Disappoint Me

Author Nicola Dinan
Narrator Mei Mei MacLeod, Martin Sarreal
Publisher Transworld
Publish Date 23 January 2025
Run Time 10 hours
Format Audio
Genre Humorous fiction, Modern and contemporary fiction, Narrative theme: Identity / belonging, Narrative theme: Interior life, Narrative theme: Love and relationships.

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What to expect

Brought to you by Penguin.

Max is thirty, a published poet and grossly overpaid legal counsel for a tech company. She’s living her best life! Or is she? The debris of years of dysphoria and failed relationships rattle around in her head. When she tumbles down the stairs at a New Year’s Eve party and wakes up in hospital alone, she decides to make some changes. First things first: a stab at good old-fashioned heteronormativity.

Enter Vincent, corporate lawyer and hobby baker. His trad friendship group may as well speak a different language to Max, and his Chinese parents never pictured their son dating a trans woman. It’s uncertain terrain, but Vincent cares for Max in a way she’d long given up on as a foolish fantasy.

Yet Vincent is carrying his own baggage. On his gap year in Thailand a decade prior, he vies for the attention of a gorgeous traveller, Alex, with secrets of her own. Is Vincent really the new face of the Enlightened Man, or will the ghosts of his past sabotage his and Max’s happiness?

'Nicola Dinan’s second book confirms to me that she is one of our most exciting writers . . . Disappoint Me is an addictive read, that I really did not want to end' Travis Alabanza, author of None of the Above

© Nicola Dinan 2025 (P) Penguin Audio 2025

Critics Review

Disappoint Me is a refreshingly unsentimental and moving exploration of millennial ennui, prickly friendships and toxic masculinity. It eschews essentialism by depicting modern relationships and the flow of power and secrecy with astuteness and compassion, cementing Dinan as one of the UKu2019s most perceptive young novelists with her finger firmly on the pulse of contemporary behaviour.

Guardian

Nicola Dinanu2019s observations are so razor-sharp that youu2019re sure youu2019ve met her characters: the self-important East London poet, the over-friendly girl in the bathroom queue, the gap-year student convinced heu2019s worldly after two weeks on a silent retreat in India. For this reason, every description and bit of dialogue is delicious to read, and if she nailed it in her debut novel Bellies, sheu2019s mastered it in Disappoint Me. The book follows a blossoming relationship between twentysomethings Max and Vincent in present-day London, peppered with flashbacks to Vincentu2019s first relationship with a trans woman in his teenage years. It is pacy, perfectly pitched and emotionally honest: I loved every page.

Stylist, u2018Best Books of 2025u2019

A story of millennial fears and forgiveness, reckoning with past mistakes, stylishly interweaving two compelling voices as they unravel their own love story. Disappoint Me follows Dinanu2019s debut novel, Bellies, which is another example of deeply empathetic writing and elastic endings that stay with you long after.

Vogue, u2018Best Books of 2025u2019

As the title indicates, it explores the fundamental point that building a sustainable love for someone involves them disappointing you: eventually, the dreams and expectations that we attach to a person will be somewhat compromised. I think the novel explores that so amazingly.

Shon Faye, Guardian

Disappoint Me is anything but a disappointing follow-up in its smart exploration of heteronormativity and the weight of expectation.

Dazed, u2018The 12 Most Anticipated Novels of 2025u2019

Sharply insightful, warm and heartbreaking

Cosmopolitan, u2018Best Books of 2025u2019

The author of the award-winning Bellies returns with another insightful dissection of millennial life ... tackling tricky friendships and toxic masculinity.

Harper's Bazaar

A riveting, hilarious and totally devastating love storyu2026 This exploration of millennial angst, race, and trans panic will have you gripped and sets Dinan as a literary voice to watch.

Elle, u2018Best Books of 2025u2019

A very modern love story and Dinan is very much the woman to write it

GQ, u2018Best Books of 2025u2019

In the follow-up to her award-winning and critically acclaimed first novel Bellies, Dinan examines the pain and growth that disillusionment brings... Dinan writes so intelligently about regret, remorse and hope u2013 and still manages to nail humour, too.

AnOther, u2018Best Books of 2025u2019

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