Exciting Times

Dolan began writing Exciting Times in 2017, when she was living in Hong Kong. She completed writing the novel in five months. An early excerpt was published in The Stinging Fly. The novel received critical acclaim, and was often likened to the work of Sally Rooney, a fellow Trinity College Dublin graduate.[2][3]

The novel follows a 22-year-old Dubliner, Ava, while she is teaching English in Hong Kong, and her relationships with Julian, an Oxford-educated banker, and Edith, a corporate lawyer from a wealthy Hong-Kong family.[4]

Exciting Times was published in the United Kingdom by W&N on April 12, 2020.[5] It was released in the United States on March 16, 2021 by Harper Collins.[6]

The New York Times described it at as a novel where "jealousy and obsession, love and late capitalism, sex and the internet all come whirling together in a wry and bracing tale of class and privilege."[4] Kirkus Reviews praised it as a "refreshingly wry and insightful debut."[7] The Irish Times declared, "Exciting Times, which was acquired in a seven-way bidding war, more than lives up to the hype … It teems with insight around class, race, language and sexuality. Likely to fill the Sally-Rooney-shaped hole in many readers’ lives."[3]

Exciting Times was longlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction, Dylan Thomas Prize and the Desmond Elliott Prize, and shortlisted for the An Post Irish Book Awards, Dalkey Literary Awards and Waterstones Book of the Year. Dolan was also shortlisted for the Sunday Times / University of Warwick Young Writer of the Year Award in 2020.[8]

In May 2020 it was announced that Exciting Times had been optioned for a US television series by Black Bear Pictures, and in August 2021 it was revealed that Cooper Raiff would adapt with Phoebe Dynevor to star in the adaptation and act as executive producer. The series will be produced by Amazon Studios.[9]