Complex characters confronting themselves. This is a beautifully written portrait of Max a trans woman struggling to find her place in the world. Is it with Vincent in what some might call a traditional relationship? Well, Vincent has his own backstory focused on his gap year in Thailand. Nothing is all that it seems, there's trauma, there's drama there's found family, and there's a deep respect for others. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. Terrific read.

Get ready to immerse yourself in this captivating novel that delves into the complexities of modern dating, identity, societal expectations, forgiveness and love.

Meet Max, a trans woman bravely navigating the contemporary dating scene. When she connects with Vincent, a charming corporate lawyer on a dating app, it seems like he could be the one to fill the void in her heart.

But beneath Vincent’s polished exterior lies a long-held secret from his gap year backpacking in Thailand—one that threatens to unravel their budding romance.

Will this hidden truth be the breaking point for Max and Vincent?

The narrative unfolds through their different perspectives across two timelines, creating a rich tapestry of emotions and revelations.

I really enjoyed this read and its take on contemporary romance.

Dinan’s writing is so good I’m now eager wait to dive into her debut novel Bellies.

Thank you to @netgalley @nicoladinan and @randomhouse for the opportunity@to read this one!

#disappointme #nicoladinan #netgalley #randomhouse #lifeasabooklover #booklover #bibliophile #bookstagram

This book first appealed to me because of the author and some list I read somewhere on the internet. The book started well, but fizzled in the middle. A lot of run on sentences and it peaked interest but waned in some spots. Overall 3/5.

Calling it now, this book will be one of my top reads for 2025. I couldn’t put this down to the point that I was reading it on my phone during a walk home where I definitely should have been paying attention.

Since reading Detransition Baby, I’ve wanted a book that captures queerness in its beauty, vulnerability, humor, and character without feeling artificial. This finally had that feeling.

I felt immediately connected to the characters, laughed out loud and read particularly hilarious lines to whoever was sitting next to me, and highlighted and insufferably brought up to friends lines that were insightful in a way I didn’t expect. This will stick with me.

Note: thank you to Random House Publishing Group for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This was such a special book. It completely exceeded all of my expectations.

As far as Contemporary and Women’s Fiction goes, this was such an honest and vulnerable approach. It was easy to read and filled with nuance, but never felt pretentious or like it was trying too hard to be one specific thing.

We follow Max—a transgender woman navigating life, womanhood, relationships (familial, platonic, and romantic), her career, and the general messiness of existing in the world. This story explores how the things that happen to us, and the choices we make, shape who we are. It's about forgiveness, acceptance, and understanding.

There are so many vulnerable moments, not only for Max, but for the people around her: her boyfriend, Vincent, her parents, her brother Jamie, her best friend Simone, and others she keeps close. They make mistakes - sometimes intense, sometimes mistakes that feel unforgivable - but we’re given a realistic, honest perspective of what it means to love someone and expect the best from them. What it feels like when they fall short. And how we respond when we fall short of being the person we want to be.

This book felt like a letter of understanding for empaths. I saw so much of myself in these pages...the doubts, the desires, the deep need to be good, and the constant questioning of your own intentions. Being someone who’s understanding, malleable, and loves people even when they don’t get it right.

One of my favorite reads of the year.

"Yes, these are things which I've long assumed were never meant for me, but perhaps I haven't spent enough time reflecting on how that's a gift."

I absolutely loved this book about Max and her boyfriend, Vincent, as they navigate what it's like to be in a hetero-appearing relationship, and what that means for them and all their emotional baggage.

The thing that stood out most to me in this entire book is the portrayal of complicated characters making questionable choices but illustrated with no judgment. Dinan is so talented at empathy and nuance, and you have such a deep sense of empathy for these characters. I also appreciated the nuances of looking at being a straight transwoman, and what that means in reality when you are dating a cisman.

Just an incredible look at life, and all the different ways you can create that life. Highly recommended.

Rating: 4.5/5

This was such a wonderful and hard to put down book. Although it took me most of the first chapter to start to get into it, I became really invested in the story. The author's writing is so lovely, with detailed descriptions and a brutal honesty. The characters were certainly flawed, but they felt human and real. I could usually understand their motivations and impulses even if I didn't agree with their choices. I also resonated with and enjoyed the humor, which can be hard to do when using current/modern humor. This is a great piece of literary fiction.

So many aspects of this book felt real: relationship anxieties, family drama, friendship drama, warranted introspection, insecurities, comparison, and more. It was intimate. The book also focuses on identity and intersectionality, seeing how the characters navigate being trans and/or queer and/or female and/or non-white within and outside their communities. The author doesn't shy away from awkward or uncomfortable interactions. From the main characters, particularly Max, there's just enough introspection and self-awareness to make the characters redeemable while avoiding navel-gazing. It was emotional and hopeful and sad and happy. I really enjoyed reading this -- it's short and bingeable.

I put the links for my Instagram & storygraph reviews in the links space below.

I really enjoyed Disappoint Me. The characters were all deeply flawed and, if I'm honest, unlikable but still riveting. Vincent and Max were both dealing with deep seated issues that needed to be explored together but were unable to be honest and open with each other. Each character was well developed without feeling like they were trying to fit in boxes. Max especially struggled with identity and where she fit in the world while being honest and open with the people she cared about. I was pitched this book as a trans woman trying to fit into a trad wife lifestyle but I think it was so much more than that. This story was about human connection, identity and understanding.

Disappoint Me tells the story of Max, a trans woman and Vincent, her current boyfriend but as a 19 year old taking a gap year in a back-and-forth narrative.
I think that Maxs portion of the story held more value and was easier to relate to but we find out why Vincent had such a backstory. Max was so complex and evolving and in some ways, I feel like Vincent fell flat in comparison. You could see the person he grew up to be through Maxs' narrative but there were gaps that won't make sense until the end.
Outside of Max and Vincent, other characters such as Simone and Fred offer very little to the story until the end but the conversations are vibrant and full.
Dinan explores the relationships between friend groups, trans acceptance and navigation, and forgiveness in a really fluid way and once I committed to sitting down and finishing this book, it was a pretty seamless read.

This was such a beautifully tragic read with complex characters who get inside your heart and your mind and force you to see the world through their eyes, which is an amazing thing for a writer to be able to accomplish.

Disappoint Me is a character study that follows a trans woman and her boyfriend and the ups and downs of their relationship. I felt so connected to them throughout and all I wanted was for them to find the happiness they deserved.

This read will not be for everyone, but I guarantee you if you read it that it will change your way of thinking and stay with you long after you finish reading it.

Review posted to StoryGraph and Goodreads on 5/12/25. Review will be posted to Amazon on release date.

This is going to be the book all the cool kids read this summer. When I started reading this book I was struck by how much I both liked and disliked Max and that was so refreshing. It felt like listening to the inner monologue of a friend. Max gets to be a full character which feels so important in the current times. She can be bitchy about things, uncertain about others, quick to judge, but also allowed to change her mind. The supporting cast of characters were also really interesting. I didn’t expect to love this book as much as I did but it grabbed me and I found myself wishing for clarity and some happiness for Max and crew.

5⭐️ Definitely a top book of the year for me! Despite some difficult themes and some drama, I couldn’t help but feel comforted by this book. Our FMC is so likeable, albeit flawed, and her perspective is so real and emotional.
With a great set of supporting characters, you really feel invested in what the outcome will be and I didn’t want this to end.

I think I’m officially all in on Nicola Dinan. I read Bellies and it absolutely wrecked me so I knew I had to pick this one up in order to further escalate my emotional instability. This one did not destroy me, but it didn’t disappoint me either *wink*

As always, I think Dinan writes characters like no one else. I especially appreciated how complex they were and how the novel sought to examine whether a person is better than their worst deed. The scenarios the characters found themselves in were also extremely relatable; I found myself resonating with almost every story beat.

This book was one of the rare times where I wished it was longer, but I really wanted to sit with the characters a little bit more. I think the side characters fall a little bit by the wayside which left me a little unfulfilled as I felt they were so interesting I wanted to know more about them and how their own choices led them to where they are in the book.

All that being said, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I normally try to pace myself with books, but this one I truly could not put down. Even though the subject matter in this book was not something I could directly relate to, I still found myself in the pages due to the truly engaging and raw way Dinan writes. Everyone needs to be reading Dinan.

Thank you to NetGalley & Random House for the eARC!

Perspective plays a major role throughout this book. Wanting to be perceived as who we are without question. But outside looking in, would we appear as what we see ourselves as? Everything isn’t what meets the eye.

We can be and are often jealous of those who we perceive as fortunate or who fit the standard. Feeling like we don’t have a place where we fit in, and being alone in the world with a future of forever loneliness. We don’t want to be left behind. We want safety through doing what is expected of us. Validation only being achieved through seeking companionship. But what is the importance of tradition?

There are so many different cultural and societal norms. How we act can play into how we want to be treated a certain way. Feeling a certain level of resentment even from “your own” when you don’t fully encompass the unspoken requirements of others (e.g., What does being a quarter Chinese compare to being full Chinese?).

We all carry our own traumas and experiences. Our identities aren’t always outward manifesting themselves. Figure out when to give grace and forgiveness to those trying to learn and support you is difficult. You have to decide if you can forgive or if you should leave.

It’s okay to feel down. Feeling like a burden to be in another person’s life because parts of you aren’t conventional and don’t came more natural is devastating. Or fearing the intentions of those who are close to you and what your relationship truly means to them.

When someone who you view as good has done wrong it feels out of no where when really they are simply human just as you are. Sometimes awful things make better people. Nobody’s perfect, but some people never learn from their mistakes. Self reflection and action towards change are starting points towards a better you.

Overall, this book was captivating and very character driven, which are some of my favorite books. It truly made me think and immerse myself into the book and the character’s differing situations. I ended up rating this book a 4.25.

pretty good! I liked the perspectives and explorations of different experiences with transness. compulsively readable, touching, funny, relatable. I liked it a looooooot more than bellies (unpopular opinion but did not like bellies). def recommend!

An interesting perspective and an interesting story. Liked a lot of it but felt that is was missing something for me.

When I pick up a work of literary fiction, I generally expect to spend weeks reading it a single chapter at a time, with plenty of breaks to gather the stamina for the next foray. But this sucked me in and didn't let me back out until the end. There is all the depth and complexity that you'd want from a literary novel, but also compellingly straightforward, engaging prose. Easy reading, but with an emotional sucker-punch, especially while exploring expectations around motherhood.

I may need to sit with this one for a bit to really decide on a rating. I don’t know what I was expecting, but the cover drew me in with its melancholy vibes. I, personally my usual MO, did not read the synopsis… I love a surprise.

Beautiful writing, quick read, but I had to keep flipping back or re-reading sections to recall what was going on. For a book that is about the complexities of real, modern relationships, this is very well done! It’s not over the top romance or life altering storyline, instead there are normal family crises and medical complications navigated through the lens of a heteronormative queer relationship. While there are certainly memorable lines, there were whole sections that I failed to retain (this is a me problem!).

We follow Max and Vincent in their dual-POV storyline. Max in real-time, Vincent flipping between current time and 10 years prior where his past and present collide. Max is a trans-woman whose life is rich with friendships and complicated family dynamics. Her boyfriend Vincent is a lawyer with a jealous streak and traditional family, with a complicated history with a previous trans relationship that he fails to disclose to Max. As Max discovers she needs brain surgery for what is likely a benign tumor, Vincent is thrust into the past by his fear, and his jealousy shows Max a side of him she had not before.

Their relationship evolves through beautiful prose by Dinan, where the outline of the man Max thought Vincent was is more human; it “forced Vincent into personhood” - as we often idealize our partners early in relationships into the best version of themselves, rather than their whole self. This line also really stood out to me “…there’s a life in which bad doesn’t always multiply, where the tide shifts, where awful things make people better” - and wow, this is so true. Sometimes we have to accept that the bad shaped the new, the better, and forgive that bad for the sake of growth. (Yes, I know… not always okay, yes sometimes we do not forgive. Sometimes the cost is too high. We aren’t talking about that here…)

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I am always on board for a trans lit fic, and Disappoint Me more than delivered. Following Max through his journey from beginning to end was inspiring and anxiety-inducing and just so damn good. Definitely recommending Nicola Dinan to my friends and followers.

Nicola Dinan has definitely established herself as a must read favorite author for me. A heartbreaking and beautiful story about relationships, growth, and forgiveness.