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Exciting Times

Author: Naoise Dolan

Published by: Weidenfield & Nicolson

Pages: 279

Format: Hardback

My Rating ★★★

When you leave Ireland aged 22 to spend your parents’ money, it’s called a gap year. When Ava leaves Ireland aged 22 to make her own money, she’s not sure what to call it, but it involves:

. a badly-paid job in Hong Kong, teaching English grammar to rich children;

. Julian, who likes to spend money on Ava and lets her move into his guest room;

. Edith, who Ava meets while Julian is out of town and actually listens to her when she talks;

. money, love, cynicism, unspoken feelings and unlikely connections.

Exciting times ensue.

My thoughts:

Ava moved to Hong Kong to find happiness, but so far, it isn’t working out. Since she left Dublin, she’s been spending her days teaching English to rich children—she’s been assigned the grammar classes because she lacks warmth—and her nights avoiding cranky roommates in her cramped apartment. When Ava befriends Julian, a witty British banker, he offers a shortcut into a lavish life her small salary could never allow. Ignoring her feminist leanings and her better judgements, Ava finds herself moving into Julian’s apartment, letting him buy her clothes, and, eventually, striking up a sexual relationship with him. When Julian’s job takes him back to London, she stays put, unsure where their relationship stands. Enter Edith. A Hong Kong–born lawyer, striking and ambitious, Edith takes Ava to the theatre and leaves her tulips in the hallway. Ava wants to be her—and wants to be with her. Ava has been carefully pretending that Julian is nothing more than an absentee roommate, so when Julian announces that he’s returning to Hong Kong, she faces a tough decision. Should she return to the easy compatibility of her life with Julian or take a leap into the unknown with Edith?

With so many professional reviewers hailing Exciting Times as one of the best debut novels of 2020, praising Naoise Dolan for her wit and her razor-sharp social commentary, or describing her book as being “droll, shrewd and unafraid”, this promised to be an intelligent and compelling read. Sadly, as with a lot of hyped new releases, Exciting Times wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.

At 22 Ava decides to leave Dublin behind and move to Hong Kong where she ends up teaching English grammar. Because she didn’t like herself in Ireland, she believes that a change of scenery will either improve her personality or the way she sees herself. In Hong Kong Ava makes few attempts at socialising with her colleagues or her roommates, and it is only when she meets Julian, a banker, that she begins to be interested in someone other than herself. The two form a bond of sorts, which sees them occasionally sparring about the fraught history between Britain and Ireland, while for the most part they seem content with being cynical together. Soon enough Ava moves into Julian's guest bedroom. While he’s back in England Ava meets and ‘falls’ for Edith who, unlike Julian, openly reciprocates her feelings.

The plot as such sees Ava obsessing about either Julian or Edith, checking their Instagram accounts, over-analysing their texts, and attributing a special meaning to everything they say or do. For the most part Exciting Times is about Ava’s detachment from others. There is little or no character growth with Ava, and the ending felt vague in terms of whether or not she had learned from her mistakes.

I was also disappointed that the Hong Kong setting felt overlooked. Ava’s narration really fails to create a vivid setting of China; it’s as if the entire story takes place in front of a blank backdrop. There is very little writing dedicated to Chinese culture and traditions. This seemed a missed opportunity.

The novel is so focused on being clever that it ends up not having anything substantial to offer. Ava’s supposed ‘aloofness’ seemed more of an excuse for her character not to have a personality. Instead of really showing her emotions, Ava simply tells us that she ‘loves/hates’ someone...and I just didn’t feel it. If anything, she was infatuated with the idea of love.

Julian and Edith also weren’t particularly likeable, but they certainly felt more like well-rounded people. I couldn’t see why they were both interested in Ava given how self-involved she was.

It took me far too long to read this relatively short book because my attention was easily distracted by other things. All in all, it’s well written and I found it fairly interesting. I may simply be the wrong audience, but I just didn’t connect with the book almost at all. If you enjoy pretentious literary fiction, you'll love this one. But sadly, it wasn’t for me.

Overall reaction:

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