I should begin by saying that I'm in my late 40s and probably not the author's audience for this particular offering on love, dating apps and what's important in life in your early 30s when you are wealthy and entitled ensconced in North London. Nonetheless many friends have enjoyed the author's columns and previous non fiction offering, so I wanted to give it a try. It isn't for me. The protagonist is strikingly (painfully) similar to the author herself. . . not that there is anything wrong with that but as others reviews have mentioned it feels like that at times it is possibly a rehash of columns and other features she has written. I've often noticed that when established columnists turn to write fiction they stick to what they know, namely their own lives ... and it doesn't always work. Even worse there doesn't seem to be a strong enough narrative around which the book hangs. I did think about whether to leave a review or not, but I want to be honest and I have no doubt the author will progress and evolve with her fiction writing career.

Not for me.
I hadn’t heard of this author, but the synopsis was appealing and I thought it would be a book I would enjoy.

I really struggled with this book – it just didn’t hold my interest. I’m quite surprised with the high ratings this book has received as I found it hard going and found it quite boring. .The story didn’t have a plot and as such doesn’t have a strong storyline - and flits from one thing to another, which makes it difficult to keep engaged.

I received this book from NetGalley in return for an unbiased review. Thank you NetGalley.

“For years, we’d been told finding love was like an impossible quest of endurance, timing and luck. I thought you had to go to awful pop-up events and specialist bookshops; keep your eyes peeled at weddings and on the tube; strike up conversation with other solo travellers whenever you were abroad; get out of the house four nights a week to maximize your chances. But none of those strategic man-hours were needed any more –  we didn’t have to put in the time like we used to.”

This is my first Dolly Alderton book and I was not disappointed. I’ve had Everything I Know About Love on my TBR for ages but never got around to it. I was approved on @netgalley to read this.

While I did enjoy the book I found myself confused with the last couple of chapters. The story follows Nina who has been Ghosted by several people - a new boyfriend, her best friend and her father who is ill. I flew through this book and enjoyed reading about a character who loved working and probably put family life on hold for that reason. Nina is the modern woman.

The book also covers modern dating via dating apps and I think portrays them in a realistic light. It’s easy to match with someone but modern technology makes it even easier to “ghost” someone.

I don’t want to give too much away as I try to avoid spoilers but Nina does rekindle two of her ghosted relationships and I think the most important one does work out for her.

Gobbled it in a day!
I hadn't read a single book in lockdown (2020) despite averaging 1-2 books a week in normal times. So when I was reminded I had preordered 'Ghosts' many months previous (love Dolly Alderton from the High Low podcast) I had a looming sense of sadness it would sit on the shelf gathering dust like the rest of my unread books. When it arrived on publication day I absent mindedly read a few pages of the prologue. 2am and I had devoured the whole thing! Unputdownable! I really liked the main character, Nina, for her strength and humour, and the subject matter is surely one close to a lot of the hearts of us singles. The descriptions of vapid and cruel nature of online dating were painfully true, though I think there are regional variations (i.e. if you're not a Londoner). It was so relatable I just had to read one more chapter until there weren't any left! I had to see how it played out between Nina and Max, though if you've ever spent any length of time in that world.. you probably know. I'm glad the author gave the protagonist some sort of cathersis, even if it wasn't directed towards the source of her own pain. I also liked the subplot with Nina's noisy downstairs neighbour, Angelo, which really did keep me guessing (hint: it is NOT Emily in Paris!). An engaging and addictive tale about a sadly increasingly common phenomenon in modern dating, glued together with the signature friendships where the authors heart really shines through. Thanks Dolly for reminding me of my love of reading!

I was in two minds over what I thought about this book.

On the one hand was the more humorous, feisty millennial protagonist, Nina, who was balancing her career, her changing friendships, her aging parents and her need for a relationship.

On the other, was the needy and selfish millennial protagonist, Nina, who was obsessing over a man who has ‘ghosted’ her, focuses on how she feels abandoned by her friend (who is now married and has a child) and doesn’t seem to view the world beyond herself.

There was some wonderful, laugh out loud moments, particularly from Lola, Nina’s only single and very outspoken friend (‘Lola, what’s your love language?’ Franny asked, her chin coyly resting in the palm of her hand. Lola shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Anal, probably), and these just about managed to balance my frustrations at, what I felt was, a lack of real character from Nina.

I did like the story line about how Nina learns to cope with her dad’s dementia and is the only time I really had sympathy for her. However, I wanted to shout at Nina for her selfishness, complaining about the changes in her best friend, Katherine, and her mum and how it has affected her, but not thinking that maybe there were reasons behind this and by just being supportive and asking after them, she could maybe find out what had caused this and maybe support them.

An okay book, but not one I would recommend.

Thank you to Netgalley for this ARC, read in exchange for an honest review.

Starts off like piece by a witty journalist with a gift for observation - very enjoyable and funny - and soon turns into a much darker story that sounds as if it has a weight of painful personal experience behind it. Although extremely sad, it is also thought-provoking and in its way, educational.

Thought provoking, funny, poignant, dark, light, sharp, quick, enticing - my thanks to Penguin/Fig Tree for the reading copy.

I adored this book so much.
This book was so real, yet so uplifting - fantastic and the perfect escape from life- buy this book!!!

A enjoyable book, and I really liked each of the characters, apart from Max! I felt like he had let me down personally, and was quite disappointed by the ending of this book.

I think it's an highly entertaining and poignant novel,, very well written and engaging.
Nina is a sad and funny character, an interesting and fleshed out character I loved.
This book is complex and I loved how the author deals with friendship, grief, dementia.
It's an excellent debut and I hope to read another book by this author soon.
It's highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine

An enjoyable read! The book starts off with an amusing character observing pretty much everything, anything, and everyone around her, which is a reminder of the number of things that we bypass every single day and don't pay attention to. She is truly gifted for observation. At the start of the book, you'll think that the character has got a perfect life but as the book goes on, she shows off her lonely side. So now to the good, bad and the ugly...

Good: the book describes the life of a young girl trying to find love whilst all her friends are in a relationship; par one. The book explains how hard it is to find love and how easy it is to lose it and the different stages of feelings that people go through once the love is no longer there.

Bad: the main character is supposed to be a cookbook writer... however, there's hardly anything in the book about food. She hardly cooks and there's not much (or hardly any) content about her column(s) in the magazines or the people that she's interviewed.

Ugly: what happened to the characters at the end? I found the situation between her and Angelo super weird... from total enemies to a random one-night stand and friendship?

Overall, I did enjoy the book but would have expected slightly a bit more at the end.

I really enjoyed this book. It was different from what I would normally read but I loved the storyline. It was sad in parts and one scene seemed a little unbelievable but I loved most of this book. I hope Dolly writes another novel!

This was a great book, hard to believe it's the author's debut novel. Cracking writing and storyline, the book made me laugh and cry as it laid bare the pain of finding love in the era of online dating and the changing face of friendships as you get older. It also dealt compassionately with tough subject matter like dementia and difficulties of family relationships.

Grab a sauvignon blanc and settle in for a few evenings of meaningful entertainment

I enjoyed this book although I found it slow at the start. I liked the main character and the story was believable

Nina Dean, a thirtysomething successful author, is ready to start dating again - and she meets a man who seems to be perfect for her. If this seems like a book you would not like to pick up, stop right there, because it is much more than that. Dolly Alderton writes not only about love, relationships and loneliness but also about losing your loved one. Nina's father is suffering from dementia, and throughout the book Nina is trying to reconcile her memories of her funny, smart father with the confused man he's become. These were the fragments that I found the most interesting and moving. Whereas my personal experiences (and choices) would be different to the ones of the main character, I am sure many readers could relate to them. There is a lot of laughter and sadness in this book, as Nina deals with the lack of closure in a painful end to her relationship, loneliness and family problems - I did not expect that and it really made me like the book more.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with an ARC.

I loved this book! It was so beautifully written and incredibly relatable.

I just loved Nina and her friend Lola and it took me no time at all to get sucked in and desparate to find out how Nina would navigate through her life.

It's the kind of book that makes you decide to have a bath over a shower, just so you can keep reading!

Will definitely be gifting this to some people for christmas.

Loved this! At its heart a really modern take on the quest for love and the perils of dating apps, the novel delves beyond romantic relationships and looks at bonds between a child (now grown up) and their parents, and friendships between women. As the only one of my school friendship group not in a relationship, while the rest move away from our city, move in with partners etc, I found I could relate quite a bit to Nina's plight. At times sad and painfully relatable but there's a lot of humour throughout. I really enjoyed it.

I could not resist the description of this book: thirty-two year old Nina Dean is a cookery writer who finds herself ghosted by her boyfriend of three months, a seemingly perfect man, who has just told her he loves her for the first time. Then I found out the goddess, Nigella Lawson apparently loved this novel and that sealed the deal. Dolly obvs has legions of fans (when I programmed an event with her during my days at @waterstonesgowerstreet tickets went almost instantly, the fastest selling event in my entire career of event management) and reading this novel, it's not hard to see why. It taps into some very specific truths about heteronormative relationships, the way gender politics play out on the dating scene and the codes of behaviour women are expected to adhere to in order to be deemed 'attractive'. I've found myself highlighting so many lines; eg. 'Why was a sprinkling of the patriarchy so good when it came to dating? I resented it. It was like good sea salt  –  just a tiny dash could really bring out the flavour of the date and it was so often delectable.' ,(wincingly true in my case 😬) GHOSTS has elegance, heart and humour - it's been a treat to read, scrolling through on my Kindle app ferociously as I put my son to bed each night.

Readers of Dolly Alderton's first book "Everything I Know About Love" will really enjoy this book. All those things that I nodded my head to in that book are further explored in her first novel. It's really relatable and I found that I really related to the main character Nina. Admittedly, there were things that she said and did that made me eye roll slightly, but on the whole, she felt really familiar. One of the primary focuses of the novel is the ghosting trend that has appeared thanks to the growing popularity of dating apps. I've been ghosted personally in the past and the way that it affected Nina and how she dealt with it really resonated with me. I saw myself a lot in that part. As well as this, it explores familial relationships, particularly with a parent whose memory is fading, which must be really difficult. Nina had a lot to deal with, on top of balancing her friendships, when her friends were all at different stages in life. So tricky for her to navigate.
I found this a little slow to get into, but once I got passed the first 50 or so pages, I was hooked and flew through it in a weekend. I'd really recommend.

A true to life, fabulous debut novel!!

It was so easy to get lost in this book. I was laughing out loud one minute, then feeling heartbroken the next. The story is so relatable and has some wonderful characters and some I'd like to have punched 😂

If you're looking for a book that uplifts you and makes you feel proud to be a strong female...this is for you. It made me feel happy I have my true love ♥️