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Bellies
I wore a dress on the night I first met Ming.
It begins as your typical boy meets boy. While out with friends at their local university drag night, Tom buys Ming a drink. Confident and witty, a magnetic young playwright, Ming is the perfect antidote to Tom’s awkward energy, and their connection is instant. Tom finds himself deeply and desperately drawn into Ming’s orbit, and on the cusp of graduation, he’s already mapped out their future together. Butshortly after they move to London to start their next chapter, Ming announces her intention to transition.
From London to Kuala Lumpur, New York to Cologne, we follow Tom and Ming as they face tectonic shifts in their relationship and friend circle in the wake of Ming’s transition. Through a spiral of unforeseen crises—some personal, some professional, some life-altering—Tom and Ming are forced to confront the vastly different shapes their lives have taken since graduating, and each must answer the essential question: Is it worth losing a part of yourself to become who you are?
Buoyed by a voice as tender, effervescent and wryly funnyas the cast of characters it centers,Belliesis an unforgettable story of youth, intimacy, hunger and heartbreak, at once boldly original yet fiercely familiar, which unabashedly holds a mirror up to our most vulnerable selves and desires.
It begins as your typical boy meets boy. While out with friends at their local university drag night, Tom buys Ming a drink. Confident and witty, a magnetic young playwright, Ming is the perfect antidote to Tom’s awkward energy, and their connection is instant. Tom finds himself deeply and desperately drawn into Ming’s orbit, and on the cusp of graduation, he’s already mapped out their future together. Butshortly after they move to London to start their next chapter, Ming announces her intention to transition.
From London to Kuala Lumpur, New York to Cologne, we follow Tom and Ming as they face tectonic shifts in their relationship and friend circle in the wake of Ming’s transition. Through a spiral of unforeseen crises—some personal, some professional, some life-altering—Tom and Ming are forced to confront the vastly different shapes their lives have taken since graduating, and each must answer the essential question: Is it worth losing a part of yourself to become who you are?
Buoyed by a voice as tender, effervescent and wryly funnyas the cast of characters it centers,Belliesis an unforgettable story of youth, intimacy, hunger and heartbreak, at once boldly original yet fiercely familiar, which unabashedly holds a mirror up to our most vulnerable selves and desires.
368 pages, Hardcover
First published August 1, 2023
671 people are currently reading
41.9k people want to read
About the author
Nicola Dinan
2books264followersNicola 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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Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,692 reviews
March 7, 2024
i saw this book half off in a barnes & noble and still maintained my book buying ban, and like any self-respecting bookworm i expected my medal of bravery to promptly arrive by pony express.
AND THEN, THREE DAYS LATER, A REAL-WORLD MIRACLE OCCURRED.
i went to my parents' house where i discovered the publisher had shipped me a copy of this.
the universe is in love with me.
and in truth, this was very nice, in a very lit fic-y way. i love people and i love life even though i think both are sad and aggravating and complicated, and this does too. i like books like that.
i think this showed its debut-ness in some ways: the characters actually talk too much about too much, and rather repetitively in a very convenient way, and plot events happen similarly. there's a mundane neatness that is hard to explain, but for the deus ex machina of first novels. but i liked it anyway.
bottom line: can't wait for more from this author!
(3.5 / THANK YOU PUBLISHER FOR THE COPY!)
AND THEN, THREE DAYS LATER, A REAL-WORLD MIRACLE OCCURRED.
i went to my parents' house where i discovered the publisher had shipped me a copy of this.
the universe is in love with me.
and in truth, this was very nice, in a very lit fic-y way. i love people and i love life even though i think both are sad and aggravating and complicated, and this does too. i like books like that.
i think this showed its debut-ness in some ways: the characters actually talk too much about too much, and rather repetitively in a very convenient way, and plot events happen similarly. there's a mundane neatness that is hard to explain, but for the deus ex machina of first novels. but i liked it anyway.
bottom line: can't wait for more from this author!
(3.5 / THANK YOU PUBLISHER FOR THE COPY!)
August 4, 2024
wow. this is such an achingly tender, honest, and bittersweet—yet uplifting—novel. ming’s story especially reminded me so much of a little life� it might take me a few days (or weeks) to recover from all the emotions that it elicited in me.
“You’re smiling,� he says.
I am confused for a moment, and then I understand.
“I’m smiling. You’re smiling.�
“I’m smiling.�
January 25, 2024
This is a beautifully observed character study; a rich, intelligent, and deeply relatable novel that I mostly did not enjoy reading. I think this kind of literary realism just isn’t my thing right now.
When the novel opens, Tom and Ming are seniors in college. Tom is figuring out what it means to be gay. Ming, his magnetic new boyfriend, is on her way to figuring out she’s trans. They connect intensely, as college students do. Their relationship, of course, is doomed from the start.
Tom and Ming go from stumbling through senior year to stumbling into adulthood. They fuck up badly. Slowly, with painful realism, they learn to take responsibility for their own emotional lives. I related to both characters, but to my surprise, especially to Tom. I saw myself in his desire to be needed and in how his drive for emotional stability proved counterproductive, not only because Ming was simply not going to be emotionally stable in their immediate future, although that’s true, but because in sublimating his own needs in search of someplace solid to rest his heart, Tom undermined the very relationship he was losing himself in, unwittingly poisoning the very support he so generously and genuinely offered.
I found the prose surprisingly workmanlike for a writer capable of such feats of character building. In particular, while I understand the thematic work Dinan’s copious descriptions of food are doing, I invariably found them severely underwhelming. That said, a certain matter-of-factness—over-described tube rides and cheap restaurants and grim-but-beloved student flats—strikes me as something of a necessary evil here, giving the more emotional moments the space they need to breath.�
On the whole, Bellies made me slightly anxious. And however beautifully written, however honest, I’m not sure what the takeaway is, for me personally. Yes—that is how it is. That’s how I felt for most of the book. That’s how it is. That’s how it would go. Ouch. Oh. Fuck. Not a good idea. Ha, yea—that’s what I would have done. Sort of sucks to be 22, doesn’t it? But real surprise, real astonishment, real wonder? Lives I hardly recognize? Worlds over the horizon? Not so much. That’s not on Bellies, of course, but on me, and what I want to read.
When the novel opens, Tom and Ming are seniors in college. Tom is figuring out what it means to be gay. Ming, his magnetic new boyfriend, is on her way to figuring out she’s trans. They connect intensely, as college students do. Their relationship, of course, is doomed from the start.
Tom and Ming go from stumbling through senior year to stumbling into adulthood. They fuck up badly. Slowly, with painful realism, they learn to take responsibility for their own emotional lives. I related to both characters, but to my surprise, especially to Tom. I saw myself in his desire to be needed and in how his drive for emotional stability proved counterproductive, not only because Ming was simply not going to be emotionally stable in their immediate future, although that’s true, but because in sublimating his own needs in search of someplace solid to rest his heart, Tom undermined the very relationship he was losing himself in, unwittingly poisoning the very support he so generously and genuinely offered.
I found the prose surprisingly workmanlike for a writer capable of such feats of character building. In particular, while I understand the thematic work Dinan’s copious descriptions of food are doing, I invariably found them severely underwhelming. That said, a certain matter-of-factness—over-described tube rides and cheap restaurants and grim-but-beloved student flats—strikes me as something of a necessary evil here, giving the more emotional moments the space they need to breath.�
On the whole, Bellies made me slightly anxious. And however beautifully written, however honest, I’m not sure what the takeaway is, for me personally. Yes—that is how it is. That’s how I felt for most of the book. That’s how it is. That’s how it would go. Ouch. Oh. Fuck. Not a good idea. Ha, yea—that’s what I would have done. Sort of sucks to be 22, doesn’t it? But real surprise, real astonishment, real wonder? Lives I hardly recognize? Worlds over the horizon? Not so much. That’s not on Bellies, of course, but on me, and what I want to read.
August 18, 2023
I feel so conflicted, i feel like i should have loved this book but i was just so. bored. the. entire. time.
I didn’t feel invested in the characters at all, the pacing was not my favorite and i overall just could not connect to the writing.
I’m happy so many people like this book and wish i could have enjoyed it equally 🥹
I didn’t feel invested in the characters at all, the pacing was not my favorite and i overall just could not connect to the writing.
I’m happy so many people like this book and wish i could have enjoyed it equally 🥹
November 14, 2024
you ever read a book so viscerally beautiful that it touches your soul and heart in a way few books have ever done causing you ascend to a higher sphere or something because that’s precisely what’s going on here.
You think you ever read a book that made you feel seen before? You think you ever read a book so razor sharp and self-deprecatingly intelligent before it made you wonder how in God’s green earth you could walk through life so blind to the mundanely beautiful things we call daily life? yah hmm think again because no you didn’t 🙂↕️🙂↕�, not until you read this book. and if any of you are miserable lovesick normal people fans, a tv adaptation of this by the same production company is already in the works
Sometimes, a person, an achievement or a place � whatever is missing � seems the perfect shape to fill a void, so much so that its absence seems to be the cause of the problem and its presence the solution. But up close, the voids are always much larger.
Told from a dual perspective, tells the story of first love, of first loves, romantic and platonic. Ming is from Kuala Lumpur and has just arrived in London to study at university where, at a drag party, he meets the awkwardly adorable Tom. They wake in bed and decide to start seeing each other, each person telling the other their life story in vulnerable little fragments strewn throughout the narrative: Ming’s mum, who died at a young age, the wish to become a playwright, the rich dad, the OCD. Tom is shy and self-conscious, a “Moet Marxist�, as he calls himself, white, and as Ming points out, the son of “middle-class Camberwell gentrifiers who worship at the church of Ottolenghi and knitted alpaca cardigans�.
That Tom and Ming should have their first meeting in drag is no coincidence, of course. Tom, who has been out for a while, feels a “bulb of dread� when he first sees his “lanky� body wearing one of his ex-girlfriend’s (who came out shortly after he did) dresses in the mirror. Ming, however, Tom notices, “looked much better than [he] did […], more pop starlet reclaiming her image, less Liza Minelli in sensible black loafers.� This dichotomy only heightens when, a short time into their relationship, Ming starts continuously waxing every body hair, a body Tom describes as “strong-armed into a kind of anti-pubescence�. Then, Ming transitions, reclaiming the self and body she knew she always was and wanted to have.
Ming’s life is consumed by worries about passing, how strangers read her, how feminine she looks, what body to have, what clothes to wear, how to style her hair, and that nose job that surely would help her to pass better, too. On the London Overground, a girl in loose trousers and a stripey top smiles at her. “She looks like an ally. The kind that doesn’t know any queer people but makes her boyfriend watch Drag Race.�
What already shines through here and from the first couple of pages on becomes more evident the deeper one gets into the novel. Nicola Dinan’s writing exudes that rare combination of charming wit and intelligence packed into phrases so exactly worded they can only stem from close and extremely acute observation of true human behaviour in all its forms. Dinan’s pop culture references come with a time stamp � the plot is situated in the late 2010s and early 2020s, including Covid, naturally � and they might feel dated in ten years, but that won’t stop them from appearing as smart as they do now.
There are things I wanted to ask him, all of them as weird as asking if he was lonely. Have you ever been in love? I’m sure you have. Who was the last person who broke your heart? Bet he was a dick. And then, it occurred to me that I only wanted to ask these questions because I wanted him to ask the same of me.
Woven into the narrative are scenes of quiet mundanity that invite readers to linger and caused my heart to ache. Tom eating his breakfast cereals standing turns into a paragraph detailing the process of spooning each colourful ring into his mouth, the subsequent slurping of the sugary, yellowed milk and the placing of the bowl in the sink a meditation on the everydayness of life as an adult still looking to fill it with meaning.
There are more observations to make about this novel: how it depicts platonic displays of intimacy so candidly and beautifully it hurts, it makes you want to immediately call your friends to check in with them and make sure they are alright; how it offers tiny scenes and characters with quirks so intensely human, you can’t help but think about how often you have already done the same, felt the same, acted the same; how bellies is used as a metaphor for vulnerability and letting the people you love get closest to the places that hurt the most when attacked.
is a lot of things, so it would only be too easy to classify it as yet another book “to read if you feel lost in your twenties�, one about leaving adolescence behind and life in a city brimming with bodies and love. It is all these things, but it’s also about refusing to adhere to the expected beats of mainstream narratives about straight relationships, rejecting the standards of moral perfection that queer and transgender characters in fiction are too often required to live up to, and the love we have for other people.
___
ORIGINAL REVIEW: the book of the summer, i fear
You think you ever read a book that made you feel seen before? You think you ever read a book so razor sharp and self-deprecatingly intelligent before it made you wonder how in God’s green earth you could walk through life so blind to the mundanely beautiful things we call daily life? yah hmm think again because no you didn’t 🙂↕️🙂↕�, not until you read this book. and if any of you are miserable lovesick normal people fans, a tv adaptation of this by the same production company is already in the works
Sometimes, a person, an achievement or a place � whatever is missing � seems the perfect shape to fill a void, so much so that its absence seems to be the cause of the problem and its presence the solution. But up close, the voids are always much larger.
Told from a dual perspective, tells the story of first love, of first loves, romantic and platonic. Ming is from Kuala Lumpur and has just arrived in London to study at university where, at a drag party, he meets the awkwardly adorable Tom. They wake in bed and decide to start seeing each other, each person telling the other their life story in vulnerable little fragments strewn throughout the narrative: Ming’s mum, who died at a young age, the wish to become a playwright, the rich dad, the OCD. Tom is shy and self-conscious, a “Moet Marxist�, as he calls himself, white, and as Ming points out, the son of “middle-class Camberwell gentrifiers who worship at the church of Ottolenghi and knitted alpaca cardigans�.
That Tom and Ming should have their first meeting in drag is no coincidence, of course. Tom, who has been out for a while, feels a “bulb of dread� when he first sees his “lanky� body wearing one of his ex-girlfriend’s (who came out shortly after he did) dresses in the mirror. Ming, however, Tom notices, “looked much better than [he] did […], more pop starlet reclaiming her image, less Liza Minelli in sensible black loafers.� This dichotomy only heightens when, a short time into their relationship, Ming starts continuously waxing every body hair, a body Tom describes as “strong-armed into a kind of anti-pubescence�. Then, Ming transitions, reclaiming the self and body she knew she always was and wanted to have.
Ming’s life is consumed by worries about passing, how strangers read her, how feminine she looks, what body to have, what clothes to wear, how to style her hair, and that nose job that surely would help her to pass better, too. On the London Overground, a girl in loose trousers and a stripey top smiles at her. “She looks like an ally. The kind that doesn’t know any queer people but makes her boyfriend watch Drag Race.�
What already shines through here and from the first couple of pages on becomes more evident the deeper one gets into the novel. Nicola Dinan’s writing exudes that rare combination of charming wit and intelligence packed into phrases so exactly worded they can only stem from close and extremely acute observation of true human behaviour in all its forms. Dinan’s pop culture references come with a time stamp � the plot is situated in the late 2010s and early 2020s, including Covid, naturally � and they might feel dated in ten years, but that won’t stop them from appearing as smart as they do now.
There are things I wanted to ask him, all of them as weird as asking if he was lonely. Have you ever been in love? I’m sure you have. Who was the last person who broke your heart? Bet he was a dick. And then, it occurred to me that I only wanted to ask these questions because I wanted him to ask the same of me.
Woven into the narrative are scenes of quiet mundanity that invite readers to linger and caused my heart to ache. Tom eating his breakfast cereals standing turns into a paragraph detailing the process of spooning each colourful ring into his mouth, the subsequent slurping of the sugary, yellowed milk and the placing of the bowl in the sink a meditation on the everydayness of life as an adult still looking to fill it with meaning.
There are more observations to make about this novel: how it depicts platonic displays of intimacy so candidly and beautifully it hurts, it makes you want to immediately call your friends to check in with them and make sure they are alright; how it offers tiny scenes and characters with quirks so intensely human, you can’t help but think about how often you have already done the same, felt the same, acted the same; how bellies is used as a metaphor for vulnerability and letting the people you love get closest to the places that hurt the most when attacked.
is a lot of things, so it would only be too easy to classify it as yet another book “to read if you feel lost in your twenties�, one about leaving adolescence behind and life in a city brimming with bodies and love. It is all these things, but it’s also about refusing to adhere to the expected beats of mainstream narratives about straight relationships, rejecting the standards of moral perfection that queer and transgender characters in fiction are too often required to live up to, and the love we have for other people.
___
ORIGINAL REVIEW: the book of the summer, i fear
February 15, 2025
Mixed feelings on this one. To start with the positive, I appreciated the trans rep and how Nicola Dinan wrote about both the difficulties and rewarding elements of transitioning. The novel was unapologetically queer, and I also liked its message about how sometimes we have to grow apart from certain people to come more into ourselves.
That said, I found the prose and the characters overall flat. There wasn’t that spark that gets me excited when I read really engaging literary fiction. I also thought Tom’s character was written in a kind of annoying way. He’s a cis gay white man who works as an investment banker, and while he does have flaws that are human and such, his immense privilege especially in contrast with Ming felt skirted around or even minimized in off-putting ways. I honestly didn’t understand why Ming was into him. I actually wish Tom had been reduced to a more minor relationship in Ming’s life and that more of the novel was from Ming’s perspective.
The writing and plot moved me more in a two star direction though I respect Dinan for addressing topics not often featured in contemporary lit. It’s been a meh reading year for me overall so hoping some of my next reads can change that up!
That said, I found the prose and the characters overall flat. There wasn’t that spark that gets me excited when I read really engaging literary fiction. I also thought Tom’s character was written in a kind of annoying way. He’s a cis gay white man who works as an investment banker, and while he does have flaws that are human and such, his immense privilege especially in contrast with Ming felt skirted around or even minimized in off-putting ways. I honestly didn’t understand why Ming was into him. I actually wish Tom had been reduced to a more minor relationship in Ming’s life and that more of the novel was from Ming’s perspective.
The writing and plot moved me more in a two star direction though I respect Dinan for addressing topics not often featured in contemporary lit. It’s been a meh reading year for me overall so hoping some of my next reads can change that up!
April 3, 2024
✩✩✩✩.5
'I have a bad habit of going along with things that aren't right for me, and I'm just trying to do the things a person would do if they loved themselves as much as they loved other people.'
-------------------------------------
old review:
It’s been a while since a book has moved me as Bellies has. It has the unwavering honesty of Sally Rooney’s Normal People (I know so many people compare novels to Sally Rooney’s, but this time it’s for real) and the heartache of Hanya Yanagihara’s A Little Life, yet it shines as a unique and profound novel in its own right.
Bellies follow the interweaving lives of Tom and Ming as they each struggle with belonging and identity. We watch them through an unbiased lens and come to know them as if they were our friends too. Set firmly in a landscape I know so well, and with central and side characters who are so dynamic, Bellies truly feels like a story I lived through. What’s more telling of an impactful story than when you close the book but the characters live on?
A truly wonderful exploration of gender, sexuality, mental illness and human connection that gives each of these elements the space it deserves. It’s hard to think of other titles that do all these things quite as right. If there’s any book to add to your bookshelf this year, it’s Bellies.
'I have a bad habit of going along with things that aren't right for me, and I'm just trying to do the things a person would do if they loved themselves as much as they loved other people.'
-------------------------------------
old review:
It’s been a while since a book has moved me as Bellies has. It has the unwavering honesty of Sally Rooney’s Normal People (I know so many people compare novels to Sally Rooney’s, but this time it’s for real) and the heartache of Hanya Yanagihara’s A Little Life, yet it shines as a unique and profound novel in its own right.
Bellies follow the interweaving lives of Tom and Ming as they each struggle with belonging and identity. We watch them through an unbiased lens and come to know them as if they were our friends too. Set firmly in a landscape I know so well, and with central and side characters who are so dynamic, Bellies truly feels like a story I lived through. What’s more telling of an impactful story than when you close the book but the characters live on?
A truly wonderful exploration of gender, sexuality, mental illness and human connection that gives each of these elements the space it deserves. It’s hard to think of other titles that do all these things quite as right. If there’s any book to add to your bookshelf this year, it’s Bellies.
February 6, 2024
gonna sleep with this book next to me in bed for the rest of my life. Ming and Tom need to be cherished and protected at all costs!!
January 25, 2024
like all this sex and drugs and transitioning and death, and STILL i'm just 🥱🥱
...mostly due to the flawed writing which is kinda like a cavalcade of "don't make these writing mistakes!" you could read on any ole listicle:
- describing every single action the characters do, from the glances and deep breaths (so many deep breaths here) down to heating and eating microwaved lasagna. it does not make the characters relatable or bring them alive. it makes this book so fucking long and boring. we all know what happens when you pour someone a glass of champagne. it literally happens only one way. there is no need to describe it beat by beat
- killing off the Likable Side Character (Angel Friend who Does Nothing Wrong Ever) as a cheap plot device to bring the main characters together again
- absolutely no chem between any of these hoes (why were tom and ming together? why were they in love?)(why is ming so sad about rob? were they ever even in the same room together? by the end i truly can't say, if not for the contrived flashback to a dinner party we should've heard about before)
- switching narrator povs but unable to distinguish between the two character's voices except for....... changing the tense...... so tom speaks in the past tense and ming in the present. what👏was👏the👏reason
- main character having Mental Issues that come up when it's Convenient but then completely forgotten (OCD cured<3)
- freud literally crawling out of his grave as ming tells us she looks like her dead mother now. like ming is THE most interesting and complex char here and the author refuses to make lemonade out of her lemons
- main character's internal conflict of being an anti-capitalist but then working for a YEAR as an investment banker basically ignored until it's Convenient
- the play is literally not that bad lol
...mostly due to the flawed writing which is kinda like a cavalcade of "don't make these writing mistakes!" you could read on any ole listicle:
- describing every single action the characters do, from the glances and deep breaths (so many deep breaths here) down to heating and eating microwaved lasagna. it does not make the characters relatable or bring them alive. it makes this book so fucking long and boring. we all know what happens when you pour someone a glass of champagne. it literally happens only one way. there is no need to describe it beat by beat
- killing off the Likable Side Character (Angel Friend who Does Nothing Wrong Ever) as a cheap plot device to bring the main characters together again
- absolutely no chem between any of these hoes (why were tom and ming together? why were they in love?)(why is ming so sad about rob? were they ever even in the same room together? by the end i truly can't say, if not for the contrived flashback to a dinner party we should've heard about before)
- switching narrator povs but unable to distinguish between the two character's voices except for....... changing the tense...... so tom speaks in the past tense and ming in the present. what👏was👏the👏reason
- main character having Mental Issues that come up when it's Convenient but then completely forgotten (OCD cured<3)
- freud literally crawling out of his grave as ming tells us she looks like her dead mother now. like ming is THE most interesting and complex char here and the author refuses to make lemonade out of her lemons
- main character's internal conflict of being an anti-capitalist but then working for a YEAR as an investment banker basically ignored until it's Convenient
- the play is literally not that bad lol
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 28, 2023
4.5
A beautiful book. Thoroughly enjoyed it even if it did make me cry several times (I'm very emotional).
Bellies is the story of Tom and Ming. They are originally a couple until Ming realizes that the anxiety he is feeling is because what he really wants is to transition but where does that leave his and Tom's relationship?
The reference to bellies is that of showing your vulnerability (ie your belly) to them. There is certainly a lot of vulnerability and emotion shown in this beautifully crafted novel of one couple's journey after one of them decides to transition.
There's no real drama. The story is simply told but gives a lot of insight into the kinds of compromises and decisions that need to be made when a person decides to become someone else - the someone they are happier being.
Ming's journey is delicately and carefully handled. It was a pleasure to read but also made me think about things from the POV of a trans person eg Ming is Malaysian and cannot go home once she transition because of the backlash she would receive.
I really fell in love with the characters of Ming and Tom. It has heartbreaking parts but ones that make you smile with joy too. I hope we hear more from Nicola Dinan in the future.
Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC.
A beautiful book. Thoroughly enjoyed it even if it did make me cry several times (I'm very emotional).
Bellies is the story of Tom and Ming. They are originally a couple until Ming realizes that the anxiety he is feeling is because what he really wants is to transition but where does that leave his and Tom's relationship?
The reference to bellies is that of showing your vulnerability (ie your belly) to them. There is certainly a lot of vulnerability and emotion shown in this beautifully crafted novel of one couple's journey after one of them decides to transition.
There's no real drama. The story is simply told but gives a lot of insight into the kinds of compromises and decisions that need to be made when a person decides to become someone else - the someone they are happier being.
Ming's journey is delicately and carefully handled. It was a pleasure to read but also made me think about things from the POV of a trans person eg Ming is Malaysian and cannot go home once she transition because of the backlash she would receive.
I really fell in love with the characters of Ming and Tom. It has heartbreaking parts but ones that make you smile with joy too. I hope we hear more from Nicola Dinan in the future.
Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC.
August 12, 2024
There's something about a book that has no real beginning and no real ending that I really like. It feels like I've just dropped in on friends and hung out. They had a past before me, and they continue to go on after me.
This book is primarily about Tom and Ming and their relationship. Tom's coming out. His first gay relationship with Ming. Ming's feelings of not quite being in the right body. The transition. The aftermath.
Surrounding Tom and Ming are the friendships. Rob, Cass, Lisa, and Sarah. All equally fleshed out with complicated lines of love and loyalty.
It's a gritty read, getting down to the rawness of love in all its forms. Like a microscopic view of individual strands of relationships. Like showing your Bellies.
Love, loss, grief and hope run with fluidity throughout the book. I've laughed, and I've cried (a lot).
I'm blown away this is a debut.
Five stars.
This book is primarily about Tom and Ming and their relationship. Tom's coming out. His first gay relationship with Ming. Ming's feelings of not quite being in the right body. The transition. The aftermath.
Surrounding Tom and Ming are the friendships. Rob, Cass, Lisa, and Sarah. All equally fleshed out with complicated lines of love and loyalty.
It's a gritty read, getting down to the rawness of love in all its forms. Like a microscopic view of individual strands of relationships. Like showing your Bellies.
Love, loss, grief and hope run with fluidity throughout the book. I've laughed, and I've cried (a lot).
I'm blown away this is a debut.
Five stars.
July 24, 2023
You know an animal trusts you when it shows you its belly � the softest, most vulnerable part of the body, kept hidden as an almost instinctive act of protection. Between people, too, being vulnerable and opening up to others with our hopes, insecurities, and fears is the greatest act of confidence. Nicola Dinan's gorgeous, masterful debut novel is built around the shape of the connections that make space for such exposure; the acts of friendship and intimacy that allow us to show people our bellies.
It starts out as a typical boy-meets-boy story: a university drag party where an awkward Tom, who has recently come out as gay, meets the magnetic playwright Ming. Sparks fly, and that chance encounter soon turns into a tender, effervescent romance capable of encompassing their many differences in race, backgrounds, and tastes. As the year moves along, the two are inseparable � through the transition from student naïveté to moving in the real world, through friendships and tough feelings, their lives intertwine like the trunks of trees that twist and curve to accommodate each other, with the future mapped out ahead of them. Only, things are always changing, and with the post-graduation dread of expectations and desires comes Ming's decision to transition, a decision that creates tectonic shifts in their relationship with each other and the people around them.
This was an incredibly moving, humane story; unflinchingly honest in its portrayal of the complexities of evolving into one's own person and navigating queer relationships in the modern age. Tom and Ming are, on one level, undergoing the same journey in different directions: one has spent years coming to terms with his sexuality as a gay man only to find himself in love with a woman; the other has navigated years of living as a gay man before accepting herself as a straight woman. Bellies does a brilliant job of exploring their growing pains and their perspectives in a work that is as gentle as it is incisive. Dinan's characters, whether the protagonists, their families, or their friend circles, are each fleshed out to be real and multidimensional, drawn with a degree of compassion and understanding that I have never before encountered in contemporary literature, and that endeared me to them in ways that even TV shows with a 10+ season run haven't quite been able to: they are all people as we are, flawed even in their goodness, and capable of selfish and devastatingly hurtful acts even as they deeply care for one another. The drama between them is too the drama of life, with all its attendant changes, its pushes and pulls, its delicious foods, sights, sounds, and smells, its moments of loneliness, longing, and confusion, and the variegated challenges it throws at us as individuals. All of it is simply told, through natural dialogue and various poetic asymmetries, but is gripping and immensely resonant.
While the central metaphor of vulnerability and intimacy is paramount, I could not help but notice how much of the title also derives from Dinan's exploration of hunger. Hunger for identity and a positive self-concept, yes, but also the literal hunger that influences it: Bellies is full of descriptions of food, and it also goes into detail into the relationships its various characters have with it, whether in terms of physical body image or a sense of cultural identity. All that food, particularly Malaysian food, is a necessary inclusion in the novel that very subtly illuminates Ming's experience as a trans woman of colour. While her perspective is presented to readers in fewer chapters compared to Tom, her character can be understood more fully through the ways in which her native cuisine is presented to us: it is a link, for her, between her past and a present in which she is more at home with herself but is also unable to go home to a place where her very existence is illegal.
The more I think about this book, the better it gets: there is so much nuance packed into its mere 368 pages, and the observations alone place Dinan as a writer wise beyond her years � or, as many have called her, the Sally Rooney of the queer canon (though I believe Dinan engages with her characters' trauma, art, and political beliefs in ways that Rooney only wishes she could). I am hopelessly in love with all the characters in Bellies, and I loved the way Tom and Ming's relationship panned out � I did feel that the (tragic) catalyst was rather tinny and uninspired for an otherwise refreshing take on the boy-meets-boy trope, but I was moved to tears nonetheless.
A solid 4.5 stars to this masterful work, and my special thanks to Bobby Mostyn-Owen at Doubleday for providing me with a review copy.
It starts out as a typical boy-meets-boy story: a university drag party where an awkward Tom, who has recently come out as gay, meets the magnetic playwright Ming. Sparks fly, and that chance encounter soon turns into a tender, effervescent romance capable of encompassing their many differences in race, backgrounds, and tastes. As the year moves along, the two are inseparable � through the transition from student naïveté to moving in the real world, through friendships and tough feelings, their lives intertwine like the trunks of trees that twist and curve to accommodate each other, with the future mapped out ahead of them. Only, things are always changing, and with the post-graduation dread of expectations and desires comes Ming's decision to transition, a decision that creates tectonic shifts in their relationship with each other and the people around them.
This was an incredibly moving, humane story; unflinchingly honest in its portrayal of the complexities of evolving into one's own person and navigating queer relationships in the modern age. Tom and Ming are, on one level, undergoing the same journey in different directions: one has spent years coming to terms with his sexuality as a gay man only to find himself in love with a woman; the other has navigated years of living as a gay man before accepting herself as a straight woman. Bellies does a brilliant job of exploring their growing pains and their perspectives in a work that is as gentle as it is incisive. Dinan's characters, whether the protagonists, their families, or their friend circles, are each fleshed out to be real and multidimensional, drawn with a degree of compassion and understanding that I have never before encountered in contemporary literature, and that endeared me to them in ways that even TV shows with a 10+ season run haven't quite been able to: they are all people as we are, flawed even in their goodness, and capable of selfish and devastatingly hurtful acts even as they deeply care for one another. The drama between them is too the drama of life, with all its attendant changes, its pushes and pulls, its delicious foods, sights, sounds, and smells, its moments of loneliness, longing, and confusion, and the variegated challenges it throws at us as individuals. All of it is simply told, through natural dialogue and various poetic asymmetries, but is gripping and immensely resonant.
While the central metaphor of vulnerability and intimacy is paramount, I could not help but notice how much of the title also derives from Dinan's exploration of hunger. Hunger for identity and a positive self-concept, yes, but also the literal hunger that influences it: Bellies is full of descriptions of food, and it also goes into detail into the relationships its various characters have with it, whether in terms of physical body image or a sense of cultural identity. All that food, particularly Malaysian food, is a necessary inclusion in the novel that very subtly illuminates Ming's experience as a trans woman of colour. While her perspective is presented to readers in fewer chapters compared to Tom, her character can be understood more fully through the ways in which her native cuisine is presented to us: it is a link, for her, between her past and a present in which she is more at home with herself but is also unable to go home to a place where her very existence is illegal.
The more I think about this book, the better it gets: there is so much nuance packed into its mere 368 pages, and the observations alone place Dinan as a writer wise beyond her years � or, as many have called her, the Sally Rooney of the queer canon (though I believe Dinan engages with her characters' trauma, art, and political beliefs in ways that Rooney only wishes she could). I am hopelessly in love with all the characters in Bellies, and I loved the way Tom and Ming's relationship panned out � I did feel that the (tragic) catalyst was rather tinny and uninspired for an otherwise refreshing take on the boy-meets-boy trope, but I was moved to tears nonetheless.
A solid 4.5 stars to this masterful work, and my special thanks to Bobby Mostyn-Owen at Doubleday for providing me with a review copy.
July 16, 2023
I'm a bit conflicted when it comes to Nicola Dinan's novel Bellies. On one hand, it's a tender and profound story filled with relatable and realistic characters. It's composed of beautiful writing and nuanced discussions on identity, gender, and attraction. Yet, on the other hand, it is simply too slow and mundane for my personal tastes. Not that slow and character-driven stories are a bad thing, but I simply felt like there was something missing from the book, something that would have made me care about the characters and their lives just a little more.
I would still recommend picking this up if the premise appeals to you—there is a definite audience for this type of novel, but I am just not it. I still enjoyed it though, I just didn't love it.
Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers (Hanover Square Press) for the ARC!
I would still recommend picking this up if the premise appeals to you—there is a definite audience for this type of novel, but I am just not it. I still enjoyed it though, I just didn't love it.
Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers (Hanover Square Press) for the ARC!
February 17, 2024
this changed my life!!! i haven't cried over a book since i was a kid. this broke my heart into a million pieces and put it back together. i understand so much now. ming is one of my favorite characters ever written. i love her so much. i felt myself forgetting that i was reading and these people weren't real. then again, this is the story of so many queer and trans people across the world. this wrecked me and yet made me so hopeful and new. one of the most brilliant novels ever written. i will be thinking about this and recommending this to everyone forever.
August 26, 2023
Bellies is a difficult novel to write about. I've begun and deleted this review repeatedly and am still struggling. It's complicated in the ways humans are complicated, with feet planted in multiple cultures and identities. Its cast of characters is young�19 to 25 or so—and that youth means that they're still figuring out who they are, and that who-they-are is in flux. Tom and Ming, two gay college students meet at a drag event and fall in love. By the novel's end, Tom is still a gay man, Ming is a woman, and they both—along with their friends—have been through wave after wave of affection, conflict, communication, miscommunication, and (in the minds of at least some of them) betrayal.
The characters in this novel are irritating in that way young people can be irritating: simultaneously serious and thoughtless, struggling to answer complicated questions with their relatively brief lifetimes of experience on which to draw. As a reader, I found my irritation forcing a kind of self-critical forgiveness. When I was young, I was young. I was serious and thoughtless, concerned with complexity while having lived relatively little. And I realized how much that young me would have irritated the older me. That knowledge does make it easier to embrace the novel's characters.
What most moved me about Bellies was the sincerity with which this group of friends worked to love, respect, and make room for one another. They're a global cast, drawn from different cultures and different parts of the world, drawn to the arts, activism, and commerce (because graduating from college puts commerce smack in the middle of everything they have to deal with).
Bellies is a novel to read when when you want a panoramic dose of reality, one that tries to fit in all possibilities and to see them reconciled.
I received a free electronic review copy of this title from the publisher via Edelweiss; the opinions are my own.
The characters in this novel are irritating in that way young people can be irritating: simultaneously serious and thoughtless, struggling to answer complicated questions with their relatively brief lifetimes of experience on which to draw. As a reader, I found my irritation forcing a kind of self-critical forgiveness. When I was young, I was young. I was serious and thoughtless, concerned with complexity while having lived relatively little. And I realized how much that young me would have irritated the older me. That knowledge does make it easier to embrace the novel's characters.
What most moved me about Bellies was the sincerity with which this group of friends worked to love, respect, and make room for one another. They're a global cast, drawn from different cultures and different parts of the world, drawn to the arts, activism, and commerce (because graduating from college puts commerce smack in the middle of everything they have to deal with).
Bellies is a novel to read when when you want a panoramic dose of reality, one that tries to fit in all possibilities and to see them reconciled.
I received a free electronic review copy of this title from the publisher via Edelweiss; the opinions are my own.
Read
July 3, 2023Bellies, the debut novel from London-based, Kong Kong-born transgender author Nicola Dinan, is at once a story of love and an inversion of love, presenting readers with a complex tale of evolving queer relationships in the modern day.
When the novel begins, Ming and Tom are two boys at university together. Tom is newly out, and Ming has dreams of being a playwright.
They hook up and soon fall in love, spending the rest of their uni years growing ever closer. But when they start living together after graduation, Ming begins to change in ways that scare and confuse Tom.
My full thoughts:
When the novel begins, Ming and Tom are two boys at university together. Tom is newly out, and Ming has dreams of being a playwright.
They hook up and soon fall in love, spending the rest of their uni years growing ever closer. But when they start living together after graduation, Ming begins to change in ways that scare and confuse Tom.
My full thoughts:
June 2, 2024
4.5/5 I really loved this novel about queerness and belonging, loved the cast of characters and the sometimes quite heart-wrenching but ultimately hopeful tone. would highly recommend, especially for fans of torrey peters, sally rooney and naoise dolan!
“you’re smiling,� he says.
I am confused for a moment, and then I understand.
“I’m smiling. you’re smiling.�
“I’m smiling.�
😭😭😭
“you’re smiling,� he says.
I am confused for a moment, and then I understand.
“I’m smiling. you’re smiling.�
“I’m smiling.�
😭😭😭
September 23, 2023
gorgeously written. i like the strong characters and the tender prose, it just needed a little more consistency and precision. also, the pacing felt off at some point so that really took me out of the reading experience.
one detail i really love here is the act of making and sharing food as a way of communicating love and care. and it's such a deeply intimate and personal story, very close to heart, that i have to disagree with the comparisons to Sally Rooney (though i must say i was gagged when they dropped her name in the novel). Rooney's writing keeps readers at a calculated distance, while Dinan keeps us closer to the heart. add to this the food as love language details, i have to say that this reminds me more of Nina LaCour and Bryan Washington.
anyway, i would definitely recommend this to my friends!
one detail i really love here is the act of making and sharing food as a way of communicating love and care. and it's such a deeply intimate and personal story, very close to heart, that i have to disagree with the comparisons to Sally Rooney (though i must say i was gagged when they dropped her name in the novel). Rooney's writing keeps readers at a calculated distance, while Dinan keeps us closer to the heart. add to this the food as love language details, i have to say that this reminds me more of Nina LaCour and Bryan Washington.
anyway, i would definitely recommend this to my friends!
June 25, 2023
crying my eyes out. what a book.
March 15, 2025
4/5
„I feel sad for him, and I wonder what my world would look like if men didn‘t cower from their desires. Maybe not that different, because male desire has rarely done much good for anyone.�
Labai skausmingas ir visapusiškai sudėtingas pasakojimas. Ką daryti, kai mylimas žmogus pasako, kad keičia lytį? Kai tą pasako jau procesui prasidėjus, kai supranti, kad myli jį, myli visa širdim, bet žinai, kad kita lytis tavęs netraukia, negalėtų traukti, nes jau bandei, nes jau neišėjo. Čia susipina ir sudėtingi psichologiniai išgyvenimai, ir artimų draugų gyvenimai ir jų peripetijos, ir šeimos portretai, ne kažkokie labai toksiški, bet vis tiek gyventi nelengva, o ir praradimai ir meilė, besimaišanti su netekties skausmu ir pykčiu � labiausiai ant savęs. Abiems pusėms.
Pasirodė, kad knyga truputėlį ilgoka � turiu įspūdį, kad autorė nebuvo tikra kaip nori šį pasakojimą užbaigti ir jos pasirinktas būdas man pasirodė vienas pigesnių, nelabai derantis prie iki tol buvusio stiliaus ir pasirinkimų. Visgi, man patiko kaip ji rašo, patiko kiek gerų minčių radau, patiko veikėjai � du pagrindiniai nepasirodė lygiavertiškai išpildyti, bet vis tiek prie abiejų prisirišau, pati išjaučiau jų gyvenimą užvaldžiusią frustraciją, pyktį, siaubą, nerimą, liūdesį ir netektis. Ir tikrai šia tema nebuvau skaičiusi nieko panašaus, nebuvau net labai daug galvojusi apie tokią situaciją, kuri čia dėliojasi. Taigi, knyga ne be minusų, bet įsimintina, reikšminga ir labai neblogai parašyta.
„I feel sad for him, and I wonder what my world would look like if men didn‘t cower from their desires. Maybe not that different, because male desire has rarely done much good for anyone.�
Labai skausmingas ir visapusiškai sudėtingas pasakojimas. Ką daryti, kai mylimas žmogus pasako, kad keičia lytį? Kai tą pasako jau procesui prasidėjus, kai supranti, kad myli jį, myli visa širdim, bet žinai, kad kita lytis tavęs netraukia, negalėtų traukti, nes jau bandei, nes jau neišėjo. Čia susipina ir sudėtingi psichologiniai išgyvenimai, ir artimų draugų gyvenimai ir jų peripetijos, ir šeimos portretai, ne kažkokie labai toksiški, bet vis tiek gyventi nelengva, o ir praradimai ir meilė, besimaišanti su netekties skausmu ir pykčiu � labiausiai ant savęs. Abiems pusėms.
Pasirodė, kad knyga truputėlį ilgoka � turiu įspūdį, kad autorė nebuvo tikra kaip nori šį pasakojimą užbaigti ir jos pasirinktas būdas man pasirodė vienas pigesnių, nelabai derantis prie iki tol buvusio stiliaus ir pasirinkimų. Visgi, man patiko kaip ji rašo, patiko kiek gerų minčių radau, patiko veikėjai � du pagrindiniai nepasirodė lygiavertiškai išpildyti, bet vis tiek prie abiejų prisirišau, pati išjaučiau jų gyvenimą užvaldžiusią frustraciją, pyktį, siaubą, nerimą, liūdesį ir netektis. Ir tikrai šia tema nebuvau skaičiusi nieko panašaus, nebuvau net labai daug galvojusi apie tokią situaciją, kuri čia dėliojasi. Taigi, knyga ne be minusų, bet įsimintina, reikšminga ir labai neblogai parašyta.
August 15, 2023
“Accepting responsibility doesn’t mean accepting blame.�
~
“You can take charge of your own life without it being an admission of guilt or fault.�
Bellies would have to be one of my favourite reads of the year. I found it hard to sit down and try to find the words to explain just why this is one of my favourites so forgive me if this review doesn’t do it justice.
You know when an animal trusts you when they roll onto their backs and show you their belly, the most softest and vulnerable part of their bodies. As humans, sharing your emotions, being open and laying out your deepest fears and hopes are the same. I think what is so beautiful and memorable about Bellies is that none of the characters are perfect, they each have moments where their fears manifest or come across as something hurtful. As humans, we often make mistakes or hurt people while we try to navigate our way through this world and Bellies depicted this in a way that was so raw and honest.
This book truly touched me and I know it’s going to be one that I carry with me for a long time. I struggle to believe that this is only a debut when it’s managed to impact me so profoundly. I can’t express how excited I am to see what comes next from this author or how excited I am for everyone else to read this so I can scream from the rooftops about it. I feel that I am about to become a Bellies Marketing account.
Absolute Fantastic Read.
~
“You can take charge of your own life without it being an admission of guilt or fault.�
Bellies would have to be one of my favourite reads of the year. I found it hard to sit down and try to find the words to explain just why this is one of my favourites so forgive me if this review doesn’t do it justice.
You know when an animal trusts you when they roll onto their backs and show you their belly, the most softest and vulnerable part of their bodies. As humans, sharing your emotions, being open and laying out your deepest fears and hopes are the same. I think what is so beautiful and memorable about Bellies is that none of the characters are perfect, they each have moments where their fears manifest or come across as something hurtful. As humans, we often make mistakes or hurt people while we try to navigate our way through this world and Bellies depicted this in a way that was so raw and honest.
This book truly touched me and I know it’s going to be one that I carry with me for a long time. I struggle to believe that this is only a debut when it’s managed to impact me so profoundly. I can’t express how excited I am to see what comes next from this author or how excited I am for everyone else to read this so I can scream from the rooftops about it. I feel that I am about to become a Bellies Marketing account.
Absolute Fantastic Read.
June 7, 2024
I loved this so much!!!! Tom meets Ming at a drag night one evening and the two end up really falling for each other. But not far into their relationship Ming reveals to Tom that she is trans and wants to transition to female-presenting.
I absolutely adored the group of friends in this book and the relationships between everyone who orbited Tom and Ming. It was written so well and I liked that we got to read the perspective of both characters. I was really great to read about their relationship as a gay couple at first and then how Tom learns to support Ming's transition and eventually accept her happiness. There are some really heartbreaking moments in this but it also such a tender story about two people who are looking to be loved and accepted and I think it was an absolutely beautiful novel.
I listened to this on audiobook and it was just fantastic, the voices really brought emotion to the characters and made them feel alive, and made the book even more enjoyable to experience. I would really recommend this book as I loved it so much and it's a great read to pick up this Pride month.
I absolutely adored the group of friends in this book and the relationships between everyone who orbited Tom and Ming. It was written so well and I liked that we got to read the perspective of both characters. I was really great to read about their relationship as a gay couple at first and then how Tom learns to support Ming's transition and eventually accept her happiness. There are some really heartbreaking moments in this but it also such a tender story about two people who are looking to be loved and accepted and I think it was an absolutely beautiful novel.
I listened to this on audiobook and it was just fantastic, the voices really brought emotion to the characters and made them feel alive, and made the book even more enjoyable to experience. I would really recommend this book as I loved it so much and it's a great read to pick up this Pride month.
June 19, 2024
Nicola Dinan has delivered! This book tells the story of a couple trying to come to terms with their own grief and doubts. We are first introduced to Tom at the very beginning of the novel on his journey at university after figuring out his sexuality and breaking up with his girlfriend, Sarah. On a night out Tom is introduced to Ming, who is also trying to deal with her own internal anxieties which develop further when her relationship with Tom blossoms. The main one being her decision to transition into a woman which places tension and uncertainty between their own selves and the future of the relationship. This novel focuses on the topic of transitioning and what the process is like emotionally and physically, not just for the person experiencing it but also for their friends and family around them. It explores ideas of love, familiarity, grief, and friendship beautifully and the overall meaning behind the title is endearing to say the least.
September 18, 2023
Some Plot, Mostly Vibes is becoming one of my fave genres 🩷
August 27, 2023
i don’t often compare things to sally rooney, because i think it’s a comparison that is both overdone and difficult to achieve, but this is SOOO sally rooney. better than sally rooney IMHO
June 18, 2023
I was given an ARC of this, and really tried. I tried to find it interesting even if it wasn't necessarily good; I tried to give it the benefit of the doubt as a debut novel; I even tried to find any redeeming quality to this book whatsoever. But the writing is just plain terrible.
August 29, 2023
one of the most beautiful books ive read in awhile. literally amazing.
August 26, 2024
oh this book made me ache, in a good way where i’m like i’m so happy books like this exist, books that are gloriously tender and heartfelt, but it hurt, it really fucking hurt
August 6, 2023
4.5⭐️ I loved it, full RTC
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