One day that baby will sit on a bench, wondering if that navy car is scrap metal somewhere, wishing it could come collect them.’ĭolly Alderton’s debut novel is heartfelt, relatable and true. It’s already been fitted with a seat for the baby. I could pretend that my world was myopic and my choices meaningless and the possibilities that were ahead of me were wide open and boundless.’

‘When I was in Pinner, I could be seventeen again, just for a day. There are tender and insightful layers of nostalgia as Nina returns to the place she grew up, the air thick with memory. As she watches him slowly grow more distanced from the person he was, she grapples with the feelings of responsibility, loss and sadness, amidst a fracturing relationship with her mum. The ghosts are also those of the past, made even more astute by the fact that Nina’s father is suffering from Dementia. Nina struggles to connect with her best friend who’s determined to act like someone who has it all, while similarly seeing Nina’s life choices as a direct attack on her own. But it’s not just about that: the ghosts here are also the slowly vanishing friendships, once held dear but splintered by a move to the suburbs, screaming toddlers and a picture-perfect Instagram life. So this is a story about being ghosted in the modern, dating sense, the term that appeared to give a name to that depressing phenomenon of potential or current dates disappearing off the face of the earth with no explanation. He wanted to exist in a liminal state, like everything was just about to begin.’ ‘Max wanted to be tortured, he wanted to yearn and chase and dream. They hit it off, and things are going swimmingly. The line-up of potential mates is uninspiring to say the least – as Nina remarks dryly, ‘Every man looked exactly the same: ‘Tom, 24, atheist, London, likes: reading, sleeping, eating travel’ – it reminded me of the Biology GCSE syllabus and being taught what living organisms need: ‘movement, respiration, reproduction, nutrition, excretion.’īut it’s not too long before she meets the charming and beguiling Max, an accountant (a job he hates) with a love of the outdoors and a yearning to see the world (yawn?). She caves to pressure and downloads a dating app called Linx. She’s got just one single friend left, Lola, and everyone else is married and starting families. Nina is in her early thirties, a successful food writer living in London.

Ghosts dolly alderton goodreads