Reviews with content warning for Colonisation - Exciting Times

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Exciting Times by Naoise Dolan

17 reviews

sentcinematic's review against another edition

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emotional funny reflective sad medium-paced

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

5.0

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james1star's review against another edition

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medium-paced

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

2.25

I desperately wanted to love this book. The themes, setting, plot and writing style drew me in. But mostly it’s comparison and likeness to Sally Rooney, whom I adore, is what really made me want to read this. But alas… I kinda hated it. I don’t want to go on too long as this I already feel has taken up too much of my time enough but Yhh.

Plot: Irish postgrad Ava teaches rich kids English in Hong Kong, has relationship with a rich banker who buys her stuff and she questions it, he leaves for a bit she she becomes infatuated with a woman, they have a relationship and that’s all you’re getting… read one the spoiler reviews for more.

What I liked: there were definitely some memorable quotes and snippets and impactful parts. The writing is ‘good’ and for the most part understandable, with somewhat lyrical or at least complex (I’m not that good at explaining) descriptions of things. It did have some witty and interesting takes in parts that made me LOL. The book also deals with quite a lot of topics e.g. class, relationships, power dynamics, sexuality, minor alludes to racism (I’ll develop in a sec) among others which is good but I personally don’t feel they were dealt with the best but Yhh… I dunno.

What I didn’t like: as it’s in my head now I’ll talk about this first but I don’t think the bi/pan(/ I don’t know what to ‘label’ Ava because she doesn’t and of course we don’t need to but Yhh someone who has an intimate relationship with people of multiple genders) rep is not the best because Ava is ‘cheating’ on her partners and this is a big stereotype of the bi community sooo. Also racism can be alluded to like the way Edith’s mum treats the probably southeast Asian helper where in Hong Kong this inter-Asian racism is a big problem and Dolan mentions it very slightly but doesn’t extrapolate. Furthermore, many of the Asian characters fit stereotypes like the children Ava teachers being typical-Asian-Tiger-kids-who-don’t-really-want-to-learn-English-but-are-made-to and are described as ‘copycats’ - Edith also fits this persona and her mum being a typical Asian tiger mum.

Next paragraph for the characters. I honestly didn’t like any of them and not in an ‘intriguing villain’ kinda way but more so ‘I could not care less if you do or don’t get what you want’ kinda way. They weren’t really developed and shown to be quite shallow with certain characteristics being repeated too much - Julian’s bankerness, richness, Oxford-graduateness, whiteness and so on… he’s also just not very nice. Ava too is just very meh and Edith, albeit the best, is also just okay bordering on nice but like I dunno I can’t really elaborate without lying. And being a character based novel you do need to have this level of complexity or lovableness to keep wanting to read on but I did not - I really didn’t enjoy reading this book it felt like I was being forced to.

Final point, the writing in this book makes Sally Rooney look subtle… and to me that says A LOT. I definitely got this ‘I’m flexing my English degree’ ‘I know lots of big, complex, intellectual words and I don’t care if you don’t also know them’ and ‘imma confuse these readers’ kinda vibe - I went off on one a bit and lost my train of thought but yhhh it’s pretentious. And this isn’t always a bad thing if you have the big brain energy vibe but I don’t really, at least not to Naoise Dolan’s extent. Furthermore I felt it had the pretentious and ‘gobly-goop’ writing style like Rooney on the various topics (with big discussions on arguably benign things but are important in the moment and to individuals and Yhh but not on the larger scale… my brain always fuzzes trying to sum up this type of writing) but without the real cusp or direct meaningfulness that has the lasting impact on you.

I could honestly talk a lot about this book so maybe it’s not that bad but… I still don’t like it. Okayish plot with some takeaways but predominantly unlikable characters in a pretentious writing style and some harmful stereotypes.

P.S. the plot was just like ehhh with lots of ‘why are you doing that?’ ‘Really? People talk and act like that? Really? Ummmm I have differing opinions’ and the logicality is questionable at some points too.

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skudiklier's review against another edition

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emotional funny lighthearted reflective medium-paced

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

4.5

I'm not sure how much I liked this book. I enjoyed it, I found it engaging, and I laughed out loud more than once. I also really liked some of the lines; I listened to the audiobook while driving so I sadly didn't save most of them, but there was one part that hit me so hard I paused the book and just sort of yelled for a minute. I just spent fifteen minutes tracking it down so I might as well share it here:

"The best wedges of words were the ones my eight-year-olds wrote: I like her face. With her I am happy. I wished I’d never learned more advanced grammar and could only make sentences like that. It would give me an excuse to say them aloud."

Anyway. This book didn't really go anywhere and I'm not sure the characters are very good in any real way, but I enjoyed the narration for sure. It's interesting and I'd recommend it to some people, but not everyone.

Content Warnings

lil_owl_reads's review against another edition

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dark funny slow-paced

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

4.0

This book is a fascinating look into self-hatred, co-dependency, desire, sexuality, and culture. The depiction of bisexuality was interesting, and the descriptions of why the two main relationships were each desirable to Ava at different times were convincing. I will say that the book is fairly slow, as Ava tends to ramble and discuss uninteresting topics at points. However, if you let her observations become part of her character, they actually add to the story as oppose to detract. You probably won't root for any of the characters (especially Ava herself... sometimes she's just frustrating), but it's nonetheless worth the read.

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camillatd's review against another edition

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challenging emotional funny reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
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

4.5

This book was pretty slow-paced and almost entirely character-driven, which I really enjoy, but it's definitely not for everyone. There are clear parallels to be drawn with Sally Rooney's Conversations with Friends, another novel I adore, but I think Dolan's work stands on its own. She deftly explores queerness, cultural friction, the nuances of intimacy, and vulnerability with witty prose, drily amusing cultural observations, and sharp moments of personal reflection. I found Ava frustrating at times, but I think that's kind of the point. In some of her behaviors and instincts, I saw reflections of myself, and this awareness of flaws made me uncomfortable. Naoise Dolan has been vocal about her positionality as a queer, neurodivergent, Irish writer, and I think understanding this voice is crucial to appreciating her work.

Content Warnings

radfordmanor's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional lighthearted reflective medium-paced

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

4.0

Content Warnings

nialiversuch's review against another edition

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funny reflective medium-paced

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

3.5

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