Having been a fan of Alderton's journalism for a few years I had high hopes for this book, thankfully I was not disappointed. A series of interwoven essays chronicling everything from romantic love, to navigating adolescence to loss to the greatest love of all - the love of good friends. I was happy to spend time in Dolly's inner circle and look forward to trying out the recipes peppered throughout. I laughed, I cried, I winced and I can't wait to read what Alderton does next.

Everything I Know About Love charts Dolly Alderton’s teens and twenties through love – unrequited love, messy love, short-term love, all-encompassing love – and takes the reader along for the ride as she comes to realise that she, alone, is enough.

What really stayed with me after I’d put the book down, though, was Dolly’s portrayal of the love of female friendships, from the high school friends that never leave us, to the friendships cemented over one too many drinks in university pubs. It was refreshing to read about a love that is often relegated to last place in public, left in the shadows in favour of the more romantic kind.

I laughed, I cried, and smiled my way through the book, nodding in recognition here and there, and immediately recommending it to all my friends when I was finished. The magical thing about Everything I Know About Love is that while on the one hand it’s about Dolly’s personal journey of growing up, it could just as easily be about any of our journeys to adulthood, too: women of all ages will be able to relate to the book, and will nod along, I’m sure, just like I did.

I don’t know how I first came across Dolly Alderton, but I’m glad I did. Her podcast The High Low, with Pandora Sykes, is one of my favourites. Everything I Know About Love* treats us to a deep-dive into Alderton’s experiences with romantic love, love in its other forms, drugs and alcohol, growing up or not growing up, as the case may be, finding the right work-life balance and figuring out how to be, well, herself.

If you enjoy memoirs of smart and funny women add Everything I Know About Love to your to-read list.

I rarely read books at the right time in my life but this was truly brilliant. Can’t put into words how much I enjoyed it but will be recommending to everyone.

I love reading brilliantly funny books by amazing women. I hadn't actually read anything previously by Dolly but as soon as I heard about the book and saw the cover I knew I had to read it. This reminds me of How to Murder your Life by Cat Marnell which was my favourite book last year. I loved the way Everything I Know about Love was laid out and how it could take you from laughing out loud to feeling such sorrow about the world. There was such a variety of stories in here but it told the story of the ups and downs of Dolly's life in just the right amount of detail. I'll definitely be looking out for more from her in the future.

Everything I Know About Love was a quick read - it is episodic and the supporting cast flies in and out Dolly's door quite quickly, in general. Dolly writes about her leisure world of booze and sex, a bit like Caitlin Moran, but not so accomplished a cultural critic, While work (writing, performing) is important to her, the details of work life is not even sketched in, leaving a hole at the centre.
Addictive and tell-all (though not a celeb in sight) I am sure anyone interested in reading about a London party girl and her friends and dates circa 2004-2015 will enjoy this book. A good insight into a definite personality type and reflection on a certain kind of education.

An engrossing and sparkling exploration of what it's like to learn about love, feel love and reflect on love.

I was already familiar with Dolly's work as a journalist, writer and broadcaster, but 'Everything I Know About Love' gave me a fresh appreciation. It's wry, witty and utterly immersive. Dolly's style is conversational and confessional, but never self indulgent.

It works as a coming of age memoir, but it's not restricted to that. It's thought provoking for any reader at any stage in their life. Anyone can pick I it up and find themselves nodding, laughing and crying as they whip through the chapters. It's infused with reflection, insight and an overwhelming sense of perceptiveness.

It's not overly focused on romantic love with a partner- it takes in much more than that. I can see myself buying copies of this to give as gifts, because this is one to be treasured.

Raw, truthful and – crucially – completely effortless to read, journalist and podcaster Dolly Alderton‘s memoir is an eloquent, witty, insightful book that just feels like you’re talking to a friend. Personally, I could relate to so much of what Dolly was saying, so I looked forward to dipping into it every time I had a spare minute.

This memoir sees Dolly delve into her mind-set towards love at different stages in her life. She recounts stories from her teenage years (hello, MSN Messenger) and through her twenties, including drunken university exploits that resulted in life-long friendships with wonderful women, fixating on the wrong men and fixating on alcohol to keep up her reputation as the ultimate party girl. She also discusses her quest to work out who exactly she is and her struggles with an eating disorder and anxiety (even these serious issues are so eloquently expressed, ‘this overwhelming anxiety had been in the post for a while and it had finally arrived.’) I especially enjoyed how she described her enduring love for her female friends and how these friendships developed through the years and shaped her adult life, ‘little did I know how much work it takes to sustain that kind of intimacy with a friend as you get older – it doesn’t just stick around coincidentally.’

She also peppers her memoir with recipes (this might seem random but makes sense within the context of the book!), anecdotes of bad dates, hilarious letters about the life events that all women seem to find themselves invited to and (whether they want to or not) partaking in (e.g. extortionate hen-dos, ridiculous baby showers and the ever more elaborate weddings), lists of what she has learnt at each stage in her life, including random facts that had me thinking, ‘yes, that’s exactly what I would consider a crucial life lesson.’ Example: ‘If you press shift and F3, it makes something either all capitals or all lowercase.’ I CANNOT tell you how happy I was when I also discovered this.

Overall, this is an enlightening, heart-warming book that made me feel great after reading due to its wonderful celebration of one of the most important types of love – female friendships. So many of my friends flitted through my mind while reading, and I’ll definitely be recommending this to them. Dolly’s writing is the perfect blend of caring sarcasm, if that isn’t too much of an oxymoron! I laughed, I cried, I was happy when she made her breakthroughs and could relate to her irrational take on certain situations. Hopefully, this is the first of many memoirs as I immensely enjoyed Dolly’s company. In short: I loved this book.

This is book is a gorgeously funny and occasionally heartbreaking memoir of love and friendship and what it was like to come of age in the new millennium. It is full of Dolly Alderton’s signiture wit and wisdom. A love letter to the people who shape us most - our friends.

It was a fun read, I liked that its an autobiography and liked the witty and humorous writing style. I can relate a lot of the MSN use in the days before wifi and the close knit circle that girls have growing up, thinking that time will never end. I lost a bit of patience around her jealousy when her best friend started her serious relationship, but I think we all did it! Maybe I am just a bit too old to find this book to be an entertaining read. I liked the book overall and found it to be clever and funny, I just didn't love it.

I have enjoyed Dolly’s dating column in the Sunday Times Style magazine and expected the book to be as fluffy as these articles. Dolly’s writing style is very easy to read but some of the subjects she deals with in this book are far from fluffy. As she had written a dating column, I thought the title of the book referred to romantic love, but the foundation of the book is the love between Dolly and her best friend. I have been left feeling quite maternal towards Dolly, perhaps because I am older than her, when I see tweets about drinking or partying I get concerned for her and hope she’s wrapped up warm enough and has someone to give her a lift home!

You'd think as a librarian I'd have realised that this was a biography/memoir as I was reading it, or I would have looked up the author or something, but no! It made a lot more sense when I realised that's what it was, because as a novel it wasn't hanging together very well at all!
I felt it was sort of okay...I know that sounds a bit wishy-washy, but basically there were some parts that I really enjoyed reading, and I felt were written very well, but then there were other parts that were either so self-indulgent they were dreadful, or they were sickeningly 'knowing' and/or sentimental to the point of being annoying.
I couldn't relate to Dolly's life...all the drugs, all the one night stands, all the chaos and wild parties and lack of control. I didn't like her much, or want to know any more about her, and I very nearly abandoned the book only part of the way in. But her best friend, Farly, intrigued me. I felt that I much preferred Farly, and I wanted to know more about her rather than about the writer.
Whilst I was reading I didn't understand the weird additions to the books - of strange (satirical) invites to hen parties of baby showers, and lists of things - they interrupted the text somehow. I felt that the book became easier to read as Dolly got older, and began to understand herself better. Yet whilst there were moments of real insight that felt good, at other times I felt like I was being bossed about by someone younger than me claiming to share everything she knows about love, and everything else in life.
So. Conflicted. It had good bits, and terrible bits. Maybe if I was 10+ years younger I'd identify more.

Everything to know about love according to this witty author has given the down-to-earth and realistic approach to her love life and also life itself. Through her straight-forward writing it was such an easy read and find yourself agreeing to the many things Dolly has encountered during her life. For her twenty-nine years of life she has truly been on an adventure for self discovery and in true honesty - it was great to tag along down memory lane as she documents her life till this day. She is definitely as "sister from another mister" and it truly felt I was sat down with a friend and she was giving me advice for the later years of life and what to encounter! A lovely page-turner of a book, where you shared her ups and smiling and you turned a page to her downs where your heart breaks for her! A great read and can't wait to see what next for this author!

I was hooked on this book from the first page: 'Everything I Know about Love' opens with a chapter about what it was like to live in the suburbs as a teenager in the era of MSN Messenger. I related to that so much: the way that early teenage years were spend hounding boys through messages and exchanging contacts with friends like treading cards.

The book goes on to explore all aspects of love, growing up in the early 2000s and into the 2010s. It covers drinking, casual sex, relationships, online dating, and friendship, all written in a way which is easy to relate to.

It's a fun read, with lots to recommend it.

I read the entire book not realising that it was autobiographical - doh! So it stands its ground as a novel or an autobiography! I'm not familiar with the author, although understand that she's quite a well known journalist.

I won't give anything away other than to say that it's an enjoyable read that sparked reminiscences (some good, some bad) of my own life here and there. That's always a sign of good writing I think!

I don't think the current young generation will understand some of the references, and their way of behaving is so different from my generation - but anyone over 30 will get it completely I think.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for allowing me to read an advance copy in return for my honest review.

A compulsive read, Doll's behaviour is at times shocking, sad and at other times, funny .A really well written memoir of a young person who seems to just want to enjoy life and her struggle to achieve just that. .The book provides another generation with a reason why the young of today behave as they do.

I have been a huge fan of Dolly Alderton's writing for a few years now and was beyond excited when I heard that she would be releasing a sort of autobiography/memoir. Her writing is so funny and poignant, I love how brutally honest she is, especially about herself and her own shortcomings. Really it's a story about female friendship and how that can often be among the greatest loves of your life, and certainly among myself and my group of late 20-something, early 30-something female friends I find that to be true. It more than surpassed my expectations, and I can only hope that she'll write more essays soon. Frankly, I'd read her shopping list, I think she's that good.

And I'd also like to add, despite having a 3 month old baby, I managed to devour this book in 2 days, and was thrilled to have it keep me company during the 2am breastfeeding slots!

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for an early release copy.

This is a hard book to review as the quality of the writing is quite good, but the subject matter - a memoir-esque take on the relationships of the writer’s teen, student and early 20s years is awful. There are pages and pages of drunken antics, interspersed with some interesting anecdotes or reflections, however as a whole the narrative is incredibly self-indulgent and irritating.

This seemed to be a book of two halves. I thought the book had finished in what appeared to be a series of essays in a this young woman's life. I realised that, although it appeared to finish it was only 50% of the way through. I found the second half a much easier read on the whole as it seemed more coherent and explored the realms of true friendship. The first half seem to jump about in a somewhat disturbed manner of a rather out of control individual who is trying too hard to fit in with drink, drugs and sexual conquests with dubious characters. The Dolly in the first half appeared to belong to one of those groups one would not want to meet with their loud high spirits with little regard for anyone else. There seemed to be quite a bit of repetition in content with an odd recipe thrown in for good measure. Having daughters of a similar age it was a little disturbing but some pieces I could relate to. There is a very poignant piece with how the young sister of one of Dolly's friends died in her late teens of leukemia and how this made these rather wayward individuals take a second look at their own lives. There were some slightly amusing elements but also some aggressive assertive letters from a friend about how one should behave at hen parties/weddings/baby showers. I feel, really I was probably too old to fully appreciate this book and a younger person may well enjoy it more.