Nina is in her early thirties, is generally doing okay in life, and meets Max, who tells her he's going to marry her on the first date. It feels like everything is going to plan. For a while, at least.

An easy and quick read touching on relationships of all kinds, family, shifting dynamics and inevitable changes of live and the shitshow that can come with time passing, in particular cases more so for women. It was good.

Alderton writes friendship excellently, and expresses the imperfectness of everybody in the characters she designs. Given that these ideas are at the heart of her journalism, this is no surprise, but there were moments in the story of 'Ghosts' when I - unexpectedly, and unwillingly - found myself positioning the author as protagonist (fuelled in part by the fact it is written in the first person, I think). I am rather loathe to admit this because I know that if I had come to the novel less familiar with Alderton's non-fiction writing then this thought would never have crossed my mind. Overall, 'Ghosts' is a solid piece of popular fiction. It represents the multi-modal connectivity of modern life - texting, dating apps et al. - in a particularly elegant way, and the story is captivating. On occasion, I found some of Alderton's meandering, introspective descriptions to be a little too much, in contrast to the simple, character-led narrative. Conversely, the representation of Alzheimer's in the novel is exceptionally poignant and well-written, its pain and complexity is unresolved - as someone who has experienced this with a family member, I found this storyline moving and comforting.

Superior enjoyable book with a writing style that flowed beautifully and made you think. I really enjoyed Nina Dean's story and Dolly Alderton writes with assurance.

I have to admit I had low expectations for this book, assuming that Dolly Alderton was another of those authors who only gets book deals on account of being popular at the moment and having an existing social media following. I also expected it to be full of chick-lit clichés. However, I was pleasantly surprised and I think this might be one of my favourite books I've read this year. Alderton is clearly a good writer. She just 'gets' all those feelings and fears about being in your 20s/30s and expresses them in a way that you feel seen. The parts of this book that encompass a fear of being alone, of growing older, of losing your parents without a significant other by your side give it such depth. Alongside this, the descriptions of daily life in its mundanity, humour, etc are so entertaining and relatable. I think one of my favourite parts is that the main character is very grounded - they have a clear sense of who they are, they react to things in a normal way, they are a good friend, a good neighbour (the part about writing down details of a suspected domestic incident in the flat below them on paper, with time/date in case it becomes relevant to police) .. I suspect it comes from Alderton's personality and strong sense of self, and it brought a really engaging sense of reality to the book. Would recommend.

I was first attracted to this book as the author gained such critical acclaim for her first offering; ‘Everything I know about love.’ I was intrigued by the modern interpretation of the pursuit of meaningful, romantic relationships through dating apps. Nina is our protagonist whom encounters ‘ghosts’ in both metaphorical and existential circumstances. The exploration of Nina’s life through her relationships with friends and family made this book particularly engaging, heat-warming and moreover, relatable.

As with such, there were times where her resolve and patience for her revenant partner became almost pitiful- I wanted her to want more for herself- a great ploy by the author to induce investment in this well-to-do character. I was pleasantly surprised and somewhat stupefied at certain events- I enjoyed this unpredictability as I quite breezily followed along the narrative until these unprecedented moments occurred.

I would like to thank NetGalley and the respective publishers for allowing me an ARC of this novel.

Loved it! A good refreshing book with humour, sarcasm...the lot!! A new fan of Dolly Alderton and will be looking out for some more of her books

I wonder if maybe I'm not the target audience for this book. At only 19, I'm very much yet to experience many of the ups and downs of dating and growing up discussed in Ghosts.

Despite this, I couldn't put it down. The writing was beautifully easy to read (a very good thing for my end-of-term brain) and I felt completely immersed in the story throughout. As someone who has fairly recently moved to London, I enjoy any books set in the city that manage to encapsulate what it's like - it makes the book feel like its full of easter eggs!

Nina, our main character is 32, a recipe book author, single, and surrounded by friends who are all starting families and leaving her behind. The book, although it has romantic elements, I'd say is more about her development.

I wasn't all that sold on the plot and didn't find the ending all that satisfying. Again, I dare say that it's because I have no real-life experience in the realms of dating and adulthood but I found it difficult to relate to Nina. I wish we'd heard more about her work (her job sounds like the COOLEST) and didn't completely appreciate the melancholy nostalgia throughout the book, although it did give it a sense of realism that might otherwise have been lessened.

Overall, I'd recommend this book. It's easy, quick, but not going to change your life.

An astute and accurate representation of navigating relationships, friendships and life in general in your 30s. Dolly Alderton's "Ghosts" is packed with humour and heart. Themes include growing up, marriage and children, dementia and dating downright dreadful men. Alderton's writing is reminiscent of early Marian Keyes. And is it just me who is convinced that Max is the fictional incarnation of the odious Laurence Fox?

Really enjoyable, light hearted read. Very relatable and a lovely extension of Dolly’s non fiction work. Can’t wait to read more of her fiction.

At first I thought that Dolly Anderson's debut novel was chic lit, not my preferred genre. I'm glad I stuck with it as it portrayed a number of facets of modern life for single 30 something Nina. The joys of Tinder seem precarious in the extreme! Everyone except her ( and her best friend) seem to be in relationships or married and having kids. Then Nina realises her father has dementia and her mother isn't coping. This is a decent debut novel about life in 2020.

Ghosts deals with many issues I’ve faced in previous years - tackling the impossible new culture of dating apps, struggling with friendships as life priorities take over, being insanely behind in the love marriage house buying timeline, and ultimately feeling the clock ticking with no real idea of what was bloody wrong with me.

Alderton shows us that ghosting can take place in many forms, whether it’s the gorgeous guy you’ve been on a few dates with who suddenly vanishes from the face of the earth, or friends who feel your single life has nothing in common with their baby-juggling, home renovation planning existence. We even see the most heartbreaking type of ghosting - a dad with dementia, whose great mind is slowly disassembling itself.

We live with our protagonist, Nina, through all of this, and see how she navigates it all. She’s a truly wonderful character, strong and independent, yet desperately lonely and lost. She’s a woman you’d see on the street and feel jealous of her togetherness, but truly there is much more going on under the surface.

The careful handling of the dementia storyline was wonderful. Alderton dealt with this masterfully, with a subtlety that still reinforced the impact of the disease. There were moments of heartbreak alongside moments of hope, and it truly was very well done.

This was so relatable, and funny too. Nina’s descriptions of the types of men you see on these apps, the superiority of the married with kids friends, the totalitarian behaviour of the bridesmaid in charge of the hen do; all of this resonated with me as situations I’ve found myself attempting to escape in the past, and it’s such a comfort to know I wasn’t, and never was, the only one

This is the kind of book that I’d love to be able to write. The kind where reading about the characters’ lives feels like you’ve been invited into their friendship and you’re completely invested in their ups and downs.

Nina is written to be such a well rounded protagonist: strong but vulnerable, ambitious but humble, loyal but no walkover ... in short, I loved her. I wanted well for her. When her heart ached, my heart ached.

I loved the depth and breadth of her backstory, her inner monologue, her frustrations and her hopes. I’m still working through all my feelings for these characters and this story; there’s so much content (too much?) that while it’s beautifully sewn together, it moves at a pace that doesn’t allow for much reflection and pondering on Nina’s predicaments.
And, it’s bloody lovely to read something where it’s not all glitter and rainbows and life doesn’t follow the predictable ups and downs of a Rom-Com.
I enjoyed this more than her last book, so I’ll be excited to see what she shared with the world next. Thank you to @dollyalderton and @netgalley for the opportunity to read and review this book.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

Funny, romantic, turbulent like a real relationship and surprisingly well written. I couldn't put the book down and couldn't wait to see what happened next. Nina Dean is a food writer that ended a long term relationship and is finally back in the market. She has been struggling with her new single identify and is finding it harder to relate to her partnered friends - their lives have moved on. But then she falls in love and life is wonderful, filled with new discoveries. Until he disappears on her, leaving her hurt and filled with questions. He has ghosted her.

A master of capturing emotions and feelings, and full of clever, astute observations, is what lies behind the charm of this book. I loved the writing style and the story was more than just a romance, or anti-romance in some parts. The characters were bold and easily identifiable and the subject of dementia was deftly handled without getting too depressing. The only thing I could have asked for was a happier ending, but I guess this was more real. Highly recommended and will hunt down more of her books.

This book explored lots of important topics: ghosting, time, love, losing someone who’s still there. It was a touching story which was easy to read but not something that I couldn’t put down. This is a typical contemporary and talks about being single and not having children and how this is ok, which for me is an overwritten theme.

I really enjoyed this book but unfortunately I felt the ending fell a little flat for me.

I enjoyed following Nina and Lola in particular, their journeys made me laugh in places and the story had an excellent flow to it.

When I started reading this book it looked as if it was turning into a sassy rom-com where a bright thirty-something-year-old is only missing a man to make her life complete, and on the way there she has a successful job in some trendy office, loves to get drunk with her gal pals, meets the wrong guy and then, lo and behold, along comes Mr Right. I was wrong but what I wasn’t expecting into the bargain was a devastating critique of modern femininity and womanhood!

I don’t think Dolly Alderton expected it to turn out like that as well. Her heroine, Nina Dean is likeable and scatty and enjoys playing the dating sites encouraged by her wild outrageous and outspoken friend, everyone in this sort of book has to have one, Lola. She also has some ‘boring’ friends who have been toppled into relationships and motherhood as a counterpoint. You kind of think you know where you are!

When the tall, rugged, and probably chisel-jawed, Max turns up on her dating site, you can be even more sure about where this is all going and then it all goes, to use a highly inappropriate phrase, tits-up! Bit by bit, the fault lines emerge in Nina’s view of the world.

First off, her father has dementia and her mother has every avoidance strategy in the book for not recognising what is happening. It takes Nina a while to realise that this is what is happening. Then, the boyfriend Max disappears and, in modern parlance, ‘ghosts’ her, deleting their social media contacts and himself – the effect is simply to disappear from her life. Lola consoles her because men are like that, fickle, instant and unable to commit. Then, Nina falls out with her childhood friend Katherine who is struggling with her child, coping with her husband and pregnant again. Things get worse. Lola finds a man then gets dumped as well, Max pops up for a second go only to disappear again and there are some strange events revolving around the tenant downstairs! It’s a wild ride and as Nina gets more confused so does her ill father.

Of course, what ought to happen now is that she and Lola get drunk, she gets run over and comes round looking into the piercing blue eyes of a handsome doctor who is not only ‘the one’ but is also able to suggest the perfect treatment for her father as he is really an international specialist in dementia helping out in casualty (as he is that sort of generous person) and his parents own a massive farm in some unspecified countryside where they can go on to rear their smiling children!

Instead what we get is Nina’s realisation that she isn’t a victim. The model of masculinity perpetrated by Max is conditioned and reinforced by its success with women who are queuing up to fall for him. Lola and Nina’s dreams and fantasies, along with those of countless other women, have simply helped to style and fuel the model. Her fantasies about families also take a tumble. There is not some kind of dialectic between partying independence and married with kids – instead everyone just messes along, falling into holes and traps and, hopefully, dragging themselves out to carry on into a compromised old-age.

The tension in all of this makes for an excellent read. You sort of have the sense that the book hasn’t quite gone where Dolly Alderton and her agent expected it to and, maybe, I’m reading too much into it but all that made for an absorbing and entertaining read and it comes highly recommended.

The main character in Ghosts is Nina, a 30-something successful food writer living in London. Single Nina decides to try her luck on a dating app and meets Max, who tells her on their first date that he wants to marry her. The book follows Nina for a year as she juggles interesting neighbours, ghosting, her father's battle with dementia and the struggle with evolving long-term friendships in your 30s.

While I appreciated that Ghosts touched on a lot of relatable issues us millennials face daily (and I empathised with Nina on a few occasions), the book was a slow-burn for me as it's definitely more character-driven than plot. However, I did like Alderton's writing style so I wouldn't hesitate to read her next book.

Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Publishing for the ARC. All opinions are my own.

TW: Dementia, memory loss

I will start off by saying, as I'm sure many people have, that I absolutely adored Everything I Know About Love. Therefore, I was left a little disappointed by this book however, I am very aware that this is Alderton's first foray into fiction. This was such an easy, entertaining read that I flew through it! When I wasn't reading it, I was thinking about when I could next pick it up and read. It was a relief to read this after the heavier book that I'd previously read (which was Open Water by Caleb Azumah Nelson).

The title Ghosts refers to several things in the novel. It refers to the literal dating term 'ghosting', when someone just disappears without saying anything after a few dates. This happens to Nina, our protagonist, after she gets into a relationship with a man. It also refers to her dad, who gets dementia. It can also be seen to reflect the changing way of life, how relationships ebb and flow as we grow older and we become more preoccupied with husbands and children and jobs. We unintentionally ghost each other.

I very much enjoyed the premise of the book and thought it was laugh-out-loud funny at several points throughout. However, my biggest issue with the story was that I found the tone of the book to be incredibly performative in terms of being 'woke'. Nina cannot stop mentioning that she's heterosexual and I just don't understand what the point of it is. There also seems to be a big contrast between the tone of the book, intent in tone, and the dialogue throughout. Nina's inner dialogue is funny and sharp however when she speaks to other people, she is constantly forcing her opinions on them and trying to educate them. This is usually by way of a feminist rant, which oftentimes is not actually a very feminist view. I say this because I think Nina is very hypocritical in that she herself constantly judges other women and their life choices. If they don't align with her own then they're not feminist or they're a 'prude'. To be fair, this could have been Alderton's intention with the character, to make her annoying and preachy. In which case, she definitely succeeded in executing this!

As previously mentioned, I loved how much of an easy read this was and I did still find it hilarious which is quite impressive considering I rarely genuinely laugh out loud with books. If you love funny, relatable books and love an easy read, then pick this one up!

Thank you to NetGalley for the arc. All opinions are my own.

Rating 3.5 stars

Its an interesting enough story set in modern day London, following Nina George Dean in her love life, changing friendships and a difficult family problem.

Nina is in her early thirties and a successful freelance food writer. She meets Max through an online dating app. He turns out to be a total romantic who tells her on their first date that he's going to marry her!

The new relationship couldn't have come at a better time: everywhere she turns, Nina is reminded of time passing and opportunities dwindling. Friendships are changing, ex-boyfriends are getting marrie, one of her friends is moving to the suburbs and another is busy with her new boyfriend. There's no comfort to be found in her family, as her mum is caught in a mid-life makeover and her beloved dad is suffering from dementia. She also has a new flat and the neighbour below is rather abrupt and rude.

Some of the scenes feel off kilter and unrealistic: hen do with her ex's future wife, the stuff with the downstairs neighbour, no showing off of her cooking skills and big speech to her friends ex. However the coping with her dad's illness is very good.

I received this book from netgalley in return for a honest review.

I’m limping to the reading finish line this year, and in order to get there, I’m choosing books that demand very little from me. Ghosts by Dolly Alderton fitted the bill nicely.

‘Chick-lit’… ‘Women’s fiction’… I’m not even sure what these labels mean now. When I was in my twenties, it meant you could walk into a book store, pick up a novel with a hot pink cover and a picture of a stiletto shoe on the front, and be sure that you would have a fun bit of reading ahead. This genre has not been my choice in the last 15 odd years, but 2020 seems to have changed all sorts of things.

Ghosts is a millennial version of Bridget Jones. Thirty-something single Nina is looking for love, and the story focuses around her friendships, relationship history, and what happens when people are at life different stages. The title plays into a couple of elements of the plot – ‘ghosting’, a phenomenon that I have been too old to experience but is apparently common on the dating scene; and the ‘ghosts’ of ourselves, which is explored in the context of relationships and also gently through the character of Nina’s father, who has been diagnosed with dementia. This theme speaks to the idea that we are ‘who we are’ in the context of our relationships, and interactions with others.

So much is how we perceive someone and the memories we have of them, rather than the facts of who they are. Maybe instead of saying ‘I love you’ we should say ‘I imagine you’.

The story follows all of the standard rom-com rules (what we’re looking for is often right in front of us; the more you look, the less you find; things that seem too good to be true, usually are) but we don’t read these books for complex plots. Instead, they’re the reading equivalent of comfort food – they offer familiarity, a sense of shared experience, reassurance that love will triumph.

Alderton’s writing is humorous without being overdone, with a lot of the fun coming via wry observations through Nina’s increasingly tarnished millennial lens. The descriptions of hen’s weekends, weddings, and friends telling birth stories were all particularly good.

This is what happens when people with children get too worked up for a night out – they tire themselves out with anticipation, set themselves up for a fall with their bravado, get stage fright then ultimately go home after two pints.

‘LADIEEEEES!’ we heard Franny wail from downstairs. ‘Time for some fizz!’
‘Fizz,’ I said. ‘That word is only ever used in a room of women who all secretly hate each other.’

Is Nina a bit too nice, a bit too accommodating? Perhaps. Either way, it was comforting to read a book that made me smile in places, and highlighted how brilliant female friendships can be.

3/5 A relaxing read.

I received my copy of Ghosts from the publisher, Penguin UK, via NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.