It’s an easy comparison to make, and one that will likely follow Naoise Dolan as she launches her first novel, but there are worse things for a debut author than to be compared to bestselling Irish author Sally Rooney. Their likeliness lies not only in their writing style (unlikeable millennial characters and seemingly banal plots that reveal an underlying current of larger issues such as class, culture, sexuality and society) but both authors are Irish, of a similar age (Rooney, 29 and Dolan, 27) and both studied at Trinity College. Rooney also published an early excerpt of Exciting Times in The Stinging Fly when she was editor of the literary magazine. This comparison is not to take away from the merits of Exciting Times, it is a great novel in its own right, rather it is to call attention to what feels like a new wave of Irish writers (which also includes Nicole Flattery among others) dealing with millennial subjects and capturing the zeitgeist in a way that feels brand new for this generation.

The narrative of Exciting Times follows Ava, a 22-year-old Irish woman who moves to Hong Kong from Ireland after graduating from university. She begins work as an English teacher and it is here that her obsession with words and language comes to the fore. She considers the meaning (and double meaning) behind every word which is why her relationships appear to become strained at times when she considers too closely what each piece of correspondence means. “We discussed whether the word ‘quite’ magnified or diminished a compliment.”

Exciting Times is an inward-facing story in that a lot of the narrative centres on theories that hatch in our protagonist’s mind rather than in reality. For every sentence she actually says, there are ten more circling her brain. This is most notable as she drafts and deletes text responses on her phone throughout the story, particularly to Julian and Edith, but also to keep up appearances to her mother back in Ireland. “Mam texted asking how I was. I typed: i am very unhappy. Autofill offered three different negative emojis. I tapped one and it replaced the word ‘unhappy’ with a sad face. Then I deleted the draft and sent one saying I was grand.”

In Part One, Ava appears to be the more vulnerable character, defined by her relationship with Julian, a British banker who attended Eton and Oxford. “I wanted other people to care more about me than I did about them.” Ava moves into Julian’s luxury apartment rent-free, begins a sexual relationship with him, and allows him to fund a lot of her lifestyle – “If something cost 1 per cent of his income or 10 per cent of mine, why shouldn’t he take care of it?” All while Julian repeatedly claims that he does not love her and does not want an official relationship with her.

By Part Two, Ava appears to come into her own. She begins to fall for Edith, a Hong Kong-born lawyer who studied in England and has just recently returned. While it is evident that Ava begins obsessing over Edith from the first time they meet (repeatedly checking her social media channels, deep-diving into old posts and examining them for hidden meaning) as the relationship evolves the power dynamic shifts when Ava and Edith fall into comfortable habits and it is Edith’s insecurities that are revealed. Ava appears to achieve what she earlier admitted to wanting: “I wanted a power imbalance, and I wanted it to benefit me.”

By Part Three, Ava seems to have the upper hand as she juggles her relationships with both Julian and Edith in a tangled love triangle, but it becomes evident that Ava’s character exists only in relation to others. She quickly begins to go into free fall, at risk of losing them both. Ava plays the character of “alienated young woman” well. (And it is this detached character that most harks back to Rooney’s writing.) She leaves Ireland initially because she is convinced everyone there hates her and towards the end of the novel Edith exposes this flaw: “The truth is, you like Julian because he enables this perception you have of yourself as a detached person … You prefer feeling like no one will ever love you.”

None of the characters are particularly likeable, they are self-absorbed and often inconsiderate. But what is evident is their own understanding of this. At one stage, emphasising this self-awareness, Ava thinks, “I’d feel his arms, wonder a) why I was a cold and ungrateful person and b) if anyone would ever love me.” Their actions don’t compel you to root for them and none of them appear to care too deeply about the other further than a surface feeling – but therein lies the attraction of this novel, it is more about subtext and reading between the lines.

It’s a fast-moving story that is easy to read. While essentially being a novel about modern love in all its guises, it is also a study of class and culture and a social commentary of current times. Money is an obsession, as is education. The identity of Irishness is explored – most particularly in phone calls with her mother in Ireland but also when Ava touches on political issues back home: the eighth amendment and abortion rights, same-sex marriage, even British colonialism. Dolan’s style of narrating is cut-throat, ironic and often straight to the point as demonstrated in her short, snappy sentences and uncluttered prose. Ultimately, Exciting Times is a story about language and love – and the many different faces of each.

Exciting Times, by Naoise Dolan, is out today, published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson