Review: "Disappoint Me" by Nicola Dinan

Disappoint Me by Nicola Dinan
Published May 2025 via The Dial Press
★★★★

A tumble down the stairs convinces Max that it's time for a change: time for a stable relationship; time to settle down; time, perhaps, for a bit of heteronormativity. Enter Vincent.

On paper—and in person—Vincent seems like the perfect fit. Attractive, good job, good listener; he's Chinese enough to make Max's mother happy and unfazed by Max being trans. But behind all that there's something else: there's who Vincent was when he was younger, and the choices he made then. And these are neither things he wants Max to know about nor things he can hide forever.

I decide not to say anything, buckling under the pressure to upgrade by palatability. (loc. 758*)

The book weaves back and forth between then and now: now, from Max's perspective, starting to build this new life with Vincent; and then, from Vincent's perspective, when Vincent is young and stupid and backpacking through Asia. In places I found the book slow going just because Max's side of things is so much easier to take—Max is no saint, but she has her head basically screwed on right, and she has (usually) a strong sense of right and wrong. Vincent was harder to handle; young-and-dumb-tourist is not one of my favourite character types (though it's in here for a reason), and I could feel the Bad coming well before I had a sense of what shape it would take.

Max—and by extension the reader—is asked, then, to decide: what transgressions can be forgiven, and by whom? That is: even if Max decides that she can look past the things Vincent did in his youth, what right does she have to forgive? How do they move forward? And (largely unasked, in the book) is there an element of atonement in Vincent's relationship with Max?

I love how messy things get, if not the things themselves—I don't like my characters squeaky-clean and perfect, because shades of grey make for more realistic and more interesting reading. It helps that Vincent's transgressions are not the worst of the book, but also that there are other characters (e.g., Simone) operating in shades of grey, or rather doing both good things and bad. Max does have to make decisions about the relationship, and what to do with it, as the book nears its end, and I had mixed feelings about the way things pan out. There are a limited number of ways the book could go there (the relationship could end; the relationship could continue; the book could end without the reader finding out what happens). I suspect that I was never going to be entirely satisfied with any of those options, which is actually a good thing in terms of the book—again, grey area. It'll be interesting to see where Dinan goes next.

Thanks to the author and publisher for inviting me to read a review copy through NetGalley.

*Quotes are from an ARC and may not be final.