Thank you Net Galley and the publisher for an ARC of this book for an honest review.
I really wanted to like this book. I did laugh a few times but this book wasn’t really my cup of tea. I can see I was definitely in the minority but it may have been partially due to being in my 70’s.

I'm so impressed with the way Dinan captures human relationships. Disappoint Me was not nearly as sad as her first novel, Bellies, yet it still certainly packed an emotional punch. This book is told from two perspectives: Max and Vincent; and we get to know them both quite well. this novel explores friendships, relationships, betrayal, and forgiveness in such a beautiful and unique way.

I had so many thoughts after I finished reading this. What makes something unforgivable? Does forgiving someone make you weak? Can people really change? How do you know when it's worth it to give someone another chance?

Moral of the story: I will read anything that Dinan publishes.

thank you NetGalley and the publisher for the eARC!

eh . . . i wasn't too sold on this one, unfortunately. the premise was very interesting and the characters felt really humane all the way through, but i could not help but feel bored, particularly through the mid section. i usually really enjoy books with little to no plot, but this one lacked /something/. i did really like the various romantic and platonic dynamics explored throughout it, though; it reminded me of "detransition baby" at times (and that's a big compliment!). but yes, i'm afraid i did not fully gel with this one, sadly.

Disappoint Me was absolutely fantastic! The author wrote a story that was so well written I found myself flying through the pages, unable to put the book down, pondering what would happen next. My favorite piece of this entire story was how believable the characters were.

The writing is clear and clean, and very immersive. The book hums along at a good clip, but the pacing makes sure we're given time to breathe between plot-intensifying moments. The story was absolutely engaging and the work that went into the settings was noticeable and superb. I felt absolutely transported and I'm so incredibly glad I was able to read an arc of this story.

Nicola Dinan's Disappoint Me is a poignant exploration of modern relationships, delving into themes of identity, love, and personal growth. Through complex characters, Dinan crafts a narrative that is both emotionally resonant and thought-provoking. I especially loved how the novel captured the raw, unfiltered emotions of love and heartbreak, making every moment feel deeply intimate and real.

Yes, absolutely. The cover art drew me in and then completely sold me with the description—it's overall marketing is a trans/queer story in the same vein as My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh (it's the hot pink big type on the renaissance style painting of a disillusioned woman. It'll sell me every time I guess). The writing was beautiful and atmospheric.

Many books I read that feature trans characters really over-explain being trans, and Disappoint Me does not hold your hand. It feels deeply personal and real and powerful. I can't wait to read the author's other books.

The book is split into two narrators,
Max/Maxine (31) is a Trans woman and a lawyer and a poet who just broke up with fellow writer Arthur and is starting to hang out with Vincent.
Vincent’s storyline mostly takes place ten years earlier on his gap year in Thailand with his best friend Fred and a girl he meets there.
The writing is beautiful and very atmospheric. You feel sucked into her life and her friend group of artists and writers and a queer friend group.
I love the friendship she and her best friend Simone have. Often in novels with romance that is the only center of the story and I love how much they love and appreciate each other.
As the title suggests things disappoint Max, but the book definitely does not. It explores the choices we make and why we make them. Beautifully written.

Disappoint Me is a heavily character-driven novel that dives into relationships, identity, and personal growth. The story follows Max, a 30-year-old trans woman lawyer poet who's figuring out life after a breakup and dealing with a job that has her acting as a robot (no, really). She meets Vincent, also a lawyer, and the two start a relationship that makes Max question what she wants out of life. There are discussions around marriage, the choice to have children or not, and how some folks have an opt-in vs. opt-out perception of these milestones. The book flips between Max’s present-day struggles and Vincent’s past adventures during his gap year in Thailand. I usually do not like time jumps, but this one was done quite well.

It took me around 40% to really start getting invested in the book, as character-driven isn't my preferred style (I love a good plot-focus). As a character-driven book, the characters need to be impeccable and they do indeed meet that. They are complicated and layered and feel real. The book touches on some heavy stuff like addiction, transphobia, and serious health concerns, but it handles it all with a lot of care and a good balance of humor and emotional depth throughout. The side characters are also well-written, adding more depth to the story. In the end, Disappoint Me is a heartfelt, character-driven book that mixes tough topics with hope and growth, making it a great pick for anyone looking for a story about messy relationships and finding your way.

Thank you to The Dial Press, Random House, and NetGalley for a digital advanced reader copy. All opinions are my own and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

I really wasn't a fan of this book. One of the main problems I have with this book is the fact that the main character was pushed into some stereotypes of being transgender and it rubbed me the wrong way. At times she was placed in these situations where she said some things that are internet stereotype of being trans. Her and Vincent also supposed to be this "symbols of millennial angst" which is really cheesy on it's own as a statement but once reflected in the book made me cringe so hard I had to stop reading for a bit. Lastly, I wasn't a fan of the way that it tried to copy "My Year of Rest and Relaxation" in the aspects of how it's written and narrated. I know both stories are completely different in terms of plot, but this author seemed to take the narrating style, the overly depressed and struggling millennial main character mixed with a woe is me mentality throughout the book.

Disappoint Me - Nicola Dinan
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5

ARC published May 25th, 2025.

Disappoint Me follows Max, a trans woman, and her boyfriend, Vincent, who (thanks to dual timeline) we learn about just a tad bit before Max does.
This was such a beautiful read and the characters are multi-faceted but still pull you in and are like-able. Dinan was able to hit so many amazing points on female friendships, family dynamics, romantic relationships, and forgiveness and acceptance. We truly get to learn about Max through the context of her lived experience and each little side quest adds more insight into the characters without being too much or unnecessary.

I’m excited to go back and read Bellies, Dinan’s debut novel. Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Random house for the early read 🥹

Disappoint Me isn’t here to explain transness or hold your hand through a lesson; instead, it immerses you in the lived experience of a trans woman in a way that feels deeply personal and real. And that’s what makes it so powerful.

What stood out to me the most was how the story challenges the reader’s assumptions—not in a forceful way, but in a way that lingers, making you reflect long after you’ve put the book down. It pushes you to think about what it really means to accept someone versus simply forgiving them for not being who you expected them to be. The emotional complexity of the characters, their relationships, and their struggles made this a truly compelling read.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Random House Publishing for early access to this book!

This story is so different from what I usually gravitate to, but I found it to be very readable and enjoyable. Nicola Dinan is a great writer, and I would definitely read another novel by her.

Themes of complex relationships (both romantic and family), and forgiveness are prominent here. People are complicated, and no one is perfect- can you forgive someone you love who did a very bad thing a long time ago?

The relationship between Max and Vincent was one of the weaker parts for me, as it seemed there was a …detachment almost? I never felt strongly about them as a couple, and didn’t care if they stayed together or not. I also wasn’t as invested in Vincent’s point of view as I was Max’s, since she was a much more interesting character.

Overall, I would rate this 3.5 stars.

Rating: 4.0 ⭐️

Disappoint Me by Nicola Dinan was a refreshing departure from my usual reads. The novel follows Max—a 30-year-old trans woman and poet—trying to navigate London’s chaotic dating scene. After a wild New Year’s Eve mishap, she decides to embrace a more “normal” lifestyle, which leads her to Vincent, a seemingly perfect Chinese lawyer with a mysterious past. This book weaves Max’s present-day experiences with intriguing glimpses into Vincent’s backstory, exploring themes of love, identity, and the pressure to conform. Although it took me a little while to really get into the story, once I did, I was completely hooked. The book dives into complex relationships—both family and romantic—between men and trans women, and touches on themes of forgiveness, acceptance, and the importance of owning up to mistakes. I enjoyed this book’s portrayal of messy, complicated, and very human characters and enjoyed insightful commentary on modern relationships.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Random House Publishing for early access to this book!

Max is thirty years old and starting to question her choices. She spends four days a week at her corporate job, with the fifth reserved for her to write poetry. But after publishing a book of poems, Max has not been able to do much writing. When she falls down the stairs at a New Year’s party, she decides to make some changes, including taking a chance on a traditional relationship.

Max soon meets Vincent, who almost seems designed in a lab to appeal to her parents. Although Vincent seems smitten with Max and takes care of her in a way she never thought possible, Max can’t help but struggle with his reluctance to tell his parents he is dating a trans women. And as their relationship depends, a long-buried secret of Vincent’s comes to light — forcing Max to confront the seeming contradictions between her principles and her desire for true love and when forgiveness is possible.

This was a powerful and well-written story. The author does an excellent job of depicting the complexity inherent in all close relationships, and the ways that those people love can both save and disappoint each other, often at the same time.

Highly recommended.

4/5 ⭐

<i>Disappoint Me</i> is a novel following the relationship between Max and Vincent, alternating between perspectives as the two get closer, as well as an important third perspective from Vincents’ life from a decade prior that revolved around a trip he took during a gap year.

This novel is very character-driven in the best of ways. While the plot follows the main couple through their journey, it delves into all the relationships around them, too; parents, siblings, and friends of varying levels . Every single one of these characters was engaging to read about for me—they were all so three-dimensional, so flawed and messy, and yet easy to feel compassion for. I’ve never read Nicola Dinan’s work before this, but I’ll definitely be reading more in the future. The themes of identity and forgiveness, with the parallels made throughout the story, were so. well. written.

The last 30 pages or so had me crying—it really was a journey, and I’m so glad I got to read this wonderful story.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group for the ARC!

I’ll start by stating, I am definitely not the ideal reader for this book. I related To absolutely none of the characters and had a really hard time caring about any of them. The story was uninteresting to me. Writing was okay, although choppy at some points. Thanks to NetGalley for an advanced copy.

What a deeply compelling work of contemporary fiction that holds up an excoriating but not unsympathetic mirror up to millennial relationships, particularly in the intersection of heteronormative allyship and queer/trans women. This is a shining example of a story with protagonists whose actions and motivations and even their growth will frequently frustrate you, but that is the point of the narrative. And it's done right. Not gonna lie, I was very uncomfortable for most of the Vincent POVs because I wasn't sure I needed the perspective of a cishet dude being confronted with being attracted to trans women, and the associated mental gymnastics of his internalized homophobia. But it becomes an integral and interesting element of the narrative when juxtaposed against the trans POV of Max, who is also deeply flawed and grappling with how to live past her own traumas and mistakes and breaking out of problematic patterns. The story of Max and Vincent clearly comes from the author's deeply personal connection to navigating being trans and of Asian descent, but at no point does this read as self indulgent. While it was genuinely hard to read some parts of it, and I needed to take trigger breaks, I finished it largely in two sittings. If you're someone that enjoys works about contemporary dynamics of peer groups like Sally Rooney's, give Nicola Dinan a go for the extra dimension of intersectionality created by racial and trans/queer identities in blended friend circles.

An engrossing novel that brings trans awareness to the forefront. Although the cover is beautiful, I feel it’s a bit misleading, and curious as to how the decision was made, or what I am missing. Looks like I should pick up Dinan’s debut novel, Bellies.

What a gripping and emotional story that was. From the moment I started reading this book, I couldn’t put it down, I got really invested in the lives of Max and Vincent.
Nicola Dinan sure knows how to portray the struggles of growing up and coming to terms with past mistakes and traumas, social structure and cultural norms.
Thank you to NetGalley and Random House for this Arc, I can’t recommend this book enough.

I really enjoyed this one. It's a story that's honest and emotional for both main characters' perspectives without overly veering into self-pity. There's a bite of humor to Max's perspective in particular that keeps the narrative both serious but adds moments of levity. This is a story about love, in all its forms, about gender dynamics and what it means to sit in complicated corners of gendered expectations, and about what we owe to ourselves and each other in past, present and future. The writing was well done, the story was always propelling forward and I honestly looked forward to picking up the book each time I returned to it. I very much recommend.