Review: Dolly Alderton's 'Ghosts'

Image credit:Penguin 

I heard great things about Dolly Alderton’s ‘Ghosts’- an easy, feminist read about navigating life and love in your 30’s. The book tells the story of the year in Nina Dean’s life- a 32-year-old, single, professional food writer. It’s a simple enough premise and typically, I love an easy read like this, but I found ‘Ghosts’ hard to sink my teeth into.

 

First and foremost, I developed a real dislike for the protagonist and narrator Nina, so much so, I had to take regular breaks from reading the book because she began to piss me off. Every character she surrounds herself with in the book she seems to hate, constantly looking down her nose at her so-called best friends, feeling self-righteous because of her avoidance of their situations- actively looking for love or the realities of having children. Alderton constantly frames this outlook from a ‘feminist’ perspective, but for me, it came off as something entirely different. Feminism, to me, is about supporting all genders in their decisions be it conventionally gendered or not. Nina repeatedly looks down on conventional femininity within the book which never came off as well meaning or intellectual but rather snarky and rude. If she had learnt a lesson at the end of the novel, realised that she was in fact in the wrong, it would justify this characterisation. But no, the novel finished with Nina in the right, not learning a sodding thing.

 

My dislike for Nina doesn’t stop there, oh no, it keeps on going. She is downright horrible in certain parts of the book. For instance her treatment of her mother, whilst she is not the nicest character in the world, she is struggling to care for her terminally ill husband. Nina's treatment of her is constantly blunt and unsympathetic, never once actually caring for her mothers emotional needs. Her treatment her rude neighbour is downright bullying and is played off by Alderton as completely normal behaviour. It just baffles me!

I must admit, not all of the novel is irritating, with some of the ‘love story’ being the first part of the book to actually engage me. Then the rug was swiftly pulled from under my feet as the ‘love story’ in a million different strange and infuriating directions and I won't even mention the strange kitchen sex in the last 20 pages of the book.

 

What frustrates me is that I wanted to like this book. I wanted a fun book about female friendship and the fun lifestyle of a single, 30 something in London. What I given however, was a woman hating ‘feminist’, who spent most of the narrative being bitter and rude only to get somewhat interesting in the last 10 pages. Dolly Alderton’s debut in fiction was a real slog to read with an unlikable character and a bland narrative. Whilst I’m aware I am in the minority, a small voice amongst the plethora of five-star reviews, I would recommend giving this one a miss and try to find a book with a main character that has at least one redeeming quality.