GHOSTS by Dolly Alderton

I was curious to see what this debut novel will be like compared to her memoir “Everything I Know About Love”.
Long story short, I think it’s even better!
I’ve been taking in every emotion around modern dating, identity, family, memory loss and friendships.
At first, it seemed the title was only related to people being ghosted on dating websites but as I went on, it’s so much more than that. It’s watching a loved one fading in front of your eyes, it’s leaving the ghosts of your past behind as you continue to grow or watching the significance of a friendship mature and change over time.
Yet, all these are being debated with her undeniably dry humour, which gets me every time, here’s a transcript for you:

“The most simultaneously reassuring and unsettling discovery I made in those first few intense weeks of compulsive right- and left-clicking on Linx, was just how unimaginative humans are. None of us would ever fully grasp the extent of our magnificent unoriginality – it would be too painful to process. I-like-the-outdoors-also-like-the-indoors-I-love-pizza-I’m- looking-for-someone-who-can-make-me-laugh-I-just- want-someone-to-come-home-to-and-feel-wriggling-next-to-me-in-the-middle-of-the-night unoriginality. There was the evidence, in all these profiles, where who we really are and who we’d like everyone to think we are were in such unsubtle tension. How clear it suddenly was that we are all the same organs, tissue and liquids packaged up in one version of a million clichés, who all have insecurities and desires; the need to feel nurtured, important, understood and useful in one way or another. None of us are special. I don’t know why we fight it so much.”