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A review by orezevida
Everything I Know About Love by Dolly Alderton
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
4.0
My first memoir and it did not disappoint. After seeing a few of my favourite YouTubers recommend this, and a recommendation from a friend, I finally decided to pick this up and make it my first non fiction read in years, and my first ever memoir/ biography. You definitely need to relate to the author on some level to enjoy this book, as it is very personal and revolves around her (quite niche) life experiences. Having been to an all girls’ public school in London I related heavily to her views about and experiences with boys. I loved her exploration of female friendships and the love that develops and evolves as you grow from adolescence to adulthood.
I found the drug talk in the earlier chapters quite annoying as it felt glamorised and really highlighted the author’s privilege, which isn’t her fault or a bad thing necessarily but it took me out of the story a bit nonetheless. Having said that, I did appreciate her candidness.
I enjoyed the familiar and colloquial tone of the book, and found myself chuckling and even laughing at a lot of things, which I don’t do very often with books. However, she can also write deeply and insightfully, such as in her chapters aboutFlorence and coping with death and grief , and when discussing her journey to self discovery.
Overall, I really enjoyed this book and related heavily to the earlier bits, and could see my future self in the later stuff. If you’re not a heterosexual woman, didn’t grow up in suburbia or go to public (or private but she calls it public) school, I think you would find it difficult to enjoy this book as it might be hard to relate to the author. However, it does get more universal and reflective/ introspective in the second half so it may be worthwhile powering through to get to those bits. And if you just like the sound of reading about a woman’s personal experiences with love, friendships and self discovery, you’ll enjoy this too.
I found the drug talk in the earlier chapters quite annoying as it felt glamorised and really highlighted the author’s privilege, which isn’t her fault or a bad thing necessarily but it took me out of the story a bit nonetheless. Having said that, I did appreciate her candidness.
I enjoyed the familiar and colloquial tone of the book, and found myself chuckling and even laughing at a lot of things, which I don’t do very often with books. However, she can also write deeply and insightfully, such as in her chapters about
Overall, I really enjoyed this book and related heavily to the earlier bits, and could see my future self in the later stuff. If you’re not a heterosexual woman, didn’t grow up in suburbia or go to public (or private but she calls it public) school, I think you would find it difficult to enjoy this book as it might be hard to relate to the author. However, it does get more universal and reflective/ introspective in the second half so it may be worthwhile powering through to get to those bits. And if you just like the sound of reading about a woman’s personal experiences with love, friendships and self discovery, you’ll enjoy this too.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Alcoholism, Drug abuse, and Eating disorder