Unfortunately I think this is a right book wrong time situation, I felt that the start was quite similar to Nicola's previous book, Bellies, the way it through you into the story and the way the main character comes across. I felt like it would be one I'd enjoy but after reading about 20% I've not felt compelled to pick it back up to find out how the story progresses. Maybe I'll go back to it but I can't see that happening right now as I just don't feel like I care too find out enough right now. I won't let this deter me from her future releases however as I do feel Nicola writes with a rawness that I admire.

Most of the time, I know more or less how I feel about a book pretty early on. This time, I didn't know what to make of it until around the halfway mark, when it started to really grab my attention. Frankly, I'm still not quite sure what to make of this, but in a good way, I think. I sometimes struggle reading about characters I find unlikeable, but there was something compelling about this story that kept me interested, and it was certainly thought-provoking.

Another excellent novel from Nicola Dinan. This is a smart and razor sharp deep dive into heteronormativity from a trans perspective, as well as analysing the way we pin dreams and expectations on new relationships, regardless of gender.

Beautifully written, intensely moving.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for my advanced reading copy.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Max is a trans woman looking for a heteronormative relationship. Vincent seems to be perfect for her but he is hiding something from his past which will call their relationship into question and challenge Max's trust in him.

This is a beautiful depiction of a new relationship. It captures the hope and vulnerability that comes hand in hand with emerging love but also the pressures that family expectations, cultural differences and past mistakes can bring to the table. It's character driven, complicated and full of emotion. I loved it from start to finish.

Similarly to Bellies, Disappoint Me considers location, queer identity, class, race, assimilation, vulnerability, urban loneliness, womanhood, and more, with introspective prose and distinctive characters. With that being said, Bellies felt far more poignant and indelible. I'm very sad about this because Bellies was my favourite book of 2023 and is one of my favourite novels of all time, but Disappoint Me just did not leave a lasting impression on me.

I love the way Nicola Dinan writes romance, complete with messy personal histories and dealing with trauma through relationships. This is very readable, and as always I enjoy the writing, but for me wasn't quite as hard hitting as her first novel, Bellie (which I ADORED!). Still would highly recommend reading.

After recievimg an arc of this book I went in completely blind. I really wasn't expecting the book to have the story line it did but I absolutely loved it.

On New Year's Eve, Max has a stumble and sustains a head injury. She wakes up in hospital alone and decides it is time to change. She meets Vincent on a dating app and immediately sparks fly. However as we progress through the book we find out more truths about Vincent, and maybe how he isn't as ok with Max being trans as he first let on. As life continues with it's ups and downs the truth continues to unravel to us, but will Vincent ever tell Max.

I thought this was a great book. It has some really meaningful topics but also showed the humour of life, even in the really tough times. I can't wait to read more from Dinan.

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐¼ (4.25/5)
Having heard so much about Nicola Dinan, particularly her debut novel Bellies, I was thrilled to be approved for an advance copy of Disappoint Me.

Told through multiple POVs and timelines, the novel primarily follows Max and Vincent. Max, a thirty-year-old published poet and highly paid legal counsel for a tech company finds herself reevaluating her life after a dramatic fall at a New Year’s Eve party, which lands her in the hospital. She decides to attempt a more conventional path in a bid for change.

Meanwhile, Vincent, a corporate lawyer with a passion for baking, struggles with the expectations of his traditional friend group and his Chinese parents, neither of whom envisioned him dating a trans woman.
From the very first page, this novel captivated me. While both Max and Vincent are deeply flawed, their imperfections make them all the more compelling, keeping me hooked as I uncovered the secrets of Vincent’s past and Max’s response to a revelation from a decade earlier.

This thought-provoking and emotionally charged novel explores identity, love, and societal expectations. Dinan’s writing is powerful, evoking a range of emotions—from anger to heartbreak—making it impossible to put the book down. I deeply admire the author’s ability to craft such an intricate and resonant story, and I was left wanting more.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House UK, Transworld Publishers | Doubleday for providing me with an e-ARC of Disappoint Me in exchange for my honest review.

Dinan’s writing absolutely shines. I raced through this! I really loved the dual perspective through different time periods and loved the little sprinkling of poetry.

‘You can fall in love with an outline, you can even make a home with one, but there will come a time when you can’t deny the bones their flesh.’

Somehow, Dinan’s sophomore novel is even more brilliant than her first. Disappoint Me explores transgender identity, race, bourgeois domesticity, and relationships in a way that is quietly hopeful and beautifully expressed.

Both central characters have distinctive voices and multitudes, coming alive from the page and standing behind us in the queue at the supermarket, or sitting across from us on the train. Dinan probes our morality and explores the human condition in a way that inspires self-reflection from the reader, no matter their identity.

My experience reading Disappoint Me has secured Nicola Dinan as one of my favourite authors. I’m already highly anticipating whatever’s coming next.

Bellies was an amazing and moving debut novel, so I felt exceptionally lucky to be able to be able to read Disappoint Me.

Whilst I didn't always click with Max (I found her judgemental and condescending),I enjoyed her story and watching her navigate her 30s, her career, and her friend whilst developing her relationship with Vincent. Vincent's story did captivate me more, as it told slowly in snippets always leaving you needing to know more.

I highly recommend you check this book out. Dinan writes such engaging novels that you can lose yourself in and pull on the heart strings.

Nicola Dinan is a genius at writing compelling and real characters. This book may have just suffered from having too many of them.

I enjoyed Max and Vincent’s storyline, the dual timelines, the way they navigated their relationships, and the unfortunate parallels between the timelines. However, there were so many characters and so many small plot lines that made it hard to follow. For the first half of the book I had no idea where it was going, though it became a lot more clear in the second half.

Dinan is a great writer and after Bellies, I will continue to read anything she releases. This one unfortunately just ended up falling a bit flat.

Re-posting as I received multiple copies of this ARC.

Having enjoyed Nicola Dinan's debut Bellies last year I was really looking forward to this book. Disappoint Me is a character driven novel that follows Max and Vincent as they navigate a new relationship together. This book is beautifully written and I was completely immersed in the characters voices. The book covers many topics mainly surrounding identity and relationships which I felt were told in a sensitive and thought provoking way. Whilst tackling serious subject it is also told with a humorous tone that kept the book entertaining at the same time as keeping it realistic and thought provoking. Overall really enjoyed this book and would recommend!

Nicola Dinan you will always be famous! I adored her debut, Bellies, last year, and Disappoint Me did quite the opposite (bad-dum, tsh!).

Max is thirty, a published poet and grossly overpaid legal counsel for a tech company where she pretends to be their AI. Max is mixed-race and a trans woman, like Ming in Bellies and like Dinan herself. Max is prickly, sensitive and thinks deeply about her place in the world and people's reactions to her, which make for eye-opening and compelling reading.

Max's identity struggles aren't the crux of this novel, though. When she falls down the stairs at a New Year's Eve party - stone cold sober, I might add - and decides that her life needs to change. But how to change - things are pretty good for Max, in many ways. She decides to give the normie lifestyle a go, and shacks up with lawyer, baker, and charmer Vincent Chan. He falls madly in love with her, so it's worth navigating this heteronormative world for that... right?

Told from the alternating perspectives of Vincent and Max, he in the past and she in the present, Dinan weaves together a rich and compelling story about how hard it can be to outrun the past. Comforting is maybe an odd word to use, but I love books about people in their thirties that aren't straightforward wife-and-mother narratives, and Disappoint Me really delivered on this front. Max is so easy to root for; she's still figuring stuff out, without falling into the annoying "i'm just a girl!" trope that irks me so often in coming-of-age novels. The novel takes a big swing about two-thirds of the way in, leaving Max's life turned upside-down: again. But this was navigated superbly by Dinan, even if it felt a little out of left field.

In the present timeline, narrated by Max, Vincent is charming and sweet, a picture of new man sensitivity. which makes his dark past all the more brutal when it does become clear to the reader. Dinan writes with huge compassion for her characters, even when they go wrong, and she also incoporates much-needed nuance into her stories about trans lives. I loved the depiction of that turning-30 panic through the lens of being trans and found it fascinating. Dinan also writes with incredible empathy for her characters, which is something I wish I saw more in the real world.


Lots to explore in this one, from having a baby to forgiving the unforgiveable; to family secrets and heteronormativity. One I can see myself unpacking for a long time after reading. One for the girls who remain a little messy long after the party is over, and another banger from Nicola Dinan.

Wow!

Honestly Nicola Dinan might be THE new author of observational litfic and is fast becoming one of my fave new authors on the scene.

Brutally sharp and honest, Dinan shows the turbulent inner emotions of forgiveness, love, and self acceptance in a relatively short piece of work.

However, I didn’t feel as connected to this as I did when I read Bellies.

I found it hard to understand Max and why she was so mean and narcissistic at times. Her hatred and, let’s be honest, chip on her shoulder didn’t seem as important as it was made out. Because we also had big time jumps in her and Vincent’s relationship I thought we skipped over a lot of character study and relationship development. I felt as a reader I missed out on key moments with them together so I ultimately wasn’t as invested in their story as I was with Vincent’s in Thailand.

Vincent’s journey, and path to forgiveness, was what had me hooked throughout.

Disappoint Me defies definition. It's a story about identity and love and friendship. It's a story about shame, regret and forgiveness.

Max takes a fall in a club and waking up in hospital she starts to question where she wants her life to go. She gets no sense of fulfilment from her job and as she sees her friends begin to marry and settle down she wonders if she too wants that life.

When she meets Vincent, she feels safe and cared for. But being a trans woman always makes her feel other, and she searches for signs that Vincent will ultimately disappoint her.

The dual timeline takes us back to 2012 when Vincent travelled to Thailand and met Alex. A woman he was attracted to and liked a lot. But when it's revealed Alex is a trans woman, he questions his feelings and cares too much about what other people will think.

As secrets all too often leave a shadow, so too does Vincent's. When Max finds out about his past it makes her question everything. Can people change? Can she forgive? As she battles her own health issues she takes time away from the relationship to consider what she wants.

With so much fear and ignorance in the world, Disappoint Me feels like an important story. We all feel confusion and shame at times. We all question where we fit in, but for some, the layers of complexity make it hard to just be. To ever feel enough, to feel accepted just as we are. Human emotions are universal and what the world needs is a lot more education and compassion. Stories like these are a counterweight to the ignorant and cruel who see anyone different as less than. It shouldn't matter who we love or how we identify. And yet, now more than ever, it seems to. When we know better, we need to do better.

Nuance is missing from conversations around gender, and this book brings that crucial nuance. I hope with fantastic writing like this, we can challenge rhetoric that wants to separate and isolate us from one another.

Love Nicola Dinan’s writing and adored Bellies, so I had high hopes for Disappoint Me that weren’t all met. Dinan is wonderful at writing nuanced characters with thoughts and behaviours and choices feel grounded in their realities (for better or for worse), and for the most part I loved Max. Even when I didn’t, I still felt strongly for her, which is great character work on Dinan’s part. Sadly didn’t feel as connected to Vincent despite the empathy and care with which he was written. Not to compare too much with Bellies, but there was a clear distinction between Ming and Tom’s voices that just isn’t as apparent with Max and Vincent, which made the latter’s POV fall somewhat flat for me.

There’s lots to explore here; the low grade panic that sets in when you hit 30 and suddenly everyone around you is married or starting to settle into domesticity, questions of identity and how to perform it accordingly, being granted access to traditional spheres of heteronormativity and whether being granted that access is something to strive for at all. Some of the conversations around these themes are pretty on the nose and repetitive at times, but mostly well written.

At its core, this is a book about forgiveness and what it means to give it, both to yourself and to others. Max tries her best to do both throughout the narrative, but I particularly loved reading her ruminations on forgiving the people in her life. Still thinking about the conversation between Max and her father, and will probably keep thinking about it for a while.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the digital ARC in exchange for an honest review!

I wanted to love this one so much but it just fell slightly flat for me. That said, Nicola Dinan has woven some incredible complex characters and I appreciated how much nuance she brought to each.

My first Nicola Dinan book, and it didn’t disappoint me! Droll and devastating, we explore the undulating relationship of Max and Vincent, two people who find each other in the melee of millennial angst. 30-something published poet, and legal counsel bot Max, meets corporate-by-day-hobby-baker-by-night Vincent via an online dating app, after Max realises she needs to make changes in her life. Together they tentatively embark on a relationship but Vincent has a trad friendship group, and a complicated family situation, where dating a trans woman challenges his traditional Chinese family values.

In the end “people are what they are, and sometimes they’re just an ongoing series of small disappointments” but when something resurfaces from Vincent’s past during a devastating time in Max’s life, can this disappointment be considered small? Dinan asks how we reconcile mistakes from our past, and do these mistakes diminish our worth in the present?

This is a character-driven story of modern relationships, identity, and ultimately forgiveness. Told from the dual POVs of Max and Vincent, with a shifting timeline from the present day and Thailand 2012. Nicola Dinan writes with authority and authenticity, with prose that has its own agency. This book is a dream for annotating, and this fangirl is in urgent need of an emotional tourniquet.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for sending me an advance copy in exchange for my honest review. Honestly this is brilliant - 5 stars!