I first picked up GHOSTS because I was hoping for a few good laughs, something different from other books I had recently read. While Dolly Alderton delivered on the humor, I was not prepared for how emotional and cathartic this book would be.

The characters that Alderton created in Nina and her friends Lola, Katherine, and Joe, were all so relatable. I saw bits of myself and my closest friends in these characters, which made for an interesting reading experience. It also made me more invested in Nina’s story and the difficult situations she has to navigate as a 32 year old woman.

Through humor and several tears, GHOSTS portrays what it’s like to be a single woman in todays dating world and the balancing act many women experience trying to have a success career, strong relationships with friends and family, and the search for a person to spend your life with. This book highlights what it’s often like to be the single friend in a group of women and how exhausting that can truly be. On the flip side, Alderton also shows what’s it like to be the wife and mother through her portrayal of Nina’s mum and her oldest friend, Katherine.

I truly loved this book and all the feelings it evoked in me while reading. I felt for each of these characters and enjoyed seeing how Nina’s relationships changed and evolved, especially as she came to terms with her father’s failing health. It was an emotional read at times, but I also found myself laughing out loud throughout, which made it that much more relatable. I highly recommend reading GHOSTS if you haven’t already!

Funny great LOL story!

Description
INTERNATIONAL BEST SELLER • A smart, sexy, laugh-out-loud romantic comedy about ex-boyfriends, imperfect parents, friends with kids, and a man who disappears the moment he says "I love you."

“An absolute knock-out. Wickedly funny and, at turns, both cynical and sincere… feels like your very favorite friend.” —Taylor Jenkins Reid, author of Malibu Rising

Nina Dean is not especially bothered that she's single. She owns her own apartment, she's about to publish her second book, she has a great relationship with her ex-boyfriend, and enough friends to keep her social calendar full and her hangovers plentiful. And when she downloads a dating app, she does the seemingly impossible: She meets a great guy on her first date. Max is handsome and built like a lumberjack; he has floppy blond hair and a stable job. But more surprising than anything else, Nina and Max have chemistry. Their conversations are witty and ironic, they both hate sports, they dance together like fools, they happily dig deep into the nuances of crappy music, and they create an entire universe of private jokes and chemical bliss.

But when Max ghosts her, Nina is forced to deal with everything she's been trying so hard to ignore: her father's dementia is getting worse, and so is her mother's denial of it; her editor hates her new book idea; and her best friend from childhood is icing her out. Funny, tender, and eminently, movingly relatable, Ghosts is a whip-smart tale of relationships and modern life.

GHOST made Dolly an auto buy author for me! Easily, easily a five star read IMO and a story that I know has buried itself in my heart.

I found Nina the MC so incredibly relatable— forever longing to find her person, to throw caution to the wind, to sink her trust into an unsteady relationship with dizzying social clues. (In today’s world who has time to consider who texts who first?) While I very much enjoyed the journey between Nina and Max, the most tender part of the book was how Nina worked out her dad’s struggle with dementia. I’ve honestly never read an author who quite captured the bittersweet experience a daughters’ bond with her father the way Alderton did. The memories become hazy, the love remains stead fast. Ultimately this book is about coming of age, and how the relationships in our lives ebb and flow with time.

I read this book with my bookclub and we all took away something unique. It felt like an excellent pick!

Intrigued by the premise, I really wanted to like this book much more than I did. Sadly, it ended up missing the mark for me.

Being a 30-something female, who loves a good rom com and a Fan of Nora Ephron, I went into this book very excited thinking I would probably relate to Nina, love the story and it would be a favorite.

Overall this book had good bones, but I felt like the story fell a little flat. The only thing that we really knew about Nina was the relationship she lacked romantically and the struggle she faced with her parents. There was no depth to anything else.

I just wanted more for Nina, other than feeling like her life wasn’t complete because she was not in a relationship. I will say it did feel accurate in how others in relationships often see and talk to their single friends.

So I feel torn. Overall it was good. I wanted to see how the story ended for Nina, but I still was left just wanting more.

Tried picking this up several times but I couldn't connect to the characters especially the main character as her narration goes throughout the book. So sad that I had to DNF

An emotional, realistic look at what life as a single woman in her thirties is like. Nina is an easy narrator to root for, and her struggles are so relatable, whether it's the titular ghosting or falling out with a childhood friend.

This book ended up not being for me at the times that I've sat down to read it; I hope to get to it again at a later time!

What a quirky, fun, & relatable read! Honestly all the feels. As a single woman in my late twenties I was laughing and cringing right along with Nina in this era of online dating. This one's a great contemporary romance read for anyone who has been ghosted or who has *gasp* ghosted someone else. You'll love to hate some of these characters.

I really enjoyed this book, which had a lot of smart insights about relationships and life. Nina is a successful food writer in her 30s, who is also single - but it seems like things are on the upswing when she meets Max and on their first date, he declares he's going to marry her. But then he suddenly and inexplicably ghosts her right after they both say "I love you." The book as a whole explores how relationships change (dating, friendships, and family), and I really liked how it alternated between an interesting story and keen observations on society - I had a lot of highlights in this! However, it was also a bit depressing, and for a fiction novel, I wanted things tied up a bit more neatly with a bow at the end.

Upon hitting her thirties, Nina Dean decides it is time to give romance a try. She's already accomplished quite a bit on her own (purchasing her own apartment and working as a successful food writer to name a few), but feels that she's ready to get out there in the dating world once again. At the encouragement of her best friend and fellow single lady, Lola, Nina tries her hand at a popular dating app,. Her first in-person interaction with Max is an instant success. They get on great and things seem to be going very well. Until suddenly they aren't.

Dolly Alderton's novel Ghosts is an exceptionally written story about one woman's journey in dating, family, friends, and settling into true adulthood. It may not be the most fast paced read you'll pick up, but it is one of the most true and authentic. As readers we follow Nina through the highs and lows of being adult children, having friends in different stages of life, and trying to find someone to love.

I enjoyed this book, but I did not love it. It was a little disjointed at times. Moments of it felt very much like an early 2000s' romcom, and then other moments felt like a moody Indie film. Of course, life is often very disjointed, which reflects the trueness of this story. I think the best part of this book is the relationship Nina has with her parents and that particular storyline. This was the portion of the book that I most related to, as I was so infuriated with Nina's mother and then sympathized so much with her at the end.

Thanks to NetGalley and Knopf Publishing for my copy of this e-Book!

Nina is such a relatable character I was fully invested in her life and story and was sad when it ended. Fresh and modern especially for millennials

Single girl Nina has watched most of her friends match up and start families of their own. She realizes it's time to move on from her childhood sweetheart when he proposes to his girlfriend. A chance encounter with her newest match has Nina believing she's met the "one". Except a few months into their relationship he's disappeared off the face of the earth.
I didn't find this book particularly funny, even though it's marketed this way, but it did resonate with me. I couldn't help but want to give Nina a hug and console her, particularly with her familial hardships. There was a scene that had me yelling, "NOOOOOOOO!", but, ultimately, it ended exactly how it should've.
Thank you to Knopf Doubleday and NetGalley for the e-arc. All thoughts in this review are my own.

Nina is 32 and looking for love. Unfortunately for her, looking for love in your thirties means that you end up with what is left at the bottom of the barrel. I feel that this book had some profound views on modern dating and grief, but I thought some of the situations were a bit off. For example, I wasn't really into when Nina slept with her neighbor after they fought, that was kind of a head-scratch moment for me. Like he seemed super suspicious, she literally thought he was a murderer. Then she just sleeps with him without clarification??? I also didn't understand how a book about someone who writes cookbooks for a living, didn't have cooking in it???? Girl also went on a rant about how Lola wants to live a traditional life with marriage and kids. It is totally cool if Nina does not want to do that, but why is she so offended that another person wants that for themselves???

I was surprised that I did not enjoy this book, as from the description it really seemed like my cup of tea. I think that the concept was really cool, but I lost interest due to the numerous side elements. I would definitely read something else by this author as I thought that the writing itself was good.

***I received an ARC from Netgalley and the Publisher in exchange for my honest review.***

3.5 stars rounded UP! Ghosts is a great novel that follows a woman (Nina) who is coming into her own after noticing that all of her friends are growing their families, leaving her, slightly behind. Once she meets Max and he appears to fall hard to her, it appears too good to be true... and it was as he then vanishes into thin air. The introductory piece of this book was great as the story is relatable, despite taking me way too far back into my high school experience, However, after Max disappears, for about 3-4 chapters this book gets SUPER depressing as Nina is sad about Max and her father, who is suffering from a type of dementia, starts to fade in and out of awareness in a bad way. At one point he does not even recognize his own daughter. Knowing what I know now, I would have skipped those few chapters because, after slumping into a slow and deep depression, BAM - Max is BACK!?!? In an effort to not spoil the ending, as it does pick up, I will say, I loved the book, I hated the book and then I loved the book all over again (talk about a rollercoaster). In the end, Nina grows and is able to find her way back to a close friend from who she had previously drifted from as her friend finally admitted to being lost in motherhood (which I am 100% guilty of).

Overall, this was a fun and relatable quick read. For fans of realistic reads, this is the book for you!

Gosh this book was just a little TOO relatable at times! But in all seriousness, I really loved this depiction of a woman in her early thirties, with all the messy aspects of her life shown on the page. I'm not sure why this book is marketed as a rom-com, though. Nina's romance with Max is arguably not the main story being told here. And yes, there is humor, but it's a wry, dark humor (which I loved). More to the core of the story are Nina's female friendships, her relationship with each of her parents, and ultimately her own sense of self and relationship with herself. A perfect title for a wonderful novel. I will recommend this smart, tender, feminist novel to everyone. I hope men read it.

Poignant. Sharp. Clever. Sobering. Witty. Real.

I wasn’t ready for how much this novel was going to resonate. While listening to this novel several moments brought me pause or moments of clarity into aspects of life I didn’t even know were gray.

The first part of this novel felt superficial, but I’m extremely happy I kept going. Dolly brought so much humanity to each and every character. You didn’t need long back stories for each character to understand them.

I got a lot out of this novel and I think others will too.

this book is absolutely my shit. this one is for women who are fed up with the pressure and societal expectations and boring friends who move to the suburbs but secretly so badly want that same love and stability! it’s a coming of age story for those in their late 20s/early 30s. sally rooney mixed with eve babitz

Thank you so much to Netgalley and Knopf Doubleday for the ARC I’m exchange for my honest review.

Unfortunately, Ghosts was not the book for me. I don’t think I am the right audience for it as I had a hard time connecting with the MC, Nina and the things she is experiencing.

Alderton’s writing style is also not my cup of tea. I’m a fan of straight forward and concise writing.

If you are at a stage in your life where you are navigating the world of dating and want a more emotional read, then I would recommend giving Ghosts a try!