Exciting Times: A Novel

The kindle version seems to be in poor shape. Paras and pages seem to skip over ever so often. As for the book, it’s fun momentarily. Nothing astounding.

Even though it's her first book, it doesn't seems so. She has done great job.Chetan Bhagat fans please be away!!!

The book came in very good condition. It's one of the most interesting book I've read this year.

For us millennials, navigation is both crucial and exhausting. We have so much to navigate through, don’t we? From what pants I must wear to the next weekend’s party, to disappointing social media story views, to deciding on the next job or the next academic pursual—almost each moment in our lives makes us stand at brinks, on cliff-edges where we threaten to fall with a gasp, a little frightened and a lot overwhelmed.This is where ‘Exciting times’ comes in, with this same dosage of fuss over the most dumb things running in parallel with discussion on the somber topics like life, marriage, paychecks blah blah (all the weekday discussions on the dinner table, head scrunched down the plate and wanting it desperately to end) Ava, an Irish woman in early twenties arrives in Hong Kong, surviving over a meagre income and suffocating roommates—where her job is to teach English grammar to rich kids. Upon befriending an affluent white banker Julian, Ava soon eventually moves in with him, which means she won’t have to pay rent, can live a posh lifestyle on lieu of Julian’s credit cards, can basically navigate her life in the shadow of affluence. Initially, Ava doesn’t seem to mind. Her relationship with Julian is of course very physical—but Julian is an offbeat guy, like a programmed robot—equipped with dry humour and equally parched sense of emotions. He is supportive, almost over-indulgent, makes no fuss. But Ava is in a fix to decide upon what stage of a relationship they’re in. Or whether they have anything at all, beyond maybe a parasitic existence. Soon Julian leaves for London for some time, leaving Ava with her freedom without bounds (financial and romantic) and some dry Whatsapp texts to make Ava wonder how close or how offset they really were. Then comes along Edith, a lawyer, a charming, confident woman—and Ava knows she’s in love. But is she? No matter how much she tries to convince herself about her mismatch with Julian or her depth with Edith—Ava finds herself to be confused and pretentious, and she really doesn’t know the expertise to step out from this love triangle or even amateurly navigate.⠀Basically, I loved the book. It has the most accurate representation of how we as the younger generation interact with the world—how we see love and moneymaking and how we consume this massive load of media and digital repercussions. The prose here is sharp and witty, mostly in first person from Ava’s perspective and she’s a quirky character to handle. She’s sometimes so oddly superficial and sometimes excruciatingly meaningful, its as if she has the weapons of millennial existence –but doesn’t know where to use which. She’s annoyingly judgmental but superbly thoughtful and cautious, and adept at looking at power and personal politics from very unconventional perspectives. Her navigation of people and their personalities is to an extent very awkward, but from the reader’s perspective it will try to convey to us how much power and foundation we want from relationships, and what do we derive of it. Here’s a book that puts up emotional and romantic transactions so well, its almost raw and unscathed.⠀I know the highlight of the book as it appeared to me, but I do not know precisely why I liked the book. The highlight is this: ‘Exciting Times’ gives us a glimpse of this dilemma between how we see ourselves, and how we want to be seen. How we try to see others, and what we imagine they want us to see and perceive. Its complex to realise, this book is going to be a hit or miss for the upcoming readers. Either you’ll be irked and find nothing, otherwise you’ll find so much within the lines thriving in the contexts. It dissects wealth and class and privilege and says how it affects how we live, and what ideas we assimilate. Through this scattered prose and uneventful plotline, Naoise Dolan tries to make us realize how empty and flattened we must feel in this physical vs. digital world, and how frantically we try to survive within it, still trying to leave impact and love freely.

The most unexciting one I have read to date, this book is proof that running blind into a book without reading the blurb is a bad idea. I thought being longlisted for Dylan Thomas & The Women's Prize would hold weightage, but no great shakes there!Ava, an Irish girl, moves to Hong Kong, to pursue a career as a grammar school teacher that categorically employs only whites. The matchbox-style living conditions in HK push her to acquiesce to a live-in relationship with a well-off British banker, with a sullen attitude, who refuses to put a name to their relationship. When he returns to London for 6 months, she gets entangled in an intimate relationship with a lawyer woman. Her turmoil is real when he returns, & it comes to choosing between the two.And that's about the size of it. I think I have summarized the whole book here, just fill in the blanks with boring conversations, and now you do not need to read the book at all.The highlight was the descriptions of the famous streets of Hong Kong, which gave me flashbacks of my travels there, and I could relate to drinking at LKF, shopping at TST, & eating at Stanley Street.Ava, being an Irish woman, teaching British English to Hong Kong kids, found the grammatical differences entertaining. These observations were an object of amusement for me. Especially the bring/take rule, which we native speakers do not give too much consideration. "'Bring' was for things that were going from 'there' to 'here'. 'Take', however, was for things you were moving from 'here' to 'there'."Finding her sexuality was the theme which this book tackled. Her comfort with a man and her love for a woman, simultaneously, made her question her sexuality. She vied for both their attention & when the three socialized together, the dynamics were skewed. She realized she behaved differently with each of them.This one ticks the 6th book off the Women's Prize longlist. Next in line, Small Pleasure, which I know I will not stop gushing about.

Starts off great but very quickly loses all the humour, sharp wit and relativeness that made the first part so appealing. The rest is merely repetitive meanderings on the same topics over and over again with no satisfaction of a worthwhile conclusion.

This book was not as special as the newspapers said it would be, and the title itself read "Exciting Times". It is barely exciting. The concept is original but the execution is basic, cliche and simply overdone. I have read elsewhere that Crazy Rich Asian fans might like it - this could not be further from the truth. This book lacks the adrenaline and actual excitement that trilogy contains. This is a bleak, easy read that one should not expect too much from. I read it very quickly and the ending was a further disappointment. The cliffhanger was pointless, as the book was not even 300 pages and yet the writer still could not finish up the ending properly by giving us an extra 5 pages of an epilogue or explaining who she ends up with. Maybe, I will reread it again in a year or two and will grow to love it. But for now, it is lacking that literary and artistic kick which makes a book ever so memorable. And until I can find or understand the flavour of the book, it is an OKAY book. Not good, or great, or amazing. Simply grey and okay.

I have given up reading this book - it seems just to meander mostly following the convoluted over thinking of the principle character. It is hard to like anyone , though the main character is perhaps easier to like as she lets you into her mind. I know others have enjoyed this book and I started to read it with high hopes. My previous book really was good - and I suggest you give it a try instead - Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid.

I really wanted to like this book & based on the amount of publicity/quotes from famous people & authors I thought it would be incredible. However, I found it 'just ok' - maybe if it hadn't been overhyped I'd have relaxed into it more. The whole thing feels like an exercise in trying to seem as clever as possible... (to me anyway, maybe I struggled because I'm not clever enough to appreciate it)! If you're looking for something with pace & characters to bond with, don't go for this book.

Started off hard to get into, but then became a page turner.I really appreciated the subject of being a lesbian in a sexist world. It was very insightful, and sadly rare.Wasn't too sure about the ending? But maybe I missed something! Otherwise, really good.