Disappoint Me

A Novel

De: Nicola Dinan

Narrado por: Martin Sarreal, Mei Mei MacLeod

“One of the sharpest and most emotionally vulnerable novels on the complicated dynamic of dating cisgender straight men as a trans woman.”—Autostraddle (7 New Trans Novels to Read this Summer)

“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, bestselling author of Detransition, Baby

ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR (SO FAR): Elle, Vogue, BookRiot

You can fall in love with an outline, you can even make a home with one, but there will come a time where you can’t deny the bones their flesh. A person is no fewer than two things.

Thirty years old with a lifetime of dysphoria and irritating exes 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.

©2025 Nicola Dinan (P)2025 Random House Audio

Reseñas de la Crítica

“[A] humorous but heartfelt look at finding love in your 30s and breaking free of the conventions—climbing the career ladder, getting married—that box us all in.”—PopSugar, “32 Essential Books by Trans and Nonbinary Authors to Add to Your Reading List”

“[Disappoint Me is] smart, funny and razor-sharp throughout. Mostly I was taken by how realistic it is, managing to gather all manner of contradictory, complicated feelings into a miasma of effortless prose. I hated having to finish this one.”—Vogue (UK)

“Nicola Dinan’s novel about a trans woman in a new relationship delivers devastating one-liners, a perfect social read of the queer-literary scene, and a second-act twist. It also provides an irresistible critique of contemporary wedding culture, which is probably relevant for your summer plans.”—W Magazine