Naoise Dolan’s Exciting Times is a sharp, emotionally restrained novel that captures the unease of contemporary relationships shaped by global mobility, digital communication, and the quiet pressures of self-definition. The book, which is mostly set in Hong Kong, centers on Ava, a young Irish woman teaching English overseas, as she negotiates a confusing romantic triangle with Edith, a morally upright Hong Kong lawyer, and Julian, a wealthy British banker. Beneath its dry humour and clipped dialogue, Exciting Times offers a precise examination of how intimacy, identity, and power operate in an always-online, hyper-self-aware world.

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Ava’s emotional detachment, a characteristic that feels very modern, is at the core of the book. Ava is highly articulate about her inner life, yet resistant to emotional vulnerability. Her relationships are mediated through text messages, emails, and carefully constructed conversations where meaning often resides in what is unsaid. Dolan uses this emotional minimalism to mirror the way digital culture shapes intimacy: connection is constant, but depth is optional. Ava’s hesitation to “feel too much” is indicative of a generation that is adept at communicating but wary of commitment, where exposing oneself emotionally is seen as riskier than being alone.

Power and class concerns are inextricably linked to the novel’s examination of love relationships. Ava’s relationship with Julian is defined by imbalance—economic, cultural, and emotional. Julian’s wealth affords him a kind of effortless dominance, while Ava’s financial precarity renders her perpetually self-conscious. Their interactions often feel transactional, underscoring how intimacy can be distorted when one person’s security is another’s aspiration. In contrast, Edith represents emotional and ethical clarity. Yet even this relationship is filtered through Ava’s analytical lens, as she intellectualises desire rather than surrendering to it. Dolan resists romantic idealism, instead portraying relationships as sites of negotiation shaped by structural inequalities and personal insecurities.

In Exciting Times, identity is performed continuously, is fragmented, and is flexible. Ava’s Irishness is both central and incidental—she is defined by it in certain contexts while remaining alienated from it internally. Like many young professionals who relocate across borders in pursuit of opportunity or escape, she feels more dislocated as a result of her expatriate status. Dolan situates this displacement within a broader cultural moment where identity is increasingly untethered from geography and anchored instead in social networks, online discourse, and personal narratives curated for others.

Digital culture plays a subtle but crucial role in the novel. Although Exciting Times is not overtly about social media, its influence is everywhere. Characters mostly communicate via screens, and carefully worded messages, sudden silences, or delayed responses are used to convey emotional changes. This mode of interaction reinforces emotional ambiguity—misunderstandings linger, and intimacy becomes something to manage rather than inhabit. Dolan depicts how characters can edit themselves in real time through digital communication, giving them control over how they present their emotions. Ava’s self-awareness, bordering on self-surveillance, reflects a digital habit of constant self-monitoring.

The tone of the book is among its most notable accomplishments. Dolan’s prose is spare, ironic, and frequently funny, yet never indulgent. The humour often emerges from Ava’s bleak self-assessments and her discomfort with sincerity. The novel’s themes—feelings are genuine but dubious, desire is present but questioned—are strengthened by this tonal restraint. In a culture saturated with confessional narratives, Exciting Times stands out for its refusal to offer emotional catharsis. Instead, it presents emotional uncertainty as a stable condition of modern life.

Crucially, there are no simple answers in Exciting Times. If Ava is growing, it’s gradual and unclear. This lack of narrative closure may frustrate some readers, but it aligns with the novel’s commitment to realism. Dolan understands that contemporary identity is not something resolved but continually revised. Sometimes relationships just show the boundaries of a person’s emotional potential at a particular time; they don’t always heal or change.

In the context of contemporary fiction, Exciting Times belongs to a lineage of novels concerned with millennial alienation, global precarity, and emotionally ambivalent protagonists. Yet Dolan’s voice is distinct—less confessional than Sally Rooney, more ironic than earnest. Her art speaks to a generation navigating intimacy in an era of digital saturation and economic uncertainty, where emotional distance may seem like a survival tactic.
Ultimately, Exciting Times is a novel about the difficulty of being emotionally present in a world that encourages constant self-distance. Dolan depicts the delicate process of becoming oneself in the face of conflicting identities as well as the quiet loneliness of intimacy in the digital age through Ava’s relationships and internal conflicts. It is a precise, unsentimental portrait of modern relational life – uncomfortable, insightful, and deeply resonant.