Staff Pick
Unapologetically honest writing with incredibly realistic and complicated characters. This book explores how a political stance can affect your thoughts but not always relate to your behavior, and how toxic relationships can be when you have not yet had a chance to grow on a personal level. If you are a
Sally Rooney fan, do yourself a favor and check this one out. :) Recommended By Tawney E., Powells.com
Synopses & Reviews
"This debut novel about an Irish expat millennial teaching English and finding romance in Hong Kong is half Sally Rooney love triangle, half glitzy Crazy Rich Asians high living — and guaranteed to please." — Vogue
A RECOMMENDED BOOK FROM:
The New York Times Book Review * Vogue * TIME * Marie Claire * Elle * O, the Oprah Magazine * Esquire * Harper's Bazaar * Bustle * PopSugar * Refinery 29 * LitHub * Debutiful
An intimate, bracingly intelligent debut novel about a millennial Irish expat who becomes entangled in a love triangle with a male banker and a female lawyer
Ava, newly arrived in Hong Kong from Dublin, spends her days teaching English to rich children.
Julian is a banker. A banker who likes to spend money on Ava, to have sex and discuss fluctuating currencies with her. But when she asks whether he loves her, he cannot say more than "I like you a great deal."
Enter Edith. A Hong Kong-born lawyer, striking and ambitious, Edith takes Ava to the theater and leaves her tulips in the hallway. Ava wants to be her — and wants her.
And then Julian writes to tell Ava he is coming back to Hong Kong... Should Ava return to the easy compatibility of her life with Julian or take a leap into the unknown with Edith?
Politically alert, heartbreakingly raw, and dryly funny, Exciting Times is thrillingly attuned to the great freedoms and greater uncertainties of modern love. In stylish, uncluttered prose, Naoise Dolan dissects the personal and financial transactions that make up a life — and announces herself as a singular new voice.
Review
“Jealousy and obsession, love and late capitalism, sex and the internet all come whirling together in a wry and bracing tale of class and privilege." New York Times Book Review
Review
"Wonderfully intuitive and fluid....An examination of sex, queerness, self-sabotage, power, and privilege. The New Yorker
Review
“Dolan crafts sharp commentary on the intersection of longing, class and power.” Time
Review
“Wry, stylish....In this witty satire of the haves and have nots, Dolan explores tender, insightful truths about the vagaries of modern love.”
-Esquire
Review
“Half Sally Rooney love triangle, half glitzy Crazy Rich Asians high living — and guaranteed to please.”
Vogue
Review
"A love story packed with irony and introspection." Elle
About the Author
Naoise Dolan is an Irish writer born in Dublin. She studied at Trinity College, followed by a master's in Victorian literature at Oxford. She writes fiction, essays, criticism and features for publications including The London Review of Books, The Guardian and Vogue. Her debut novel Exciting Times was published by W&N in the UK and by Ecco in the US in 2020, and became a Sunday Times bestseller, widely translated and optioned for TV. She has been shortlisted and longlisted for several prizes, including The Women's Prize for Fiction, the Dylan Thomas Prize and The Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award.