Book Review: Ghosts, Dolly Alderton

Ghosts, Dolly Alderton

My rating: 5 stars

Everything gets easier in your thirties, right?

Though she has plenty to celebrate - successful career as a food writer, new home, loving friends & family - for Nina Dean, her thirties have not exactly been the liberating, uncomplicated experience she was sold. From fading friendships to exes popping the question, everyone is moving on (or worse, to the suburbs) & as her dad slowly loses his memories, her mum seems dead set on making new ones. 

Then she meets Max, who tells her on date one that he’s going to marry her. But what seems like an exciting development will ensure this year is Nina’s strangest yet. 

Once again, I am flummoxed by the ability of a blurb to paint the most boring picture of a book. Ghosts is magnificent, & that blurb does nothing to portray it. Alderton is a genius when it comes to electric descriptions & real in-heart feeling. The way she characterises Nina is sensational. The thirty-something woman feels right at home inside your head. Her opinions feel nuanced & deeply-interrogated. Her witty charm & clever brain make for a compelling protagonist. You are behind Nina Dean all the way. 

I read Everything I Know About Love after I finished university & found myself presented with the vast expanse of The Future. I’ve had Ghosts up on my shelf for a while, & once again seemed to pick it up at the perfect time. 

There are many similarities I found between my own way of thinking, & Nina’s. A creative, wordsmith of a person, with a deep care for her friendships. Her reactions to the men of dating apps could frankly have been picked out of my own head. The red flags in meeting man from a dating app her enthusiastic friend Lola dictated to her brought up a big old “oh yeah” in me: 

“One of them was that men were completely incapable of choosing or even suggesting a place for a date. I found this sort of apathetic, adolescent, can’t-be-arsed,useless-intern-says-he-still-doesn’t-know-how-to-use-the-printer attitude an immense turn-off.” (26) 

From someone who has spent far too much of my life pottering about after other people, this was kindred music to my spirited ears (eyes? Do you hear the words in your head as you read?) 

Nina’s friendship with Lola reminded me of mine & my three best friends. We tell each other everything, & not a drop of detail is left out. It allll goes into the melting pot of our collected stories. The conversations they have are crazy & wonderful & ultimately they care so much for each other. They are the surrogate couple in their group of friends, & I am very much attached to the idea that my best friends are my true soulmates. 

The whole Max element of Ghosts really reinforced my fear of commitment (can I get an lmaooo). The excitement & energy & electricity (all the Es) that a new connection can bring genuinely blinds you & can leave you feeling more like yourself & completely separate from yourself at the same time. I think there is a huge element of denial, delusion & deception (wow, all the Ds) in a relationship for it to work. 

Nina’s description that when we say ‘I love you’ actually being ‘I imagine you’ really hits the nail on the head. You have to be willing to let yourself get swept up & go along with the magic for it to be special, you literally cannot be practical when it comes to these things. Letting go of that is what I’m so afraid of (ha!). Max & Jethro’s treatment of these incredible women reignites the fear they have of letting themselves be seen. All they want is to love & be loved, but how much can you really love someone, if you’re imagining them in front of you? They may be really there, but your eyes blend & bleed to see what you want to see. It works both ways, hence why the blanket of delusion has to remain. 

“Being a heterosexual woman who loved men meant being a translator for their emotions, a palliative nurse for their pride and a hostage negotiator for their egos.” (108) 

By far the most heartbreaking part of the story (the whole man-ghosting-situation is frankly far too mundane to have properly choked me up) was the mental decline of her father. I think the day we start to see our parents as people rather than just extensions of our lives is a weird and momentous shift for anyone. The almost servant-like qualities to these figures shift, & suddenly you don’t rely on them in the same way, or they start to rely on you. You notice times when they can’t be relied upon, when they frustrate you in a whole new way. 

The way Alderton has Nina describe her relationship to her father, the way she pens the heartbreak Nina feels at being one sided in his memories, absolutely broke me. I was sobbing on the sofa with a cat asking for pets & looking at me strangely. What are these salty streams tumbling down from beneath the puddles of glass in front of your eyes? It was gut wrenching to see Nina battle with her mother, both acting out of fear, to see her father’s brain begin to trip him up, to frustrate him. It hurt so much to read, & it was done so beautifully. 

At the end of it all, we are left with hope. Hope springs in the hearts of our friends, that they’ll have our back & our best even as they all grow up & start new chapters in their own lives. Our books will still sit together on the shelf. I’m excited to continue to grow up with my loved ones, to explore more of myself, my career, more books, more music, more streets & pubs & friends & everything. I can’t wait to hold my friends’ hands as they welcome home babies & walk down the aisle. To sing with them, to cry with them, to laugh with them.

“I close my eyes & think of all the paths that lie ahead, none of which I can see yet. None of which I can plan for, only walk towards with faith.” (336) 

I guess I’m just excited for all the good & all the bad. I’m going to recommend this book to everyone.