Disappoint Me

Disappoint Me

A Novel

About the Book

An electrifying story of love, betrayal, and the complicated allure of bougie domesticity from award-nominated author Nicola Dinan

“Dinan writes like some kind of demigod. Her fictions make thinkable new realities for how we live and what we might expect from each other. "
– Torrey Peters, author of Detransition Baby


I don’t know why I feel like I’ve been caught doing something dirty. Cheating on queerness. Fell down the stairs and woke up a trad wife.

Thirty years old with a lifetime of dysphoria and fuccbois rattling around in her head, Max is plagued by a deep dissatisfaction. Shouldn't these be the best years of her life? Why doesn't it feel that way? After taking a spill down the stairs at a New Year’s Eve party, she decides to make some changes. First: a stab at good old-fashioned heteronormativity.

Max thinks she’s found the answer in Vincent. While his corporate colleagues, trad friends, and Chinese parents never pictured their son dating a trans woman, he cares for Max in a way she’d always dismissed as a foolish fantasy. But he is also carrying baggage of his own. When the fall-out of a decades-old entanglement resurfaces, Max must decide what forgiveness really means. Can we be more than our worst mistakes? Is it possible to make peace with the past? 

Funny, sharp, and poignant, Disappoint Me is a sweeping exploration of love, loss, trans panic, race, millennial angst, and the relationships--familial and romantic--that make us who we are.
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Praise for Disappoint Me

“Nicola Dinan writes like some kind of demigod. Her fictions make thinkable new realities for how we live and what we might expect from each other.”―Torrey Peters, author of Detransition Baby

“Bursting with big questions about the politics of romance, family, and care, this novel navigates moral and emotional complexity with grace, nuance, and real storytelling nerve.”―Oisín McKenna, author of Evenings and Weekends

“Hilarious and heartrending in equal measure, with lines so unforgettably funny and true you’ll be sending them to your group chat immediately.”―Elaine Castillo, author of How to Read Now

“A charming, big-hearted love story unlike any I’ve read before . . . Dinan forces us to ask ourselves: Are we more than the worst thing we’ve ever done? An absolute knockout.”―Marisa Crane, author of A Sharp Endless Need

“A study in human frailty that is riveting, funny. and devastating . . . Nicola Dinan [brings] an incisive wit to the big questions of modern relationships.”―Shon Faye, author of The Transgender Issue

“So beautiful, so affecting it left a lump in my throat.”―Annie Lord, author of Notes on Heartbreak

“Immersive, perceptive, and layered with nuanced truths about friendship, family, queerness, and real romantic partnership.”―Jules Ohman, author of Body Grammar

“An addictive read that I really did not want to end.”―Travis Alabanza, author of None of the Above

Disappoint Me is a mature and assured novel. I admired Nicola Dinan’s work in elaborating the growing pains of a trans experience muddled by race, class, and changing public attitudes.”—Mendez, author of Rainbow Milk

Disappoint Me is clear evidence of the skill and talent of a writer who does not know how to disappoint, whose prose is vivid, emotive, powerful and funny, and whose ability to make us feel only grows stronger with every story she tells.—Ore Agbaje-Williams, author of The Three of US

“A delicious story of change, and a beautiful meditation on human connection. Dinan is a stunning chef of words, and this is a book for greedy reader.”—Jodie Harsh
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About the Author

Nicola Dinan
Nicola 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. More by Nicola Dinan
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