I DNF´D This Book After The 100th Page Not My Favorite Book Ever
But I Think People Will Find It Good
It Just Was Not For Me

Loved it - hard to put down. Ghosts of millennial life as it relates to dating, friendships, family. Hilarious but also had some depth. Looking forward to more from Alderton.

Nina is 32 year old writer who lives in London. She already has a book that's been published and another that is supposed to be published. But, she is single and longing for her soulmate. Signed up through a service, Nina meets someone that she connects with. Everything is going well until he ghosts her and now she has to deal with everything else she refused to deal with.

I gotta say that the tagline calling this a sexy laugh out loud rom-com are wrong. There is a lot happening in this story and none of it was really rom-com material. This is drama to the highest order, at least for me.

A lot of the focus here in on romance as well as Nina's father is who solely falling to Alzheimer's and how that is affecting her and her family. Throughout a lot of this, I feel like Nina could have really used a good support system, but she didn't have that. The friends that she had were not people who were really there for her which was just a drag to read.

I think this could have been a great story, but this one didn't hit with me.

Although I enjoyed parts of the story this one wasn’t for me. I know people will enjoy the whole story sadly it wasn’t me.

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for the eGalley. All opinions are my own.

Ghosts was an interesting read, billed as a romantic comedy.. More than romantic comedy, for me this was an examination of the intricacies of life. Nina is a 30-something who wants love. She has a whirlwind romance until he disappears, leaving her adrift in her life. The story is relatable and I enjoyed the moments where Nina is introspective and looks at her parents and friends in a different light. I struggled to like Nina, possibly because I'm in a different stage of life, but also because I found her both judgmental and vapid. I enjoyed the pop culture references and the situations in Nina's life made me think about how I would handle them and how my parents are also getting older.. There are relatable stories about how life and relationships change as friends gets married and have children, about drifting apart or closer through time, and about how there are alot of assumptions about people's lives and choices. For some, this will be a memorable book. For me, I had to refresh my memory in order to review it. Something that resonated with me when I looked at the book again was a thought Nina had that the chaos that a married friend tries to hide is what Nina would like to experience. So true that we don't always appreciate what we have.

Enjoyable, relatable, and fun at times. This book was a good mix of humor and wit. As a woman that was once single at 30, I could relate to Nina.

Nina Dean is the most relatable character I've read in years. She's happy single, she likes her job, she's got her own place, and her friend's are great. Nina decides why not give online dating a try and after meeting Max she thinks this is it. Max is your typical love bomber and I hate him. He's that guy that gets through your walls and makes you feel comfortable. He initiates the serious conversations and the progression of the relationship and then just ghosts because things got too serious. Nina is left heartbroken and is then forced to look at everything in her life she thought was going good.

Alderton captured what the modern dating scene is like and the stress that comes with it. Balancing career, friendships, and family Ghosts is an easy read that left me contemplating my own life and relationships.

*Arc provided by Netgalley and Knopf Doubleday Publishing in exchange for an honest review.*

This book captures modern dating so perfectly! It is sure to spark a conversation about your own dating experience. I loved Dolly Alderton's writing and character development. This book was fantastic!

I love reading about food and food writers, so was very excited about Nina's career and success with it. GHOSTS was an enjoyable read filled with the many adventures (and sometimes downfalls) of online dating. A witty, insightful, and funny book that had me fully invested in Nina's life.

A much more modern Bridget Jones's Diary - a funny but bland journey of a woman dating in her 30's. I liked it fine, but not sure I would read this author again.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ecopy for my kindle. I laughed so hard when I read this book. Was it the best book I've read? No. But I enjoyed it nonetheless. I related to it so well. Every millennial needs to read this book.

I felt this one. As someone who has done a LOT of online dating in my late 20s and 30s I felt many parts of this book. This is a well written book and relatable character. At the same time reliving some of these feelings and experiences while reading this dug up feelings I had once forgotten.

A sparking cocktail of Bridget Jones' Diary, Nora Ephron's Heartburn, and Rachel Khong's Goodbye Vitamin, Dolly Alderton's debut fiction novel an empowering and engaging look at the recent crime of "ghosting" and the ways that technology impact how we love in a modern world.

Dolly Alderton is a style icon, beloved journalist, and writer of one of my absolute favorite memoirs of all time. Her memoir, “Everything I Know About Love” embodies the tried and true description of “hilarious and heartfelt” in how it chronicles Ms. Alderton’s life ‘til 30 – the struggles with dating, the wild parties, and the unexpected ways we love and lose. It was a smash critical and commercial success, so it’s not so surprising that Ghosts, Dolly’s fictional debut, is the story of… a writer who is struggling with love and loss. Told with Alderton’s signature wit, this is the story of Nina, a food writer with a burgeoning cookbook career, a bad stroke of luck with dating, and a family in crisis as they cope with her father’s Dementia. The story takes place over the course of her 32nd year on earth as Nina comes to grips with the fact that, well, she’s getting old(er), as is everyone around her. A chance encounter with a new man gives her hope, before the man ghosts her. It’s a lot for Nina to grapple, but with the help of maybe the best sidekick ever (her bestie Lola), it’s a challenge she learns to tackle head-on.

Oh, did I laugh and laugh and laugh reading this one. Alderton knows how to give the perks and perils of being a millennial such humor and heart. Alderton’s writing is sharp and sassy, and there are so many great bits that I clung to throughout. A favorite? She describes a character as being a woman who wears a felt fedora hat indoors. ‘Nuff said. But behind the humor there is so much warmth in these characters and their journey. I found myself actively cheering on Nina and Lola as they took on the world and the horrible people in it. And the relationship between Nina and her aging parents is handled wonderfully in the pages of this story. It’s not all fluff – it gets to the heart of what it means to start to finally have your own life in order at the moment you have to start caring for your folks.

Is it perfect? No. Alderton’s clearly finding her footing as a fiction writer, and in particular I found the first chunk of the book a little awkward – a lot of self-description and not a lot of action. But once Nina meets her man (the aforementioned Ghoster) the story takes form. I couldn’t put the back half of the book down. If the first section of the book is its weakest part, so be it. The payoff is there.

This book reminded me of three that I know and love – It’s parallels to Bridget Jones Diary are obvious (though Nina is less terrible and the story takes place now), it beckons the love of food and the hatred of lousy men from Nora Ephron’s Heartburn, and it gave me that same tearful joy I felt reading Goodbye Vitamin – another magical text about adults and their parents growing up.

A promising fictional debut from a voice you HAVE to get to know. I can’t wait to see where Dolly Alderton goes from here.

When Nina Dean downloads a dating app, the last thing she expects is to meet a great guy on her very first date. Finding seemingly perfect chemistry with Max, she thinks everything in her life is finally falling into place. But then Max ghosts her, and she’s forced to face everything she’s been trying to ignore; like her father’s Alzheimer’s, her taut relationship with her mother, and the fact her longest friendship is falling apart.

I absolutely loved this one. Sometimes you pick up a book at just the right time in your life, and Ghosts was that for me. There were so many lines and passages I marked, highlighted, flagged, underlined. It was like Alderton reached into my brain, pulled out my innermost thoughts, and put them on paper. It’s amazing how seen you can feel while reading a novel written by someone with whom you have never interacted or met. Isn't it amazing how a book can make you feel so seen, your feelings validated?

Utterly relatable, Ghosts is filled with wit and tenderness. I couldn’t put it down.

I thought this book was okay. It covers a year of Nina’s life, a rather interesting year. She’s a food writer whose second book comes out this year. And she tries to figure out what to write for her third foodie book. Her father is having problems with his memory and gets confused easily. She reads up on his condition, adjusting better than her mother, who can’t accept what’s happening. Her friend Lucy, also single, talks her into signing up for a dating website. After talking to one guy, they finally meet and hit it off. After a few months of dating and getting closer, he ghosts her. After this there is still the wedding for her ex-boyfriend, where she is an usher. Her oldest friend, Katherine, has a second child, and drifts away a little more. The book started on Nina’s 32nd birthday and ends on her 33rd birthday. A lot happens in that one year for her.

“I would make a strong case for the argument that every adult on this earth is sitting on a bench waiting for their parents to pick them up, whether they know it or not. I think we wait until the day we die.”

Ghosts is the quintessential millennial book, with a 32 year old woman at its centre, an age where there’s a wisdom and a confidence when it comes to relationships and friendships, but also the reality of our parents growing old. There’s this whole expectation vs reality thing happening, the reality being that not all the friends are in the same phase of their lives. It can be hard to connect with new people, especially online.

This book is about Nina’s adventures in online dating and the phenomenon of ghosting but through Nina and her friends, Alderton addresses so many ghosts that may haunt a 30-something’s lives. And what a clever, observant and insightful writer Alderton is, she elevates the book to something much more than a rom-com, and I found myself furiously highlighting some passages.

The book has just the right amount of smartness and sensitivity, and yet, I found myself often checking how much of the book was left because it does seem to go on for a bit! “Would’ve been so much prettier if it could’ve shed some extra weight!” Metaphorically speaking.

I really enjoyed the author’s writing style and I loved the British humor of the novel. I went into this novel thinking it would be a romantic comedy and do not feel like it was that at all. While there are fun spots as I mentioned it does not feel like that is the correct genre for it. Nina is a food writer in her thirties trying to figure out being single in digital world. She has a group of married friends and is best friends with her ex. Nina has one single friend that she navigates the dating world and what being single can be like in your 30’s. One aspect of the book was the depiction of her father and his dementia. It was very well written and so spot on. It pulled at my heart and I felt for her and her Mom and the road they were traveling. I’m giving this book a 3.5 stars. I was gifted a copy of Ghosts by Dolly Alderton by NetGalley.

I wanted to like this book a lot more than I did. It tries so hard to strike that good balance between serious commentary on relationships and ageing as well as humour and kitschy romance- but it just wasn't there for me. Especially the relationship development toward the end of the book (which I won't go into in full detail- but let's just say it was VERY out of the blue and VERY weird).

Lots of good reviews out there, but I was unable to connect with Nina, the main character. I am not sure if it was the British slang or our age gap, but I did not find it funny, just sad. This is definitely not a romance because there is no HEA. At some point Nina's stream of consciousness became tedious and boring to me, so I found myself skimming the pages. Basically the plot is about immature millennials, in this case males, but I imagine their are females who are also guilty, that are so self centered that the can't even make the effort to break up with the person that they have been seeing, but just disappear. Nina is a successful chief/writer, but after the break up with her long time boyfriend, she has stoop dating, until a friend convinces her to try a dating app. What follows is a year of mostly heart break with a man, but also with the illness that her father is suffering from.

I read an ARC supplied by NetGally.com. This is my unbiased and voluntary review.

DNF at 33%. I kept going back to give this one more chances based on a few close Bookstagram friends who really enjoyed it, but I just couldn’t connect with this story.

Thanks to Knopf for the copy of this book.