I enjoyed this way more than I expected to. Something about the writing hooked me immediately and I thoroughly enjoyed every minute with this book.

The story is so relatable. The writing flowed perfectly and I laughed out loud so many times.

Highly recommend!

5 STARS

Dolly Alderton's debut novel is funny and tender, filled with whip-smart observations about relationships, family, memory, and how we live now.

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Let me preface this with the note that although I am prone to emotion in films (and obveously real life) it is rarer for me to be when I read books. This book made me laugh and cry in equal amounts. GHOSTS is not only about being ghosted, but also the ghosts of our past and the expectations we had built up about our future. It is also about the ghosts of memories and friendships.

GHOSTS is definitely not your typical rom-com, and if you think that's what you're getting when you pick it up, you will be sorely disappointed. Thankfully, I absolutely loved every page of it.

Also, Max is a douche canoe. Full stop.

Thank you to @sweetreadsbox for including this in their August box!

I adored this book! From beginning to end I found myself laughing, crying, and feeling all the feels. I was constantly taking screenshots of quotes that spoke to me. I have an entire folder on my phone of Ghosts quotes that were just so poet and beautiful and raw and heartbreaking and real. I read this on e-book and I am immediately going out to buy a physical copy. This book deals with some heavy stuff but I found it to be balanced well with comedic relief. What I really liked was the diverse exploration of relationships - with parents, with past lovers, with current lovers, with friends old and new. I am just obsessed. Please read this book!!

"Sometimes, when I felt despondent, I liked to calculate how many minutes of my remaining life I would spend removing upper lip hair if I lived until I was eighty-five and think about how many languages I could have learnt in that time".

"There was the evidence, in all these profiles, where who we really are and who we'd like everyone to think we are were in such unsubtle tension. How clear it suddenly was that we are all the same organs, tissues and liquids packaged up in one version of a million clichés, who all have insecurities and desires; the need to feel nurtured, important, understood, and useful in one way or another. None of us are special. I don't know why we fight it so much".

"The contents of supermarket baskets are surely evidence that none of us are coping with adulthood all that well".

This book is a great read, I am likely the target audience (early 30s, female) and could really hear lots of my own thoughts through the writing.

I loved reading Dolly Alderton's Sunday Times columns when I lived in the UK and this didn't disappoint. It's a quick, fun, easy read - perfect to pick up for a summer vacation!

Thank you to Netgalley and Penguin Random House Canada, Doubleday Canada for a copy of the ARC in return for my honest review.

While we can all identify with some aspect of Nina's story but there seems to be a lot going on where at times there's too much to follow or retain. With that being said it's an honest and sometimes brutal look at relationships and how we rarely ever know what's going on. Read it if you need to find your place or tribe.
I received an advanced copy of this book from Netgalley for my honest opinion.

It’s like a modern take Bridget Jones, without the diary entries. It’s incredibly relatable in sentiment, if not also in situation. While I cannot relate to the struggles of dating in your thirties, I can certainly relate to the inner turmoil, the second (and third) guessing on action or inaction, the search for contentment, the digging for a sense of self, the imposter syndrome of adulthood, the friendships, the many realizations of aging, the compartmentalizing particular aspects of your life to meet the needs in other facets - I could go on. It’s an honest portrayal of all of the above, and I think that there is some vein of this story with which most women could find a connection to.

This book extricated a lot of different feelings from me; I laughed out loud, I was somber, I was frustrated, sometimes I was M A D at Nina or her actions, occasionally I was really sad, sometimes I was like “girl, SAME” - this book brought out the whole colour palette of emotional camaraderie from me. I appreciated that the characters were messy, and flawed, and... well, realistic.

It’s a book that I will likely think about, and of, for quite a while. It somehow felt topical but timeless in its own right, and for me, it really hit the spot.

Many thanks to Penguin Random House and Net Galley for this digital advanced readers copy.

~👩🏻‍🦰

Thank you Penguin Random House Canada for sharing a copy of Ghosts by Dolly Alderton with me for review.

This one just did not work for me. I loved the summary but in the end the characters fell really flat for me. The main character had zero personality outside of who she was in a relationship which was a shame because she could have been a fun character. She had a really interesting sounding career and was newly single in London and all we got was ex-boyfriends and a really awful new one.

This one was maybe just not meant for me.

Such a fun book. Loved the characters and loved the city adventures and loved the romantic calamity of it all. Just a girl in her mid thirties trying to navigate a world where he friends are getting married and online dating is not all it’s cracked up to be. Caring for ailing parents while trying to sort out her life. I think many people would be able to relate to this story. Light hearted and funny. Resilience at its finest.

Thank you NetGalley for this arc

I freaking adored this book! I couldn't get enough of it, gobbling the entire thing up in just a few sittings.

Nina George Dean, born August 3rd 1986, is the protagonist in Dolly Alderton's debut novel. She's a highly relatable and witty food writer with one book out and two more on the way. I got a good sense of who Nina was from the opening chapter, constructing an image of her in my mind as I thought about her moving around her Archway flat in London, or of her swimming in the rain in the ladies pond at Hampstead Health, being ordered to get by the lifeguard, for fear the lightening would "fry me like a rasher of bacon."

Alderton's writing and sense of humour had me laughing in just a couple of pages, and kept me entertained from cover to cover.

The book opens on Nina's 32nd birthday, and the reader follows her as she gets ready, joins some friends down at the pub, and eventually retires at home where she downloads Linx, a popular dating app with "the highest yield of eligible men and the best success rate for matching long term relationships." This is the perfect day for Nina, and the start of the strangest year of her life.

Nina Dean is so completely charming, as is Lola, another character in the book, who just whipped my heart out of my chest. The character development in Ghosts is fantastic, and so is the storyline. By the end of the book, I felt like Nina was a close friend of mine. Anyone who has ever been on a dating app and/or been ghosted will find this book relatable, heartwarming, and deeply hilarious.

Ghosts is the kind of novel you won't be able to put down. It came out in the UK last year and went straight to number 1 on the best selling charts, and I can see why.

I absolutely loved Ghosts, and I think you will too! Chuffed this book is finally coming to Canada and the US.

I really enjoyed this book! The characters, the story line. Just not the men lol. What a perfect summer read!

I finally understand all the hype around Dolly Alderton! This was a delightful book, I found it really easy and interesting to read through.

The characters were really complex, and the way problems unfolded were awesome to read about.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I loved this book, I loved the characters, the story...mostly not the men though! This is a perfect summer read with a little more depth than most of the titles with that label. I have never read Dolly Alderton before but I will in the future, she is a wonderful, honest writer.