This book was beautiful, often heart-wrenching, and perfectly captures the life of a successful single 30-something surrounded by married friends. The feeling of something being missing, comparing yourself to others in relationships... On different paths in life.

It was terrifying in the description of Bill's declining health, but something many people our age have to go through with their parents, and Nina's delicate relationship with her mum was brilliantly written.

Even more terrifying was the shitbag that is Max, and the fact that many Max's exist across the Tinders and bumbles of the world.

I very much enjoyed this book.

I felt this was quite a mixed book for me. There were bits I liked a lot and parts that left me feeling I wanted more.

In the book we have Nina who has joined an App in her search for a relationship and meets a man called Max and this is partly the story of this relationship and the experience of the App. Alongside this we have Nina’s father and how dementia is changing him and her relationship with both him and her mother. Then on top of this we have Nina’s relationship with her friends and former love.

This book took a while to getting going for me but did enjoy the second half of the book, and the anguish and pain Nina felt as a result of her father’s illness and her relationship or not with Max came across very strongly. Some people have said the book is quite depressive and I can understand why they have said this, but I felt there was also some ultimate positivity and optimism about how it was dealt with.

Overall I did enjoy this book but was a tad disappointed by the ending where it just seemed to peter out and I felt I wanted more and a stronger more hopeful ending. Overall though I would still give it 3 1/2 stars, rounded up to 4. I would like to say thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for providing a copy of this book to me for an open and honest review.

An enjoyable read about the highs and lows of modern dating; apps, dates and ghosting. Ghosts follows the dating life of Nina who experiences natural reactions to being ignored after a few months of successful dating with Max. My favourite part was reading the stream of texts Nina kept on sending to Max after he began ignoring her. Nina feels left out and alone. Everyone else her age seems to be moving forward in their lives; marriage, babies and big houses.

Dolly Alderton touches on the importance of following our own path in life, friendship, love and family.

I liked this book, as I’m a big fan of Dolly Alderton. I thought this was funny at times, and equally heartbreaking as well.

I do prefer Alderton’s non-fiction I think. Although the book was enjoyable, it didn’t leave a lasting impression. I thought I would have related to the main character, but I found I didn’t.

I would recommend this to my friend’s, who may be enjoy it more than I. It is certainly fun - but it didn’t blow me away like I thought it would.

The best part was the exploration of her relationship with her aging father. This was the most sincere part of the novel to me for sure.

Who doesn’t want to know more about a food writer and her daily life?
Well, this book is not exactly what I thought that it will be. I’m all about finding love and the Cupid strike when least expect but while I enjoyed her relationship with her friends and family, Max was out of this world and I hated how long it took for her to realise what’s happening.
Overall it’s a great story that many will enjoy but unfortunately it wasn’t a great one for me.

Story of modern day dating and and all aspects of the chaotic everyday life. Read it all in one sitting! Recommended to all my friends! Can’t wait for the next one!

I have tried to read this book twice, I have tried the audio book as well but unfortunately, it's not for me. I could not finish it. I could not connect with Nina. I found her a bit smug and unrelatable. I could not finish the book as I got annoyed with the way she chose to handle her relationships with the other characters
I think this book is one can read on a beach while not paying much attention to it

I was quite surprised by this book. This is probably due to the fact that while my initial reaction to Everything I Know About Love was very enthusiastic, over time I've come to question much of what it had offered up.

So, I went into reading this book very hesitantly. Only after chatting to a friend who was reading it did I decide to give it a try. Still, I nearly gave up in the first third but I'm glad I persisted as the rest was very interesting.

There were certain elements that resonated with me. I came out of a long-term relationship in 2019 and only started using dating apps for the first time about 18 months ago. I've also watched my relationship with both my parents and friends who've had children change shape as well. These are all experiences that have changed my understanding of expectations and communication with both old and new connections.

I also really liked the storylines about the protagonist's father and neighbour as well. I know very little about dementia but I imagine that this element was handled quite sensitively and in terms of concept, it fitted very well with the theme.

Overall, I felt like it was a pretty clever book. This could have easily been some one dimensional, trite exploration of dating and ghosting but Alderton wove in strands of times when we start to see other people disappearing from our lives as well.

If this feels like your kind of book, then I recommend giving it a read.

I adored Dolly Alderton's Everything I know about Love; it's my go to book for salving my worries about changing friendships and relationships. Ghosts, like its non-fiction predecessor, carries on Alderton's wit and skill in echoing milenial womanhood. I adored this and would recommend.

I was looking for something light to read and decided on Ghosts by Dolly Alderton, expecting a light-hearted and funny dating style rom-com. Whilst it is partly a rom-com, it's certainly much more than that and I found it surprisingly more poignant and heart-wrenching than funny.

Apart from her day job of food writer, Nina Dean has two main parts to play in Ghosts: girlfriend and daughter. As (potential) girlfriend we see her negotiating through the tricky minefield of online dating then choosing a man who seems too good to be true. As if new relationships weren't difficult enough, Nina's dad is showing the first signs of dementia and her mum is going through some kind of identity crisis. Nina certainly has a lot of balls to juggle.

There are so many things that I liked about Nina; her size 11 size (having been an annoying size 13 in my past), her middle name of George (after George Michael) and her friendship with her ex-boyfriend Joe to name but a few. I really liked how The Edge of Heaven by Wham was woven into the story and resulted in one or two surprises for the characters. I defy anyone not to sing the opening 'Yeah yeah yeah' to themselves while reading Ghosts but I had absolutely no idea what the song was about until now. Yikes!

Nina's burgeoning relationship with Max made me want to reach into the book and tell Nina to run away very fast. There must be something in our DNA that makes a woman go all weak in the knees when a man says he wants to marry her, even on a first date. There would be scorch marks on the floor and a puff of smoke in his place if a woman said that to a man when they first met. It's all part of the dating game, a game for two players but only one of them knows the rules.

Although it wasn't the laugh out loud book I was expecting, Ghosts is a very enjoyable read; it's honest, heartfelt and surprisingly poignant.

Nina thinks she has her life together, she owns her own flat, has a great job as a food writer and has a good boyfriend. Well, it turns out the boyfriend doesn't want to be anymore, her new neighbour is a big pain in the behind and her dad is unfortunately battling dementia.
So, she turns to a dating app whilst also trying to juggle all the other things and meets Max and well I cannot go to much into details, but lets just say, wasn't the best choice.
I will say I listened to the audio of this narrated by Holliday Granger and she was perfect, really brought Nina to life and I possibly wouldn't have enjoyed the book so much if I had read it.
I loved the friendships Nina kept with her ex, with her best friend Lola and her old school friends. I enjoyed the story, although can se why in places it may grate on some people.
I liked the different threads and how it came together and will definitely be keeping an eye out for the authors new books.

It was a light easy read, in a different year it would have made a great beach book! I found the title gave away a key part of the plot which prevented me investing in the relationship, which was a shame. The neighbour storyline was odd and I didn't find it to be particularly realistic. But overall I enjoyed this book and would read more fiction from the author.

It is the first of Dolly Alderton's books I have ever read and I absolutely loved it. Although I am one of those happily married women and couldn't relate to Nina with online dating and being ghosted by someone you thought you really loved, as well as a father suffering from dementia; I could relate to her on other different levels: feminism and relationship with her mum.
There were few shocking moments that I had not expected in the book: the neighbour Angelo, but on the whole, the description of characters and events was perfect; amazing sense of humour and I thoroughly enjoyed the feminist aspect of the book.

Thank you #Netgalley #DollyAlderton and publishers for this book

On the books you definitely need to read! This was fun, serious and just had the perfect balance. Must be added to your tbr if it isn’t already!!

This book is not for me at all too much rambling on about boring stuff. Not gripping and not a page turner.

What a brilliant read! This is my first book by Dolly Alderton and I will definitely be looking at other titles by her.

Throughly enjoyed the storyline and fell in love with the characters. A real feel good read.

Highly recommended to all and well deserving of the 5 stars. .

Thank you Netgalley

I would like to thank Netgalley for an advance copy of Ghosts.

This book follows Nina Dean as she navigates through her early thirties, from relationships, friendships and a real look into life as we age. I absolutely loved this book, i read through it in two sittings. The books characters are very relatable and gives a funny sometimes bleak look into growing and ageing. The writing style of this book is fantastic, the material is modern and relatable and overall a book i would happily read again.

Ghosts is the debut novel of Dolly Alderton, whose non-fiction book / memoir, Everything I Know About Love was a international bestseller.
Ghosts follows Nina Dean, who is a food writer in her thirties who starts a new relationship with a guy called Max.
To be honest I didn’t find Nina likeable at all. She was quite rude and horrible to her friends for daring to settle down and have a family while in their 30s (how dare they!) instead of giving them her support when they needed it. She was too self-centred to care about her friends, except when she needed them to make herself feel better. The male representation is awful. To be honest I’m over the “all guys are terrible” narrative that is in a lot of these types of books. There doesn’t seem to be any real character development of Nina throughout the book, and the development of other character are just very out of the blue.
The book tried to hit on some serious topics, such as the story of dementia with Nina’s dad, but it seems to be put in just to make some kind of serious commentary on a topic that she doesn’t delve deep enough into to make any real points.
This book just wasn’t for me.

An easy and entertaining read to make you laugh out loud after a day's work. With lots of relatable situations for women in their 30s. However, at points the metaphor was laboured and there were a few gaping plot holes.

Having loved Dolly's first book I was really looking forward to Ghosts.
As ever with Dolly's work it's really relatable and fun. There are some brilliant lough out loud moments but also some moments which will make you tear up - I thought that the Dementia story line was really touching and handled really well.
4 stars.