This past summer, I decided to read Everything I Know About Love by Dolly Alderton and it quickly became one of the best books I have ever read and my number one read of this year.
This book tells the life story of the author, Dolly Alderton, from her teenage years to her turning thirty. One of the things that attracted me to this book was how it is an autobiography that feels like a novel. The author writes in the first person but tells stories with a lot of detail and includes dialogue. This allowed me to fully immerse into the story and feel like I was living through it with her. This book challenges the idea of a typical autobiography and decides to take a different path.
Another point that attracted me to this book was that she includes very fun chapters in between stories, such as a list of things she’s learned by a certain age, recipes, and things she’s scared of. These chapters made me feel like I was talking to a friend, making me forget that I was reading a book at all. Alderton crafts a friendly and easy-to-follow story and adds these fun chapters that keep the reader engaged all the time.
The main thing I loved about this book is the focus on female friendships. Dolly Alderton makes an effort to talk about her close female friends she grew up with and that helped her through some of the tougher times in her life. One of my favourite quotes is “Nearly everything I know about love, I’ve learned in my long-term friendships with women.” (p. 314). Alderton reminded me of how amazing it is to be surrounded by the wonderful women in my life and how I would be nothing without my female friends or sisters. This book reminded me of the beauty of girlhood and how amazing it is to be able to connect at such a deep level with the women in my life.
As someone who will soon enter her twenties (scary!), this book gave me the tranquillity of knowing that everyone struggles in life and it is completely okay not to have everything figured out by now. Things change, people come and go, but life gets better. Alderton was able to transmit such a powerful message and left a huge impact on me. After reading this, Dolly Alderton has become one of my idols and I encourage everyone to go pick up Everything I Know About Love now.