Exciting Times (Dolan) - Discussion Questions

Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, use our LitLovers talking points to help start a discussion for EXCITING TIMES … then take off on our own:

1. Do you find Ava a sympathetic character? At the beginning… by the end?

2. Author Naoise Dolan said in an NPR interview that Ava is a "somewhat repressed," young woman, who uses "dark humor as a coping device." What are some of the examples of her humor? Are there other coping mechanisms she uses?

3. In the same NPR interview, Dolan also says that Ava is much better at thinking analytically about "things" than she is at understanding her own, or others', emotions. Talk about how this tendency makes Ava an unreliable narrator.

4. How would you describe Ava and Julian's relationship? What, for instance, does Julian mean by this passage: "To be clear Ava: we're both dead behind the eyes, at least I can pay rent." And Ava thinks about Julian: "He doesn't want anyone to like him just for him" because he "wouldn't know what to do with the information." What do these statements and others reveal about the two of them—individually and as a couple?

5. What is your opinion of Edith? Were you frustrated by Ava's inability to commit?

6. The title of the book comes from Ava, who says, "We agree it was an exciting time to be alive." Is Ava being sarcastic? What is behind that comment, and why might Dolan have chosen it for the novel's title?

7. Talk about the role of class in this story. How do wealth and privilege, or their lack, evidence themselves?

(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online and off, with attribution. Thanks.)

top of page (summary)