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Disappoint Me
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An electrifying story of love, betrayal, and the complicated allure of bougie domesticity.
“Dinan writes like some kind of demigod. Her fictions make thinkable new realities for how we live and what we might expect from each other.”� Torrey Peters, author of Detransition Baby
“I don’t know why I feel like I’ve been caught doing something dirty. Cheating on queerness. Fell down the stairs and woke up a trad wife.�
Thirty years old with a lifetime of dysphoria and fuccbois rattling around in her head, Max is plagued by a deep dissatisfaction. Shouldn’t these be the best years of her life? Why doesn’t it feel that way? After taking a spill down the stairs at a New Year’s Eve party, she decides to make some changes. First: a stab at good old-fashioned heteronormativity.
Max thinks she’s found the answer in Vincent. While his corporate colleagues, trad friends, and Chinese parents never pictured their son dating a trans woman, he cares for Max in a way she’d always dismissed as a foolish fantasy. But he is also carrying baggage of his own. When the fall-out of a decades-old entanglement resurfaces, Max must decide what forgiveness really means. Can we be more than our worst mistakes? Is it possible to make peace with the past?
Funny, sharp, and poignant, Disappoint Me is a sweeping exploration of love, loss, trans panic, race, millennial angst, and the relationships—familial and romantic—that make us who we are.
“Dinan writes like some kind of demigod. Her fictions make thinkable new realities for how we live and what we might expect from each other.”� Torrey Peters, author of Detransition Baby
“I don’t know why I feel like I’ve been caught doing something dirty. Cheating on queerness. Fell down the stairs and woke up a trad wife.�
Thirty years old with a lifetime of dysphoria and fuccbois rattling around in her head, Max is plagued by a deep dissatisfaction. Shouldn’t these be the best years of her life? Why doesn’t it feel that way? After taking a spill down the stairs at a New Year’s Eve party, she decides to make some changes. First: a stab at good old-fashioned heteronormativity.
Max thinks she’s found the answer in Vincent. While his corporate colleagues, trad friends, and Chinese parents never pictured their son dating a trans woman, he cares for Max in a way she’d always dismissed as a foolish fantasy. But he is also carrying baggage of his own. When the fall-out of a decades-old entanglement resurfaces, Max must decide what forgiveness really means. Can we be more than our worst mistakes? Is it possible to make peace with the past?
Funny, sharp, and poignant, Disappoint Me is a sweeping exploration of love, loss, trans panic, race, millennial angst, and the relationships—familial and romantic—that make us who we are.
320 pages, Hardcover
First published January 23, 2025
95 people are currently reading
17.8k people want to read
About the author
Nicola Dinan
4books259followersNicola Dinan grew up in Hong Kong and Kuala Lumpur and now lives in London. Bellies, her debut, won the Polari First Book Prize, was shortlisted for the Diverse Book Awards and Mo Siewcharran Prize, was a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award, and was longlisted for the Gordon Burn Prize and Brooklyn Public Library Book Prize.
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February 24, 2025early contender for Best Cover Of 2025
November 30, 2024
Update: ARC SECURED
new lit fic novel by author Nicola Dinan WHO'S WITH ME?!
new lit fic novel by author Nicola Dinan WHO'S WITH ME?!
December 19, 2024
4.5
At least Disappoint Me didn't make me cry. It was, however, just as beautifully written as Bellies.
Disappoint Me tells us the story of Max, a trans woman and her boyfriend, Vincent - a man with secrets.
The dual timeline follows Max and Vincent's relationship but also Vincent's past during his gap year.
It is a simple story but it is beautifully told and the richness of the storytelling sets it above other novels.
This is a very different novel to Bellies exploring, as it does, relationships between families, romantic ones between men and trans women, forgiveness and acceptance, understanding that we all make mistakes and being able to admit our faults.
I loved Bellies and I loved Disappoint Me. I look forward to Nicola Dinan's next novel.
Thankyou to Netgalley and Penguin Random House for the advance review copy.
At least Disappoint Me didn't make me cry. It was, however, just as beautifully written as Bellies.
Disappoint Me tells us the story of Max, a trans woman and her boyfriend, Vincent - a man with secrets.
The dual timeline follows Max and Vincent's relationship but also Vincent's past during his gap year.
It is a simple story but it is beautifully told and the richness of the storytelling sets it above other novels.
This is a very different novel to Bellies exploring, as it does, relationships between families, romantic ones between men and trans women, forgiveness and acceptance, understanding that we all make mistakes and being able to admit our faults.
I loved Bellies and I loved Disappoint Me. I look forward to Nicola Dinan's next novel.
Thankyou to Netgalley and Penguin Random House for the advance review copy.
November 12, 2024
I enjoyed the dual narrative; it really helped me connect to the story seeing the mindsets of Max and Vincent. Nicola Dinan did a beautiful job of addressing modern relationships, identity, and forgiveness. Max was so complex, I felt that I was there, seeing everything she had to overcome. This is well written but quite forgettable, which is a personal opinion because I've read a lot of books with this similar plot that have affected me more deeply. This book is just not one I would read again. I received this ARC in exchange for an honest review.
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March 8, 2025justice for crocs-loving sapphics...review to come.
February 14, 2025
I had been in a relationship with someone for just over ten years when I woke up one morning, opened my eyes and knew that things needed to come to a close. By any stretch of the imagination, there was nothing wrong with the relationship at all. We had been living together for quite some time, we were comfortable, we had a routine, we were coasting. “No alarms and no surprises,� as the man once sang. But in a relationship that had been borne from our shared creativity and our determination to see our creative goals blossom, we had stopped challenging each other, we had stopped daring each other to push harder and to do more. By the end of that day, most of my things were already in boxes ready to move forward and away.
Disappoint Me begins with a fall. A literal fall down a flight of stairs at a New Year’s party. It’s the kind of fall that, as you read about it, you can picture it in your head, both from the outside perspective of those witnessing it, as well as firmly ensconced in the mind of the heroine at the heart of the story, Max. It’s the kind of fall that as it’s happening to you, it feels as if decades pass until you reach the end. It’s the kind of fall that has a singular moment of clarity when you land that lasts a mere second for onlookers, but for you extends the length of eternity as you find the space to examine your current place in life, the choices that you’ve made to arrive at this place and the choices that you will need to make to escape this place. It’s the kind of fall that forces you to wake up and walk away.
For Max, it’s the kind of fall that subconsciously allows her to drift away from the extreme highs and lows of the never-ending party that is the artistic, queer London party scene of her twenties as she meets Vincent, a somewhat slick, somewhat rigid, but kind and attentive corporate lawyer after the two match on a dating app. Max is a published poet that’s struggled to find the words and the will to pen another poetry collection as she “falls back� on her career as a lawyer spending her days being the secret, uncredited voice behind an AI law app. After being mired in the muck of a five year relationship with a fellow writer more attuned to his own ego and the coif of his hair, Max is unfamiliar with attention from a partner that feels honest and considerate rather than conditional and transactional.
But Max, a trans woman just having crossed over into her thirties, has doubts about Vincent’s intentions and her own feelings towards someone that wasn’t spawned from the same literary and art scene that is the foundation of most of her social circle. As the relationship deepens and their lives become more intertwined and involved, Max marvels at how easily she slipped into a relationship that feels more heteronormative without even trying, at one point remarking “fell down the stairs and woke up a trad wife� as she takes in the surroundings and trappings that she and Vincent have built together.
The narration of Disappoint Me alternates between that of Max in the current day and with Vincent at the age of nineteen as he’s in the midst of a gap year that finds him with a plan to travel to meet his childhood best friend in Thailand. Nicola Dinan does a masterful job at creating two distinctly unique voices in her two narrators as Max reads as deeply intelligent, witty and self-effacing (almost Fleabag-esque in her mannerisms and voice) whereas the younger version of Vincent comes across as exactly what you would expect of a young man with the means to experience a year travelling the world with very few limits, if any.
As their relationship deepens, their separate worlds collide as family issues arise on both sides when Max’s brother announces that he’s about to become a father despite having ended his own relationship with the mother several months previously and Vincent’s father suffers a massive heart attack that shocks the entire family and sets Vincent into action to help care for his ailing father. Interspersed with the story of their blossoming relationship, the events of Vincent’s gap year abroad in Thailand with his best friend and a mysterious woman named Alex slowly come to light that paint Vincent in a much different and more sinister light than the man currently holding a grip on Max’s heart and call into question his reasons for wanting to be with Max in the first place.
Where Disappoint Me shines is in the time that it spends luxuriating in conversations between it’s characters. Max’s family and her best friend, Simone, are a particular delight to share time with as each interaction with them exposes some new layer of their complicated relationships with each other. Nicola Dinan revels in crafting scenes that expose the raw nerves of tense situations and lets you sit inside of them just long enough to grasp and experience the awkward, awful feelings that can arise when dealing with family trauma, distrust and the pain that comes with trying to adjust to adulthood.
After finishing my time with Disappoint Me, I had the chance to read through a few interviews with Nicola Dinan and discovered that not only is she currently working on her third novel in which she genre jumps over to sci-fi, but that she’s already in the planning stages for her fourth novel. In other words, we will be eating extremely well for the foreseeable future in regards to this remarkable new voice in literature.
I’d like to thank The Dial Press, Random House Publishing Group, NetGalley and or course, Nicola Dinan for the opportunity to read and review an advanced copy of this stunning new novel.
Disappoint Me begins with a fall. A literal fall down a flight of stairs at a New Year’s party. It’s the kind of fall that, as you read about it, you can picture it in your head, both from the outside perspective of those witnessing it, as well as firmly ensconced in the mind of the heroine at the heart of the story, Max. It’s the kind of fall that as it’s happening to you, it feels as if decades pass until you reach the end. It’s the kind of fall that has a singular moment of clarity when you land that lasts a mere second for onlookers, but for you extends the length of eternity as you find the space to examine your current place in life, the choices that you’ve made to arrive at this place and the choices that you will need to make to escape this place. It’s the kind of fall that forces you to wake up and walk away.
For Max, it’s the kind of fall that subconsciously allows her to drift away from the extreme highs and lows of the never-ending party that is the artistic, queer London party scene of her twenties as she meets Vincent, a somewhat slick, somewhat rigid, but kind and attentive corporate lawyer after the two match on a dating app. Max is a published poet that’s struggled to find the words and the will to pen another poetry collection as she “falls back� on her career as a lawyer spending her days being the secret, uncredited voice behind an AI law app. After being mired in the muck of a five year relationship with a fellow writer more attuned to his own ego and the coif of his hair, Max is unfamiliar with attention from a partner that feels honest and considerate rather than conditional and transactional.
But Max, a trans woman just having crossed over into her thirties, has doubts about Vincent’s intentions and her own feelings towards someone that wasn’t spawned from the same literary and art scene that is the foundation of most of her social circle. As the relationship deepens and their lives become more intertwined and involved, Max marvels at how easily she slipped into a relationship that feels more heteronormative without even trying, at one point remarking “fell down the stairs and woke up a trad wife� as she takes in the surroundings and trappings that she and Vincent have built together.
The narration of Disappoint Me alternates between that of Max in the current day and with Vincent at the age of nineteen as he’s in the midst of a gap year that finds him with a plan to travel to meet his childhood best friend in Thailand. Nicola Dinan does a masterful job at creating two distinctly unique voices in her two narrators as Max reads as deeply intelligent, witty and self-effacing (almost Fleabag-esque in her mannerisms and voice) whereas the younger version of Vincent comes across as exactly what you would expect of a young man with the means to experience a year travelling the world with very few limits, if any.
As their relationship deepens, their separate worlds collide as family issues arise on both sides when Max’s brother announces that he’s about to become a father despite having ended his own relationship with the mother several months previously and Vincent’s father suffers a massive heart attack that shocks the entire family and sets Vincent into action to help care for his ailing father. Interspersed with the story of their blossoming relationship, the events of Vincent’s gap year abroad in Thailand with his best friend and a mysterious woman named Alex slowly come to light that paint Vincent in a much different and more sinister light than the man currently holding a grip on Max’s heart and call into question his reasons for wanting to be with Max in the first place.
Where Disappoint Me shines is in the time that it spends luxuriating in conversations between it’s characters. Max’s family and her best friend, Simone, are a particular delight to share time with as each interaction with them exposes some new layer of their complicated relationships with each other. Nicola Dinan revels in crafting scenes that expose the raw nerves of tense situations and lets you sit inside of them just long enough to grasp and experience the awkward, awful feelings that can arise when dealing with family trauma, distrust and the pain that comes with trying to adjust to adulthood.
After finishing my time with Disappoint Me, I had the chance to read through a few interviews with Nicola Dinan and discovered that not only is she currently working on her third novel in which she genre jumps over to sci-fi, but that she’s already in the planning stages for her fourth novel. In other words, we will be eating extremely well for the foreseeable future in regards to this remarkable new voice in literature.
I’d like to thank The Dial Press, Random House Publishing Group, NetGalley and or course, Nicola Dinan for the opportunity to read and review an advanced copy of this stunning new novel.
January 25, 2025
4.25
Told through dual perspectives, Disappoint Me, is a poignant novel that explores the idea of coming to terms with the mistakes that those you love most make and the complexities of choosing to forgive them.
Max is a 30-year-old transwoman who while recovering from a break-up, working as a lawyer for a tech firm where she doesn’t even get to sign off emails with her own name, and following an unfortunate incident at a New Year’s Eve party decides it’s time to change her life and “get serious� about building the sort of life she thinks she should be living at her age. Enter Vincent, a corporate lawyer of Chinese heritage that she meets on a dating app, who seems to be an answered prayer for Max, but whose past contains a life-changing event that casts a shadow over their future together.
I thought every single character (down to the side characters that make a one-off appearance) in this book was so well-developed. Dinan writes with such depth, and it’s all told through the main characters� voices which are filled with humour and vulnerability. I enjoyed both perspectives equally which is a rarity for me when reading dual POV books.
The large themes of the book � identity, forgiveness, complex modern relationships, and the weight of past mistakes are heavy, yet the author managed to balance them and create a narrative that was engrossing and hard to put down.
This is a character-driven novel done INCREDIBLY well and I will be forcing everyone around me to read this.
Thank you to the team at Transworld Publishers and NetGalley for providing me with an eARC.
Told through dual perspectives, Disappoint Me, is a poignant novel that explores the idea of coming to terms with the mistakes that those you love most make and the complexities of choosing to forgive them.
Max is a 30-year-old transwoman who while recovering from a break-up, working as a lawyer for a tech firm where she doesn’t even get to sign off emails with her own name, and following an unfortunate incident at a New Year’s Eve party decides it’s time to change her life and “get serious� about building the sort of life she thinks she should be living at her age. Enter Vincent, a corporate lawyer of Chinese heritage that she meets on a dating app, who seems to be an answered prayer for Max, but whose past contains a life-changing event that casts a shadow over their future together.
I thought every single character (down to the side characters that make a one-off appearance) in this book was so well-developed. Dinan writes with such depth, and it’s all told through the main characters� voices which are filled with humour and vulnerability. I enjoyed both perspectives equally which is a rarity for me when reading dual POV books.
The large themes of the book � identity, forgiveness, complex modern relationships, and the weight of past mistakes are heavy, yet the author managed to balance them and create a narrative that was engrossing and hard to put down.
This is a character-driven novel done INCREDIBLY well and I will be forcing everyone around me to read this.
Thank you to the team at Transworld Publishers and NetGalley for providing me with an eARC.
November 21, 2024
nicola dinan’s ability to make me cry my eyes out in the final ten pages of a book must be studied
February 24, 2025
4.5 stars: A highly underrated, queer alternative for those disappointed by Sally Rooney
As the balance tips me gently down my mid-twenties, I'm noticing a subtle shift in my peers and their attitudes towards the future. Even where irreverence was once resolute, the couples amongst them are more prone to considering 'settling down', to folding into 'respectable' bourgeois domesticity and into each other; there are more talks of marrying. And, as suddenly as they can come, there are weddings.
Max, the 31-year-old protagonist of Nicola Dinan's assured and compelling sophomore novel, feels it too. After a rough tumble down the stairs at a seasonably wild New Year's Eve party, she decides that mere sobriety is not enough in the face of her dissatisfaction during what should be the best years of her life. A lifetime of dysphoria, a poetry collection published to not quite the success she'd hoped for, a grossly-overpaid job as a lawyer pretending to be AI, and the dull, looming pangs of a significant breakup all rattle and endear her to the idea of change, and she too decides to try on heteronormativity for size. The dating apps bring her Vincent: financially solvent, handsome and kind; a lawyer like herself and Chinese like her mother; he is a catch. While his parents may have never imagined their son dating a trans woman, and though the company of his trad friends is alienating and uncomfortable, he makes Max feel cared for in a way she had long given up on. But Vincent has his own decade-long baggage to carry. Tracking the course of their relationship over uncharted territory, Disappoint Me explores millennial malaise, questions of race, gender, family, and the extent to which the mistakes from someone’s past should define who they are now.
Nicola Dinan's writing here is touched with a lightning rod, energised by her skilful exploration of her characters' psyches and the easy brilliance with which she crafts scenes and conversations capturing the textures and tensions of their inner turmoils and interpersonal dynamics. As with her debut novel Bellies, she deploys mealtimes as crucial components of storytelling as well as scene-setting to a striking effect. Making and eating meals is here a sociocultural ritual, as well as a means of giving her characters something to chew on as they try, and sometimes fail, to understand and connect with each other. It is also an effective way of further humanising her characters in a voice-driven story.
Though the novel is composed of a dual narrative from Max and Vincent, every person in this book is complex, real, and fully fleshed out. While the author's examination of the comforts and teeth of heteronormative coupledom are structurally central, the book extends its untangling of ideas like forgiveness, acceptance, and making room for growth at a time of singularity � No person is fewer than two things � to the complexity of all our relationships more generally. Equal care is given to the gaps in articulation and understanding in Max's relationship with her father, a recovered alcoholic, and to the silent and explosive strains of toxic masculinity and make friendships in Vincent's dynamic with his childhood best friend. Both Vincent and Max's friends engage in problematic behaviours, to the effect of gently illustrating how we can yet only ever know one side of a person; that having experienced injustice doesn't make them immune to perpetuating harm. Several characters also bring nuance to the complexities of our own personhood, and what our reflexive and practiced resistance to vulnerability and examining our own issues may look like.
I am in awe of the dexterity with which Dinan balances the book's darker, more delicate themes with a refined prose style that is witty, funny and contemporary without undermining the intricacies of her subject matter or her characters' experiences. While Bellies was an incendiary debut, Disappoint Me widens the lens and announces Dinan as a peerless literary voice that's here to stay.
As the balance tips me gently down my mid-twenties, I'm noticing a subtle shift in my peers and their attitudes towards the future. Even where irreverence was once resolute, the couples amongst them are more prone to considering 'settling down', to folding into 'respectable' bourgeois domesticity and into each other; there are more talks of marrying. And, as suddenly as they can come, there are weddings.
Max, the 31-year-old protagonist of Nicola Dinan's assured and compelling sophomore novel, feels it too. After a rough tumble down the stairs at a seasonably wild New Year's Eve party, she decides that mere sobriety is not enough in the face of her dissatisfaction during what should be the best years of her life. A lifetime of dysphoria, a poetry collection published to not quite the success she'd hoped for, a grossly-overpaid job as a lawyer pretending to be AI, and the dull, looming pangs of a significant breakup all rattle and endear her to the idea of change, and she too decides to try on heteronormativity for size. The dating apps bring her Vincent: financially solvent, handsome and kind; a lawyer like herself and Chinese like her mother; he is a catch. While his parents may have never imagined their son dating a trans woman, and though the company of his trad friends is alienating and uncomfortable, he makes Max feel cared for in a way she had long given up on. But Vincent has his own decade-long baggage to carry. Tracking the course of their relationship over uncharted territory, Disappoint Me explores millennial malaise, questions of race, gender, family, and the extent to which the mistakes from someone’s past should define who they are now.
Nicola Dinan's writing here is touched with a lightning rod, energised by her skilful exploration of her characters' psyches and the easy brilliance with which she crafts scenes and conversations capturing the textures and tensions of their inner turmoils and interpersonal dynamics. As with her debut novel Bellies, she deploys mealtimes as crucial components of storytelling as well as scene-setting to a striking effect. Making and eating meals is here a sociocultural ritual, as well as a means of giving her characters something to chew on as they try, and sometimes fail, to understand and connect with each other. It is also an effective way of further humanising her characters in a voice-driven story.
Though the novel is composed of a dual narrative from Max and Vincent, every person in this book is complex, real, and fully fleshed out. While the author's examination of the comforts and teeth of heteronormative coupledom are structurally central, the book extends its untangling of ideas like forgiveness, acceptance, and making room for growth at a time of singularity � No person is fewer than two things � to the complexity of all our relationships more generally. Equal care is given to the gaps in articulation and understanding in Max's relationship with her father, a recovered alcoholic, and to the silent and explosive strains of toxic masculinity and make friendships in Vincent's dynamic with his childhood best friend. Both Vincent and Max's friends engage in problematic behaviours, to the effect of gently illustrating how we can yet only ever know one side of a person; that having experienced injustice doesn't make them immune to perpetuating harm. Several characters also bring nuance to the complexities of our own personhood, and what our reflexive and practiced resistance to vulnerability and examining our own issues may look like.
I am in awe of the dexterity with which Dinan balances the book's darker, more delicate themes with a refined prose style that is witty, funny and contemporary without undermining the intricacies of her subject matter or her characters' experiences. While Bellies was an incendiary debut, Disappoint Me widens the lens and announces Dinan as a peerless literary voice that's here to stay.
January 27, 2025
another masterpiece from nicola dinan. i don’t know if I can think of a writer who captures human relationships like her. the different perspectives, of all the characters not just max and vincent, are written with such empathy and compassion that you’re completely lost in them. she compels you to understand them without judgement in ways I’ve never really experienced as a reader before. also just like bellies, i really properly crjed for pretty much the final 50 pages. go read this!!
January 30, 2025
Disappoint Me is an assured and captivating sophomore novel, a worthy albeit significantly darker follow up to Bellies. Nicola Dinan makes solid use of a dual POV/timeline, oscillating between 31 year old lawyer Max in the present day, a trans woman who spends her days impersonating a robot working as in-house counsel at a tech company and flashbacks from the past of Vincent, Max’s new straight laced boyfriend as he traveled through Thailand on a gap year over 10 years earlier. In the present, Max adapts to the growing pains of a burgeoning relationship - trying the heteronormativity of a life with Vincent on for size, while also navigating complex relationships with childhood friends, her parents, and her flailing workaholic brother. In the past, Vincent meets and has an immediate connection with Alex, a beautiful woman who discloses only that she has come to Thailand for necessary surgery. The two later rendezvous with Vincent’s friend Fred to attend a Half Moon party, a meet up that ultimately has harrowing, long lasting consequences.
Dinan shines at writing a motley crew of complex characters, and I loved the development of Max and her messy friends and family. The subject matter is quite heavy, dealing with themes of addiction and transphobia, but these topics are deftly handled, harrowing but depicted in a manner that‘s unflinching yet never salacious. The story also ends a hopeful note, leaving the reader confident in the belief that people can heal and grow, that one need not be defined by horrific yet decidedly youthful ignorance.
Many thanks to Random House/Netgalley for the arc. Please pick this one up! Now more than ever it’s vital in these dark times to read and amplify queer fiction.
Dinan shines at writing a motley crew of complex characters, and I loved the development of Max and her messy friends and family. The subject matter is quite heavy, dealing with themes of addiction and transphobia, but these topics are deftly handled, harrowing but depicted in a manner that‘s unflinching yet never salacious. The story also ends a hopeful note, leaving the reader confident in the belief that people can heal and grow, that one need not be defined by horrific yet decidedly youthful ignorance.
Many thanks to Random House/Netgalley for the arc. Please pick this one up! Now more than ever it’s vital in these dark times to read and amplify queer fiction.
March 30, 2025
this book did not, in fact, disappoint me!
i’m a bit embarrassed to admit that i haven’t read Bellies but trust me when i say i will try to soon if my college work doesn’t swallow me up whole. this book was incredible! dinan’s ability to write such detailed, compelling, and complex characters left me absolutely floored. every character in this book was fleshed out completely; i could vividly see them as people who could genuinely exist.
while the characterization is definitely the stand-out aspect of this novel, the plot doesn’t disappoint (again, with that word. sorry). max’s journey throughout and the journeys of the people around her were so interesting to follow. so much was happening but at no point did i feel like it was all too much or unbelievable.
tl;dr: read this book if you love well developed, messy characters who make you feel all the feels.
(thanks to the publisher and netgalley for the e-arc in exchange for an honest review!)
i’m a bit embarrassed to admit that i haven’t read Bellies but trust me when i say i will try to soon if my college work doesn’t swallow me up whole. this book was incredible! dinan’s ability to write such detailed, compelling, and complex characters left me absolutely floored. every character in this book was fleshed out completely; i could vividly see them as people who could genuinely exist.
while the characterization is definitely the stand-out aspect of this novel, the plot doesn’t disappoint (again, with that word. sorry). max’s journey throughout and the journeys of the people around her were so interesting to follow. so much was happening but at no point did i feel like it was all too much or unbelievable.
tl;dr: read this book if you love well developed, messy characters who make you feel all the feels.
(thanks to the publisher and netgalley for the e-arc in exchange for an honest review!)
January 4, 2025
Dinan has triumphed again with her second novel. I loved Bellies and so was expecting great things from this. Although it took me a while to get into this one, once I was settled into the structure and knew the characters I absolutely loved it.
The book is told from two perspectives: Max and Vincent. The two of them meet at the start of the novel and strike up a relationship. Max’s story follows her as she navigates the new relationship as a trans woman and deals with some traumatic health issues, and Vincent’s story is almost like a flashback to his time in Thailand with a friend which goes horribly wrong after they both hook up with the same girl.
Once this novel got going it really grips you. Dinan is so good at writing deep, emotional scenes which you can tear your eyes away from. I love how her books are still about being trans, but they are more about friendship, betrayal and growth. The friendship group wasn’t as strong as the one in Bellies but the two main characters in this one really made it for me, and I thought it was amazing. I definitely recommend if you like books about messy friendship groups but which will have a big emotional impact on you.
The book is told from two perspectives: Max and Vincent. The two of them meet at the start of the novel and strike up a relationship. Max’s story follows her as she navigates the new relationship as a trans woman and deals with some traumatic health issues, and Vincent’s story is almost like a flashback to his time in Thailand with a friend which goes horribly wrong after they both hook up with the same girl.
Once this novel got going it really grips you. Dinan is so good at writing deep, emotional scenes which you can tear your eyes away from. I love how her books are still about being trans, but they are more about friendship, betrayal and growth. The friendship group wasn’t as strong as the one in Bellies but the two main characters in this one really made it for me, and I thought it was amazing. I definitely recommend if you like books about messy friendship groups but which will have a big emotional impact on you.
March 23, 2025
i have a feeling this will be my fav fic of 2025
told through dual storylines and dual POVs, disappoint me explores what it means to wholly accept those you love. nicola dinan perfectly captures the complexities of relationships—platonic, romantic, familial—in such vivid, accurate detail and honesty that it feels almost uncomfortable at times (but in the best way?! just wow. disappoint me has a depth and richness to the story that made me feel the emotions of each and every character. and my god, the characters! all of them were spectacular and so well-developed. read this asap!
told through dual storylines and dual POVs, disappoint me explores what it means to wholly accept those you love. nicola dinan perfectly captures the complexities of relationships—platonic, romantic, familial—in such vivid, accurate detail and honesty that it feels almost uncomfortable at times (but in the best way?! just wow. disappoint me has a depth and richness to the story that made me feel the emotions of each and every character. and my god, the characters! all of them were spectacular and so well-developed. read this asap!
January 28, 2025
A brilliant insight into aging, modern relationships, and the extent that the past shapes us - whether our past shapes who we are and the extent that we are able (or allowed) to escape from the past was one of the most interesting threads of the book for me. As with Bellies, the narrator’s wit is razor sharp and cutting - no one does a better put down.
Thought provoking and still laugh out loud funny. Disappoint Me will stick with me for a long time.
Thought provoking and still laugh out loud funny. Disappoint Me will stick with me for a long time.
September 20, 2024
totally magnificent
January 23, 2025
Thanks to PRH UK for the e-ARC!
Nicola Dinan’s second novel is anything but a disappointment!
After loving Dinan’s beautifully tender debut Bellies, I was so keen to get my hands on Disappoint Me. Following a slightly older set of characters (both narrators are in their early 30s), Disappoint Me tackles the isolation and self-doubt that comes when your friends� paths begin to splinter as each person settles into their adult life.
It took me a few chapters to get used to being in Max’s head � she’s more abrasive than the protagonists in Bellies, and more sure of herself than our other narrative voice (her love interest, Vincent, at 19). But after a few chapters, I was completely sold on her. One of the aspects of humanity that Dinan’s is brilliant at capturing is the ups and downs of vulnerability � the terror of letting your guard down, the sublime reward of someone seeing and accepting you as you are � and this is something we see Max and Vincent struggle with in both timelines. Without giving away a spoiler, we sense right away that Vincent is struggling to disclose his full history to Max in the present; and we see so many instances of Max being invalidated even by people who profess to care about her. Arguably, a fascinating thing that Dinan captures in both characters is that vulnerability isn’t only frightening when it comes to being vulnerable with others, but also with yourself. Max and Vincent struggle to face themselves in so many ways, from their most shameful flaws to their most precious ambitions, and it is this that humanises them so effectively to me.
Dinan’s writing at the sentence level is, as with Bellies, wonderful. She is realistic without being overly bogged down in the details, and in a few strokes of her pen, captures the various settings the characters find themselves in, from Thailand to rural France. Characters speak to each other with verve and wit, but they sound true to themselves and to their real-life counterparts, the mass of adults trying to make it work in London while feeling perpetually behind their peers. The nuances of friendship, and specifically the fallout of when friends fail to live up to the people we believe and hope they are, are also captured so thoughtfully here � in fact, I wish Dinan had expanded on this more. Both Max and Vincent’s friends act in problematic ways, and arguably you could make whole novels out of the blemishes on their characters. I’d read them, anyway.
I did conclude that I slightly prefer Bellies, mainly due to structure. While this was really hard to put down once it got going, it takes a while to establish the direction of the story and really settle into the characters (particularly Max, as I mention earlier in this review). A lot happens very quickly, and a large cast is introduced from the very start. Because of this, the first fifth didn’t land for me as much as the rest, but the payoff is absolutely worth it.
If you’re a fan of Dinan’s, you’re right to be anticipating this one. And if you weren’t fully sold on Bellies, I think this is different enough that you could give it a go and be very pleasantly surprised indeed!
Nicola Dinan’s second novel is anything but a disappointment!
After loving Dinan’s beautifully tender debut Bellies, I was so keen to get my hands on Disappoint Me. Following a slightly older set of characters (both narrators are in their early 30s), Disappoint Me tackles the isolation and self-doubt that comes when your friends� paths begin to splinter as each person settles into their adult life.
It took me a few chapters to get used to being in Max’s head � she’s more abrasive than the protagonists in Bellies, and more sure of herself than our other narrative voice (her love interest, Vincent, at 19). But after a few chapters, I was completely sold on her. One of the aspects of humanity that Dinan’s is brilliant at capturing is the ups and downs of vulnerability � the terror of letting your guard down, the sublime reward of someone seeing and accepting you as you are � and this is something we see Max and Vincent struggle with in both timelines. Without giving away a spoiler, we sense right away that Vincent is struggling to disclose his full history to Max in the present; and we see so many instances of Max being invalidated even by people who profess to care about her. Arguably, a fascinating thing that Dinan captures in both characters is that vulnerability isn’t only frightening when it comes to being vulnerable with others, but also with yourself. Max and Vincent struggle to face themselves in so many ways, from their most shameful flaws to their most precious ambitions, and it is this that humanises them so effectively to me.
Dinan’s writing at the sentence level is, as with Bellies, wonderful. She is realistic without being overly bogged down in the details, and in a few strokes of her pen, captures the various settings the characters find themselves in, from Thailand to rural France. Characters speak to each other with verve and wit, but they sound true to themselves and to their real-life counterparts, the mass of adults trying to make it work in London while feeling perpetually behind their peers. The nuances of friendship, and specifically the fallout of when friends fail to live up to the people we believe and hope they are, are also captured so thoughtfully here � in fact, I wish Dinan had expanded on this more. Both Max and Vincent’s friends act in problematic ways, and arguably you could make whole novels out of the blemishes on their characters. I’d read them, anyway.
I did conclude that I slightly prefer Bellies, mainly due to structure. While this was really hard to put down once it got going, it takes a while to establish the direction of the story and really settle into the characters (particularly Max, as I mention earlier in this review). A lot happens very quickly, and a large cast is introduced from the very start. Because of this, the first fifth didn’t land for me as much as the rest, but the payoff is absolutely worth it.
If you’re a fan of Dinan’s, you’re right to be anticipating this one. And if you weren’t fully sold on Bellies, I think this is different enough that you could give it a go and be very pleasantly surprised indeed!
February 22, 2025
Nicola Dinan's prose flows so well, and I get immediately invested in her characters and her stories. Her books are just very readable and relatable, with interesting themes.
I enjoyed reading this book, but overall I found it a little underwhelming, and honestly, a little forgettable?
I enjoyed her previous novel "Bellies" a fair bit more.
I didn't fully believe in the relationship between Max and Vincent, and I was slightly unsatisfied with how it was all resolved.
But I'll definitely read the next book she writes, because there's many great qualities to her writing.
I enjoyed reading this book, but overall I found it a little underwhelming, and honestly, a little forgettable?
I enjoyed her previous novel "Bellies" a fair bit more.
I didn't fully believe in the relationship between Max and Vincent, and I was slightly unsatisfied with how it was all resolved.
But I'll definitely read the next book she writes, because there's many great qualities to her writing.
March 2, 2025
5 stars. Disappoint Me has grabbed hold of my heart and I hope it never lets go.
Disappoint Me is a dual narrative story centred around Max, a trans woman, and her cis boyfriend Vincent. Max's narrative is present day and Vincent's is set ~10 years prior, during his gap year in Thailand. If I give much more detail than this I fear I will spoil something - I think this one is best read with as little knowledge about it as possible! The simplicity of the premise is what makes this story as captivating as it is.
This book is poignant, raw, and beautiful. There are some laugh-out-loud moments that the queers will love, followed by moments of deep reflection that had me thinking about my own life. The balance between these is perfect and adds so much to the overall tone and feel of the book and it kept me hooked page after page.
Thank you to Random House Publishing Group and NetGalley for providing me an advanced copy.
Disappoint Me is a dual narrative story centred around Max, a trans woman, and her cis boyfriend Vincent. Max's narrative is present day and Vincent's is set ~10 years prior, during his gap year in Thailand. If I give much more detail than this I fear I will spoil something - I think this one is best read with as little knowledge about it as possible! The simplicity of the premise is what makes this story as captivating as it is.
This book is poignant, raw, and beautiful. There are some laugh-out-loud moments that the queers will love, followed by moments of deep reflection that had me thinking about my own life. The balance between these is perfect and adds so much to the overall tone and feel of the book and it kept me hooked page after page.
Thank you to Random House Publishing Group and NetGalley for providing me an advanced copy.
February 3, 2025
So good, I was completely gripped by this! Loved the flashbacks to Vincent's past, and the idea of who needs/ gets to forgive someone for past actions in the present. Also an insightful look into early 30's relationships and all the complexities that entails. I love Nicola's descriptions of things 'it's that middle of the night hangover feeling, like someone's put a vacuum cleaner to my ear and sucked out all the moisture' - so good and I always think yes exactly that!
January 24, 2025
This was just really...perfect. I'm sad to leave these characters and their lives and the introspection they have brought out of me.
Happy publication day!!!
Happy publication day!!!
November 27, 2024
Thank you to the publishers for my advanced copy in exchange for an honest review!
Nicola Dinan is fast becoming one of my favourite authors. I loved Bellies last year, and her upcoming new release Disappoint Me certainly did not disappoint me at all (pun intended). Dinan is superbly talented at storytelling and creating a really powerful, emotional, and important novel. This book tackles similar issues to those in Bellies, but it doesn’t feel repetitive in the slightest. The characters are really well developed and feel very real, and I was emotionally connected to the story throughout. Can’t wait for everyone to read this one!
Nicola Dinan is fast becoming one of my favourite authors. I loved Bellies last year, and her upcoming new release Disappoint Me certainly did not disappoint me at all (pun intended). Dinan is superbly talented at storytelling and creating a really powerful, emotional, and important novel. This book tackles similar issues to those in Bellies, but it doesn’t feel repetitive in the slightest. The characters are really well developed and feel very real, and I was emotionally connected to the story throughout. Can’t wait for everyone to read this one!
March 16, 2025
2.5 Stars- This book was not for me. I was given this ARC and when I read the description I knew that this was not the type of book I typically read, but I was hoping for a great story. However I found the story very depressing and often graphic at times. The novel did flow and it did not take me long to finish it. I do feel like it opened my eyes to challenges that trans people face.
This novel was told from the point of view of Max who is a trans woman and her boyfriend Vincent. Most of the story is Max's point of view but we get flashbacks to Vincent's past. The story talks about her friends and family life as well as her love life. It as ok but as the story went on I just felt really bad for her. Vincent's story was about his travels to Bangkok. Again there were some shocking things that happened in his past. I do think there are people who would can relate and will like this book. I also think it helped broaden my perspective but unfortunately I just did not enjoy this story.
Thank you to The Dial Press and NetGalley for this ARC.
This novel was told from the point of view of Max who is a trans woman and her boyfriend Vincent. Most of the story is Max's point of view but we get flashbacks to Vincent's past. The story talks about her friends and family life as well as her love life. It as ok but as the story went on I just felt really bad for her. Vincent's story was about his travels to Bangkok. Again there were some shocking things that happened in his past. I do think there are people who would can relate and will like this book. I also think it helped broaden my perspective but unfortunately I just did not enjoy this story.
Thank you to The Dial Press and NetGalley for this ARC.
February 7, 2025
I loved how beautifully written this story was. I was swept into the story pretty much immediately due to the writing alone. I love the intricacies of the relationships in this story - not only the MCs, but of everyone, whether it was friendship, family, work, or more. Forgiveness and acceptance were main themes, and I love how complex the topics are. The characters were all so well done and I was equally interested in all of them. If anything, read this one for the beautiful writing alone!
Thank you to Random House and NetGalley for the ARC.
Thank you to Random House and NetGalley for the ARC.
March 31, 2025
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.
February 24, 2025
Nicola Dinan is now the reason why I'll have such high standards for queer fiction<3 What an emotional rollercoaster this reading experience was! The characters were so authentically crafted that, as a reader, you felt honored to be able to participate in their story. Max's raw and honest inner monologue was extremely refreshing and much-needed regarding advocating trans rights. Disappoint Me made me feel insatiable; I could not get enough of Nicola Dinan's writing.
4,5🥹
4,5🥹
March 6, 2025
Oh this was fantastic.
Thank you so much, NetGalley and Random House for the ARC!
Disappoint Me follows a trans woman named Max who has just begun dating a man named Vincent. We follow the growth of their relationship and the situations and conversations that inevitably come up, such as sex, children, meeting friends and family.
Simultaneously, we read Vincent’s perspective from an incident in his past 10 years prior. Both timelines correlate and make this story about love, betrayal, acceptance, forgiveness and growth.
“You put stuff behind you, but then you meet someone new and the old stuff feels new again.�
I think this is a really great trans awareness book. You may learn something new, you may gain a new perspective if you are in need of one.
4.5*
Thank you so much, NetGalley and Random House for the ARC!
Disappoint Me follows a trans woman named Max who has just begun dating a man named Vincent. We follow the growth of their relationship and the situations and conversations that inevitably come up, such as sex, children, meeting friends and family.
Simultaneously, we read Vincent’s perspective from an incident in his past 10 years prior. Both timelines correlate and make this story about love, betrayal, acceptance, forgiveness and growth.
“You put stuff behind you, but then you meet someone new and the old stuff feels new again.�
I think this is a really great trans awareness book. You may learn something new, you may gain a new perspective if you are in need of one.
4.5*
March 22, 2025
Nicola Dinan is such a skillful writer, I especially love her dialogue and her descriptions of food, which always plays a role in her novels (sharing meals and so on). She builds complex characters and lets them show love in the most beautiful and touching ways. Big fan!
December 7, 2024
Oh, this one was delicious!
2025 will be an unmatched year for books, I fear.
Thank you NetGalley and Nicola Dinan for the ARC.
2025 will be an unmatched year for books, I fear.
Thank you NetGalley and Nicola Dinan for the ARC.
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