Exciting Times

Set in the expat world of Hong Kong, Exciting Times follows 22-year-old Ava from Ireland as she moves to the East Asian metropolis to teach English. There she strikes up a casual relationship with her "banker friend Julian" who pays for her things and lets her move into his apartment. While he’s away on business, a trip that seems to stretch on for months, enter Edith: a Cambridge-educated lawyer from Hong Kong, who listens when Ava speaks and genuinely appears to like her. 

Sharp and sarcastic, Nolan offers no shortage of social, cultural and political observations: from feminism to misogyny, abortion laws in Ireland, socialism vs capitalism, and the politics in Hong Kong — still deeply rooted in its colonial history. 

Many of these not so subtle jabs are told through interactions with her TEFL students — such as the difference between British English, Irish English & Irish Irish — and conversations with Julian’s communist father Miles, who teaches at HKU. 

Initially, I didn’t know what to make of this. The comparison to Sally Rooney is valid, though I initially found Nolan’s writing unnecessarily convoluted and the narrator’s voice very detached. The protagonist, Ava, is unlikeable — think Francis from Rooney’s Conversations with Friends — though the person who dislikes her most of all seems to be Ava herself. 

That said, as the story went on, and after Edith entered the picture, I developed an unexpectedly soft spot for Ava. Her self-deprecating thoughts, her intimacy issues stemming from bullying, and her inability to come to terms with her sexuality ultimately made her unequivocally human. She had no shortage of flaws, and made a (very long) string of mistakes, but I rooted for her in the end. Eventually, I also warmed to Dolan’s terse writing style, and especially appreciated the examinations of language and grammar that were cleverly woven into the narrative. 

Dolan’s commentary on politics and modern conventions, from Jeremy Corbyn to dating in a time of social media, successfully captures a recognisable essence of millennial living. While not for every one, fans of Rooney and Ottessa Moshfegh will likely enjoy this one.