Book Review | Ghosts by Dolly Alderton

 

Hey my lovelies, welcome back to a little bonus blog post this week! Today I thought I would share my thoughts with you all on my most recent read, Ghosts by Dolly Alderton. This book has been circulating bookstagram for a few months now so I knew I had to get my hands on it and find out what all the hype was about, so I popped it on my Christmas list and was lucky enough to open it from Santa on Christmas Day! Now, I have to admit I have not read Dolly Alderton's first book, Everything I Know About Love, but Ghosts is her first fiction so I thought that would be a good place to start. So without further ado, make sure you're comfortable, got your cup of coffee to hand and let's get into it!

Quick overview before we get into my thoughts. Ghosts follows the story of Nina, a 32 year old successful food writer living in her own apartment in London, trying to navigate her early 30's. With fading friendships, ex-boyfriends moving on, a mother falling into a mid-life crisis and a father becoming a ghost due to the devastating effects of dementia, when new love interest Max comes along and tells Nina on their first date that he's going to marry her, things start looking up. However, let's face it, it never works out that way! 

Without giving too much of the storyline away, as I think a lot of you would enjoy this one, this book 100% gives us women in our twenties a closer look into what is in store for us with the big 30. Particularly the worries of any woman: love, children, family, career, money, and even those annoying neighbours! Alderton deals with the dilemmas of the dating world with all things dating apps, online dating and love, along with a strong focus on female friendship and how these change and grow as we become older and enter different stages of our lives. It also explored the really interesting dynamic of the city vs. suburbs, and what each of them represent. The city as a place of excitement, fun and freedom, and the suburbs a symbol of stability, settlement and family. Although a slow burner and at times a bit slow, I really enjoyed Alderton's writing style and found it easy to read and accessible. There was nothing extravagant or shocking about this book, it was simple and understated, non offensive and just easy to get along with. During the middle, I did find I was becoming a bit despondent and waiting to read the next book on my #tbr, but then the last few chapters happened, and it completely changed the game for me. 

For me, the ending completely and utterly made this book, which I think is an incredibly hard thing for any author to do, let alone in their debut novel. As readers, we are often left feeling unfulfilled and disappointed with a lot of endings, but this one certainly did not do that. The chapters featuring Nina's Father are utterly heartbreaking, but I found myself wanting more of those as I became engrossed in their relationship more than any other relationship in the novel. Chapter 17 was beautiful, the dialogue, writing, and application really brought a tear to my eye and made me realise a lot of things about life which will stay with me for a long time. The final few chapters made me laugh out loud, cry tears of sadness, smile and brought the novel to the perfect closing. I also think the title is really clever and perfect for what this story entails, including: ghosting in dating, ghosts of old friendships and relationships, the ghost of Nina's Father as he slowly slips away, and the ghosts of our childhoods and the people we used to be. 

Overall, I rated the book a grand ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️, purely because of the ending. My one piece of advice if you do pick up this book and feel it starts dragging is persevere, because the ending is definitely worth the wait. After reading Ghosts I will definitely be picking up a copy of Everything I Know About Love and can't wait to read that and share my thoughts with you all. I am currently reading The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman and am hoping to get that finished before the end of the month, so keep your eyes peeled for the review which should be coming the first week of February. I also have another post going live on Friday where I'm sharing something super exciting with you all and the start of a new series over here on Faith, Trust and Lots of Books, so make sure to set your reminders for 3pm on Friday 👀! Sending you all lots of well wishes and I'll see you soon with another blog post. Lots of love xoxo