moved from her native Ireland to Hong Kong to teach English. There she meets Julian, a British banker, with whom she begins a very complex “friends with benefits” arrangement, and when Julian is away on business for six months, Ava meets and falls for Edith, a lawyer from an upper class Hong Kong family. We see this love triangle only from Ava’s acerbic perspective, and I absolutely fell in love with her wit and intellect, even while she was making *the absolute worst* decisions (and knowing so, too). Ava’s insights into relationships, capitalism, class, and herself are tragic and comedic at the same time and simply delightful reading.

One of my favorite quotes, after Julian refers to Ava in a text by her first initial: “My abbreviation felt pointed. ‘A’ implied both that he wasn’t bothered typing two additional characters and that the indefinite article was quite enough for me. I wanted to reply: I agree I am the least definite of any article.” (Side note: the use of texting and social media is really well done in this novel.)

I wonder if I loved this book so much because I had low expectations after seeing very mixed reviews. There were flashes of Hong Kong politics that I would have liked to have more depth, but otherwise this was an insightful, gorgeous novel that had me very grateful to no longer be in my 20s. Sound familiar? It’s unfortunate that this has been compared to Sally Rooney, because it is superb all on its own, but also understandable given its themes and writing style. Highly recommend picking this one up if that’s your thing!

In Exciting Times by Naoise Dolan, the author takes a familiar theme - a love triangle - and sets it in an unfamiliar, exotic setting. An Irish millennial (Ava) escapes her humdrum life in Dublin to teach in Hong Kong for year. She might have escaped Dublin but her doldrums follow her there - she's broke and bored. She falls into a relationship (well, more like a friends with benefits situation, but it's hard to tell if she even likes the guy) with a wealthy banker and ends up moving in into his posh apartment. He travels a lot, and while he's gone she strikes up a genuine friendship with a female lawyer. That's where the love triangle comes in, and readers are taken along as Ava tries to sort out if she feelings for either one of them.

Here's where I start to feel torn about Ava - she's got a dry, acerbic sense of humor and I really, really WANT to like her. But she's hard to relate to (how can you be BORED in Hong Kong?! Get out there and just explore girl, walking around is free) and she comes across as someone who doesn't really connect with anyone on a deep human connection.

I think Naoise Dolan's style is great, and I will read what she puts out next, but my biggest issue with this book is I don't love the central character. For me, I liked the book overall but I tend to love books when I'm rooting FOR the main character.

Exciting Times (the title is definitely meant to be read sardonically) is the story of an aimless 22 year old Irish woman, Ava, who is teaching English in Hong Kong. She's in a quasi-relationship with Julian, a posh banker - they live (and sleep) together, but aren't together. But when Julian leaves on a work trip she starts dating Edith. It's super obvious why Dolan has been compared to Sally Rooney - Ava is a Communist, and there's lots of talk about class and money. Since Ava is an English teacher she also has lots of interesting things to say about language and communication. Ava is kind of exhausting, though - she carefully cultivates her image and acts how she thinks others want her to act (especially around Julian). I was not a fan of Julian's, and was listlessly turning pages until Edith's arrival, which is when the book picked up for me. Edith was a much more interesting character, and when Julian came back on the scene I got irritated again. I think this book would have landed better with me in a pre-pandemic world, but right now a main character who can't make herself deeply care about things wasn't working for me. To be fair to Ava, she does care, she just can't express herself well, and she is dealing with past trauma, and she is only 22. So while I wasn't enamored with this book, I did want to know how it turned out. Nolan writes lovely sentences, and some of her lines were priceless (one character is called "3 Mitford sisters in a long coat"). So while I recommend this one, maybe wait till things are less exciting in the real world to read it.

I did not connect with the main character, and I just didn't like the writing style. I read a little and then skimmed the rest.

I can definitely see why this is earning comparisons to Sally Rooney. The millennial expat love triangle is handled thoughtfully and there are some genuine laugh-out-loud moments. Intimate and global, depressing and sardonic.

Hailed as "the new Sally Rooney", Naoise Dolan does not disappoint. In a whirlwind novel of glitz, glamor, and love affairs, Exciting Times takes you by the hand and leads you into the life of Ava, a millennial Irish expat now living in Hong Kong. With dry wit and sharp political commentary, Exciting Times is a raw, heartbreaking dissertation on the tumultuous nature of modern love and connection.

Sally Rooney goes to Hong Kong. Exciting Times was a quick and enjoyable read about a young woman looking for herself and (maybe) love in Hong Kong.

I really enjoyed Noaise Dolan's emphasis on language; having Eva drill down into the details of word choice as a way to express her emotions. If you like dry humor, this one is for you.

I received this book free from NetGalley/HarperCollins Publishers in exchange for an honest review.

On the surface level, I enjoyed this story. Ava is a pretty relatable millennial character. She's really smart and self aware, but lets her emotions leave her pretty ignorant. She's constantly worried about other people's perceptions of her so much so that she sabotages her own relationships. Hello, it me. I like the discussions that were had throughout the book, but overall it didn't do anything groundbreaking for me. But I get it.

I think the reviews comparing this book to Rooney are absolutely correct. So if you get along with Rooney, you will probably like this book.

Thank you to Netgalley and HarperCollins for a copy of this book in response for an honest review!

Exciting Times is a character driven novel in which Ava moves to Hong Kong and navigates two relationships. The novel explores how Ava’s view of herself affects these two relationships and causes her to make (often poor) decisions. Very much a coming of age novel, which the placement of Ava in a county outside of her own causes her to grapple with who she is,and who other people are.

I initially resisted this novel with every bone in my body as I am a little over-saturated with “complicated” female characters in their 20s-30s who are writers/linguists/teachers. However, Exciting Times does the things I love about the genre. The main character really is complicated, she can be highly unlikable but the more you read her the more sense she makes. She can be both highly perceptive but also often lacks correct internal insight. Her view on the world is unique, and the writing clearly portrays a woman of this age (23). She has a self-centeredness that comes with that age, at her core Ava believes that her thoughts and behaviors are unique to her, and often believes that what she is saying has much more importance than it really does and people are reading into it much more than they are. The relationships between characters are well written, and unfold slowly.

This was an enjoyable read with plenty of ideas to chew on.

I will definitely be recommending this to my customers, especially those who loved normal people! Not quite what I expected at all but loved it all the same - its perfect for my local market!

Loved! Smart, sexy and entertaining. Filled the space in my life of gossiping with girlfriends over recent sexual encounters. Could see this turning into a show or movie a la Normal People. Hope to see more from Dolan!

I would call this a book about young millennial love and all that it entails. It had great well rounded characters, some very witty interesting and humour dialogue. Great debut about a love triangle but nothing really memorable that would make you remember this book for a long time. I would still recommend reading this nevertheless!

I’m judging a 2020 fiction contest. It’d be generous to call what I’m doing upon my first cursory glance—reading. I also don’t take this task lightly. As a fellow writer and lover of words and books, I took this position—in hopes of being a good literary citizen. My heart aches for all the writers who have a debut at this time. What I can share now is the thing that held my attention and got this book from the perspective pile into the read further pile.


There’s so much really to enjoy about this novel. I devoured it from cover to cover. Dolan is as charged the new Sally Rooney. Funny witty delightful insightful all the way through.

He was good at engineering ambiguities. I was bad at avoiding them. He'd said everything very slowly that night, so I'd assumed he was drunk—but still did it sober, so I gathered he was rich.
"To be clear, Ava: we're both dead behind the eyes, but at least I can pay rent?"

Exciting Times by Naoise Dolan

An inside look at the varied relationships of millennials in Hong Kong. Ava is fresh out of college, teaching English as a foreign language in Hong Kong. The private school where she works is tightly run, determined to give parents what they pay for, even if the students don’t want it and even if it means teachers don’t have time for bathroom breaks. From Dublin, where she has been sad, Ava is giving Hong Kong a try. Here she meets other young people, including Julian, a banker, with whom she had an intimate relationship, while both insist they are not a couple.
Ava needs a place to live and can’t afford anything she likes on her salary, so agrees to move in with Julian. While he is away on a business trip, she meets another banker, Edith, a Hong Kong local, educated at Cambridge. Their friendship blossoms into romance, providing insight into Ava’s infatuation with Edith, Edith’s feelings of inferiority, and of course Ava’s conflicted feelings about Julian.

There is a lot of navel gazing in the book, but relationship books need that. The scenes with Ava’s English students are fun and the reader gets to experience a facet of Hong Kong not generally seen.

I read this as an advanced reader’s copy courtesy of Netgalley. The book was published by Harper Collins and released June 2, 2020

Exciting Times — Naoise Dolan

By Richard Weekes

The omens looked good for Naoise Dolan, publishing her young Irishwoman’s take on sex in the middle of 2020.

It follows hot on the heels of the BBC’s TV dramatisation of compatriot Sally Rooney’s Normal People, which was widely satirised as nothing but sex.

But while Rooney paints a sympathetic portrait of her heroine Marianne’s exploration of student relationships in Sligo and Dublin, Dolan offers a much more hard-headed take on Ava’s sexual adventures among the expat community of Hong Kong, currently the focus of the world’s biggest geopolitical crisis.

On page one of the novel, we learn that Ava’s banker friend Julian, a preppy Englishman who went to Balliol, is paying for their first lunch date. On page two, Ava tells us there are storms on the horizon: ‘We agreed it was an exciting time to be alive.’

The storms turn out to be merely meteorological — no hint of pro-democracy demonstrations, let alone a Chinese takeover.

Julian, however, goes on paying, as Ava, who teaches children in a TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) school, starts meeting him in his high-rise apartment to share evening takeaways, and later sex, before finally she moves in with him.

Theirs is no great love affair, originating as it does in mutual convenience. As Ava narrates: ‘Our wealth disparity was too wide to make me uncomfortable . . . It absolved me of any need to probe the gendered implications of letting him pay for everything, which was just as well when I couldn’t afford for it to be otherwise.’

Class war feeds Ava’s desire to hurt Julian. She imagines his family home in Cambridgeshire, and his parents, Miles and Florence. ‘Although I was not someone Julian would bring to meet Florence,’ she thinks, ‘I imagined her having me for dinner, just the two of us. I’d mispronounce “gnocchi” and she’d avoid saying it all evening so as not to embarrass me. I would meet her eye and think: in this way I could strip you of every word you know.’

Ava persuades herself that she is ‘good at men’, for which read ‘good at getting what she wants from men’. Julian too finds the arrangement congenial: he can afford it, and Ava provides company, sex and someone to pack his suitcase when he’s off on a business trip.

Then Julian announces he has to go to London for a few months, and Ava meets Edith, a Hong Kong Chinese woman of her own age who went to boarding school in England, and then Cambridge. ‘When I meet someone I liked, I wanted all of them, and fast,’ admits Ava.

But as she begins to seduce Edith, she knows she can’t risk admitting she is sleeping with her ‘flatmate’ Julian. They have sex in Ava’s room, and after Edith has to rush home because her parents are expecting her, Ava considers: ‘This is how you can be having sex with two people, tell neither about the other, be living with one of them, and still be single.’

Six months on, Julian returns. Ava knows what she feels for Edith is something much closer to love than she has felt for any of the men in her life, but the ease of being a kept woman still has its attractions. She promises Edith she will move out of Julian’s flat, but when his father, who also lives in Hong Kong, has a heart attack, Julian persuades Ava to stay, ‘til he’s all right’. Edith demands Ava come to stay the night with her family, adding: ‘I’m breaking up with you if you don’t.’ Ava refuses.

Edith cuts Ava out of her life. Ava begins having sex with Julian again. Then he reveals that his bank is moving him to Frankfurt. She accepts his offer to live with him there, but only because it is convenient: ‘I’d go to Frankfurt. We suited. Julian was nicer now than he had been a year ago . . . I had no evidence that he wished to change and probably only thought he did because I’d want to if I were him, which to some minds would militate against our being together — but I didn’t care.’

Julian leaves for Frankfurt, and sends Ava pictures of ‘their’ new flat. Ava hands in the keys to the apartment and sets off on her long journey. Or will she stay and seek a rapprochement with Edith? Time to decide.

I really enjoyed this book!!

The characters were very well developed, and likable. I found myself sucked right into the story, and absolutely in love with it!

A very modern love story written in open prose explores the relationship in an innovative way exploring the nuances of same-gender and other gender lovers. Born in Dublin and living in Hong Kong teaching English, Ava, meets the wealthy single banker Julian. When he is in England, she meets Edith. They have a chemistry she cannot explain. So when Julian returns what can change between them. Lengthy novel.

I can completely see the comparisons to Sally Rooney here, but I think Dolan's voice, at least in this novel, is sharper and wittier. More cutting and incisive. Ava, the narrator, and Irish expat teaching English in Hong Kong, is almost too clever for her own good; her inner monologue is very tongue-in-cheek and definitely gets a bit too navel-gazey at times for my liking, especially in the beginning. Her unhealthy relationship with Julian (who is surprisingly sympathetic, especially towards the end) in particular showcases her sardonic nature. When Edith, British-educated Hong Kong native, enters the scene, Ava becomes much more tolerable, in part because her relationship with Edith is much healthier, and more, well, normal.

I also think this is the sort of book that should be read in one or two sittings, or at least, I had a much better time with the very distinctive voice once I settled in and just read it straight through. Maybe it takes some time to get used the voice and taking myself out of the narrative often wasn't helping; regardless, once I powered through, I liked the voice a lot more, even if I do think that sometimes it was trying a little too hard to be clever.

Like Rooney's works, there's not really a plot here in the traditional sense; it's mostly just watching Ava stumbling through her life and her relationships, but she's a socialist millennial, so she has some interesting commentary on the world around her, particularly the colonial way English is taught and used. It's definitely an intriguing book full of nuances that are begging to be discussed, and once I sat with it and got into it (and pushed past some of my initial irritation with the highly distinctive voice), I found it very propulsive and I couldn't put it down.

I liked but didn't love Exciting Times. To get the inevitable comparison out of the way, yes, this feels like a Sally Rooney book, but it feels like it's trying to be a Sally Rooney book. To be honest, I found this distracting. Rooney has such a unique style that anyone trying to ape it seems to pale in comparison. Moreover, I feel that Rooney is better at weaving her politics into the story of the book, rather than plunking them in wherever feels good. My issue with Exciting Times was that they didn't feel natural, nor did I feel that they actually interrogated the bigger problems at hand--the problem of white teachers teaching rich Chinese students 'standard' English. The narrator, Ava, discusses this issue as it applies to herself, how she has to control her Irish way of speech to make it something more 'correct', but rarely discusses the effects of this education on her students. For a book that focuses on self-examination, I found it pretty blind to the issues beyond class that are at play in this environment.

I was interested in this book because it was described as witty, and there definitely was enjoyable, razor-sharp wit. But ultimately, I had trouble getting into the story and did not finish it. However, I think it will be a great recommendation for fans of Normal People- the book or the show.