REVIEW: Ghosts by Dolly Alderton

A short review of Ghosts by Dolly Alderton.

I was gifted Dolly Alderton’s last book, Everything I Know About Love, for my 19th birthday and I read the entire thing in less than a day. Alderton writes in a way that captures the essence of being a woman of any generation and I was extremely excited when I heard that she was releasing her very first novel, Ghosts. While Ghosts is very different from Everything I Know About Love, it has a similar voice which I know very well now and continue to love. And although Ghosts was about a woman in her 30s figuring out what is supposed to be happening in her life at that stage, it was a look forward for me as a woman who has just entered her 20s.

Ghosts is the story of a woman named Nina, capturing her full 32nd year from birthday to birthday. She is a successful writer, living on her own in London, where she meets a wonderful man named Max, and everything seems to be just right. But don’t take this description the wrong way: Ghosts is not a typical romantic comedy where the heroine meets the love of her life, conflict ensues, until they find themselves back together in the end. Ghosts is about the heartbreak of losing people, partners, friends, parents, and losing them to babies, husbands, other loves, and illness. It’s about the real ghosts that permeate our lives every single day.

Ghosts is not only heartbreaking at times, but it is also comedically real at other times. Towards the beginning of the book, Nina downloads a dating app for the very first time, and while scrolling through it she analyzes the men she finds in a funny but almost too recognizable way. She finds the man whose entire personality revolves around the fact they’ve been to Vegas, the festival man, the man who lives on a houseboat, the man who feigns indifference, etc. I grew up in the time of dating apps, and just this past week I helped one of my best friends create a new account on Hinge. Having scrolled through person after person on many different phones and apps, I can say I recognized every single type Alderton wrote about. This is the way Alderton connects with the reader. By inserting small extremely recognizable bits in Nina, she makes you feel that the story is already familiar.

There were a few moments where I did not identify with the character of Nina. She seemed sometimes to put down other women who had chosen a different path from her, sometimes in a funny way and sometimes in a way that seemed to capture her desire to differentiate herself. While I appreciated the fact that Alderton represented a woman in her 30s who was successful while being unmarried without children, I did get frustrated by the main character’s need to sometimes put down others on a different path. While sometimes it can be powerful to bring out flaws in characters, these were flaws I felt were not needed to add depth to Nina. This did not detract enough from the story though to make me dislike Nina, as these moments were few and far between.

To sum up, Alderton manages to capture most of the magic from her first book. With few complaints, I am extremely excited to read her next book, and the next. I would recommend Ghosts as one of this year's must reads. Not to mention, as a short person, I found that Ghosts has one of my favorite book quotes of all time: “All tall people are smug whether they know it or not.”

4 STARS

Where to buy online:

https://www.waterstones.com/book/ghosts/dolly-alderton/9780241434543

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