Excellent writing, appealing characters (especially Cece, for no reason I could put my finger on), an inventive twist, a convincing setting: this is a very good novel by a talented author. The narration swaps back and forth between first person (the eponymous dissident) and third limited (Cece, her sister-in-law Joan, her brother-in-law Phil), which I found slightly jarring at first but fine once I recognized the pattern.

Quotes:

...we didn't want to know the truth about each others' situations. We wanted to imagine that paradise existed just outside the gates of our own lives. (52)

They couldn't stand to fail. Even to succeed wasn't enough, if the success wasn't spectacular. (98)

However, there are various types of lies: an outright attempt to deceive another person is different from a story that feels true, and only needs to be translated into another form to be understood. (114)

...if you are a hider, you have to be careful of seekers, who are drawn to you simply for the challenge of discovering something. But of course, hiders are drawn to seekers too; there is always some part of us that yearns to be found out. (119)

Maybe the compromises were different, but culture shock could only last so long. At some point, you had to stop being shocked and start absorbing it; otherwise, you would all stay strangers forever. (245)

"Maybe in a foreign language we can never say exactly what we mean..." (277)

I was sorry that I hadn't spent my whole life trying to become the kind of person she'd admire. (294)

I imagine that's something celebrities have to contend with all the time: their fans have an unshakable impression of them before they've even met them. Even if the reality doesn't conform to those expectations, a true devotee won't be disappointed by the discrepancies. He simply won't see them. (303)

Relationships were never equivalent: that was why it was so hard to find permanent ones. When two people depended on each other, they each had their own reasons. Sometimes the reasons balanced each other out temporarily, and the two of you were suspended gently in air. (376)

How could you ever know the truth if each successive person translated it into a new vocabulary? (395)