#Ghosts #NetGalley

I received this advanced copy from NetGalley, and it in no way impacts my opinion.

I wasn't sure what to expect with this book. It's not my typical read. But I was so sucked in by Alderton's talent. She writes these whip smart observations that are simultaneously recognizable and something I'd never thought of. The books makes you want to say, "YES! Totally!" because of how it cuts to the core of adult relationships of all sorts- romantic, friendship, and family. I can see this being many people's new favorite read!

Successful author Nina Dean is at a point in her life where all of her friends are now married with children, and she feels them slipping away. So when she meets Max on a dating app, the timing couldn’t be more perfect. With everything changing around her at least she’ll have a fun new relationship to hold on to. Until even Max disappears. Who said being an adult would be fun?

I have mixed feelings with this book. While well written with a lot of humor, and mostly pretty relatable, I also found it to be a very bleak and depressing outlook on life. A little too cliche, man hating, and negative for me maybe? I realize life isn’t always sunshine and roses, but a little light and hope is healthy too.

I really enjoyed Nina’s relationship with her mother and father, and how they navigated her father’s declining health.

Even though I was left feeling like Nina’s story didn’t really move forward, there are some good funny moments mixed in to this quick and easy read.

*Thank you to Netgalley and Knopf Doubleday Publishing for providing me with a copy of this book.

Poor Nina, she should be having the time of her life, being in her early thirties, able to successfully leave her full time teaching job and support herself by writing, and purchasing her own flat in London. Instead she is miserable, harshly judging her married friends as Stepford wives, while building up a boyfriend into something more than what he is. While I found the writing to be beautiful, I found the story to be a bit depressing from her father’s decent into dementia, her mother’s denial, Nina’s failed romances and dismal friendships. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me to read this book. This one was not for me, it I would read something else by the author. The writing was lyrical.

This book confused me. The writing was excellent, but I could not tell what this story was trying to be. I guess the best way to describe it is like an early draft of a novel trying to re-do Bridget Jones’ Diary with the present day stressors of 30 something life. Unfortunately, it was not at all fun or funny. It was bleak.

The scenes about the father who is losing his grasp on reality as he ages were the most poignant, and I appreciated the friendship with Lola. But overall this novel was entirely too depressing.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for providing a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I have no idea what I just read. It certainly wasn't a romance. It was rambling and depressing.

Thank you NetGalley for the opportunity to read this in return for an honest review.

Nina is 32 at the start of this story. Over the course of the year, we follow her as her father slips into dementia, her mother rebels, her heart gets broken twice, and most of her friends turn Stepford as they marry and begin families. This is the story of a young woman coming to an understanding of life, being shaped by it, and maturing.

The story begins slowly, with Nina simply living her life and opining cynically on almost everything in it. She’s funny but seems intolerant. At about the 25% point, I wasn’t sure I wanted to continue. I didn’t understand what Nina wanted, or what the obstacles were. In spite of skepticism, she lets her quirky, big-hearted but impractical friend, Lola, talk her into using a dating app. Right away she lands a guy, and that goes so well I began to question what this story was even about. I snuck over to Goodreads to find out what people were saying about it. Some were harsh, finding fault with things that seemed nitpicky (Nina’s “wokeness”? Her inconsistent statements about feminism? I think the whole point was that she was evolving. Who wants to be quoted from their early thirties?)

Although I had misgivings, I was intrigued by Nina’s normalcy. Often, a story starts with a main character who clearly needs to change. This wasn’t the case here. Nina lived happily alone, was a successful cookbook author, and didn’t desperately need to find a guy. She was cool with herself, and that appealed to me. If nothing else, I wanted to know more about what a life like that would look like. Besides, I liked Nina’s voice. She was wry and funny (wondering if she left her laptop tabs open to something embarrassing when new man was on his way to her place, like “how much nipple hair normal age 32?”)

And then I got hooked. Things started to happen to Nina that challenged and shaped her, and by the end of the book, I was so impressed with the subtlety of her evolution, and with the beautiful writing. Nina has realized many of her actions are to distract herself from the reality of her father’s decline and impending death. The theme, stated quietly by Nina’s mother, (and later, in a rare moment of pseudo-lucidity by Dad,) was that you win in life if you keep moving forward through whatever happens, because you’ll never be able to control it.

Nina’s mother: “All of those websites that make you obsess over ‘who you are’ and how to explain it to everyone...In our day, ‘who you are’ was just the thing that happened when you got out of bed and got on with the day.”

The writing in this book is beautiful; the metaphors are bittersweet. Characters are unique, descriptions are sensual and fresh. But the observations by Nina about life, as she comes to grips with various things happening to her, are so poignant. Here is Nina thinking about moving on from childhood and learning to make your way in the world, how hard it is, and how potentially painful:

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 for that until the day we die. I remained in the square a little longer, waiting (she runs through childhood memories of her parents coming for her after school, in time for dinner, etc.)...(Now) It was just before midnight. It was cold. I was an adult woman with a mortgage, a career, and a life full of responsibilities. I was a little girl with a dying dad. And I didn’t know where I wanted to go. I miss home. I miss home. I miss home.”

In watching Nina navigate her thirty-third year, I was reminded of what it felt to be that age, remembering the challenges, how difficult and painful it was. We talk about youth being so good, but damn, it’s a character-builder.

By the end of this book, I had the sense the author was trying to encourage us to just live our lives the best we can, even if we can’t control what happens. And that felt like a gift.

Thanks to NetGalley for letting me preview this beautiful story.

Thank you NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this book. The first off putting part of this book is the overly long and boring prologue. I found this book to be overly descriptive. I think it might be a good book for people who like flowery prose and every minute detail described to them. The story has a lot going on and I found myself skimming long portions. I am sure this book will have lots of readers as it is really about the characters and just living life, which will apple to a certain audience. However, it was too long winded for me.

Ghosts is a gem that proves Dolly Alderton can do no wrong. The writing style is airy and matter-of-fact while the tone manages to be acerbic yet sincere. The main plot of the book deals with the trials and tribulations of heterosexual dating in the age of dating apps with refreshing, if at times depressing awareness. It's satisfying as a young woman to see such a perfect depiction of being torn between the death of childhood and the fearful unknown of adulthood, or the loneliness of singledom into the delusion of a desperate infatuation or the committed devotion of companionship. Any and all twentysomething / thirtysomething women will appreciate Alderton's candor and contemplation of the emotional emptiness of modern dating.

I received a copy of this novel from the publisher via NetGalley.

The humour in this novel worked for me really well, and I found the passages about Nina coming to terms with her father's dementia very moving. It was a pleasure to read about a woman who remained a good friend and daughter, and continued to do her job well and remuneratively, despite all the trials the narrator threw at her. I particularly enjoyed Lucy's hen weekend and the psychopathic downstairs neighbour.

I would recommend this novel as an interesting blend of thoughtfulness and nonsense, with a hopeful ending.

I did really like this book. Ghosts by Dolly Alderton gives a new perspective on adult relationships but not just the normal type of relationships but also friend and family relationships. The book goes over how hard friend and family relationships become when you reach adulthood and how to overcome them.

I feel like this book is trying to be too many things, and because of that it really doesn't deliver fully on anything that it tries to touch on. There are a lot of relatable things to be found in this book, being "older" and trying to date, though being early 30s myself I feel as though I am not old enough to be looked at as ancient yet, parents getting into their retirement years, and just the every day coping that needs to be done.

I don't think that the humor was for me either. It was dry and far between, so touting it as a romantic comedy seems off to me. I feel like this book should have been right in my wheelhouse, but it failed to live up to the expectations. What should have been uplifting in the end made me feel sad and a little hollow.

I did like the main character however, and found her to be relatable in some ways which is good and maybe if I were in the same positions as her I could be a little more into this. However, as is, the writing is decent and the characters are great but it felt like a "comedy" of errors rather than a "rom-com" that is being mentioned and because of that I am not 100% into it.

**Thanks to Netgalley and Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group for the ARC in exchange for an honest review**

I very much enjoyed this … could easily have fallen into the Bridget Jones chick lit trope (not that there’s anything wrong with that), but instead the author has crafted something even better. No straightforward fairy tale, but real adult situations in the age of digital relationships. I adored the characters and the “feels true” London locale. Would definitely recommend for a great summer read. Thank you to Netgalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review!

B-o-r-i-h-g! I can't believe I finished it! Too descriptive, not in the least bit funny...she rambled aimlessly and I had a hard time finding out just what this story was about! The only reason I read on, was the fact her father had dementia and my mother does as well. It was painful to finish!

This was my first book by this author. While I thought her writing was quite good, I thought the plot and direction of said writing was seriously lacking. The writing makes me want to try a different book of hers, but the content makes me nervous. Sometimes I can read a book that I enjoyed until the ending and not feel it was a waste of my time, even though I hated the ending. At the end of this book, I felt like my time had been wasted. I wished I’d read something else instead.

I found this book very enjoyable. A relatable tale of life in your 30s and today dating scene, parents aging, and friendship.

A clever lighthearted funny story with emotional insight.

Interesting book about the past or who you want someone to be in relationships and life and learning to let go of the past.

Thank you to NetGalley for the copy, given in exchange for my honest review.

Dolly Alderton's Ghosts is a book I could relate with, on probably too many levels if I'm honest with myself. The thirties are a tricky decade for a lot of people - friends are getting married or having children (or you are and your friends are not), you are old enough to glimpse the years ahead with your parents (welcome to your role as tech support!) and the reality that they are likely beginning the (hopefully slow) decline into their sunset years, and technology has made it simultaneously easier to meet people to date and harder to know people. What a time to be alive!

The main character, Nina, navigates a year in her early thirties with a relatable honesty and dry humor. She encounters obstacles to nearly every type of relationship in her life and has to decide what is worth the effort to maintain and what to cut loose. If you can relate to these growing pains, you can probably recognize very few people come out the other end unbruised, and Nina is no exception. It was worth my while to read about Nina's journey if for no other reason than to give me a reason to be grateful for my late forties! Fortunately, Alderton's unfiltered honesty and humor were additional reasons to enjoy my time spent with Nina.

I could not get into this one. I don’t think it was bad writing or the story. I just believe it’s not my type of book. I do want to thank Net Galley for giving me the opportunity.

This really touches on some of the major life stuff that happens and changes when you’re in your late twenties/early thirties. From being single after a long term relationship to dealing with a parents health slowly declining, it’s really just an emotional and challenging rollercoaster.
I also love the way it sneaks in the element of personal history that everyone who is dating, brings to a new relationship.

As life does too, it paints the picture how important it is to roll with the punches and follow what you think is best.

After a long drought of so-so reads, I’m so thankful to have come across this work. It reads so beautifully and possesses a sense of real ness. The characters are truly relatable, their relationships feel true and are easy to consume. The plot is less scripted; it has a natural way of flowing which feels so much like life itself. I have to say, this was a wonderful read and I would sincerely recommend it.