Book Review: "Dear Dolly" by Dolly Alderton

"...learn to be with yourself now. your future self will thank you..."

- Dear Dolly by Dolly Alderton

One thing I'm beginning to notice about Dolly Alderton is that she should very quickly make her shift over to fiction in a very Sally Rooney style, because she could do quite well. When I read her book Ghosts - I was impressed at how darkly comical it was. Yet, I found myself a little more underwhelmed when I finished her book Everything I Know About Love. I think that the writing in the latter for me fell emotionally flat and sounded more like the rambling diary of a teenage girl rather than an adult trying to make a point. Dear Dolly though, has a slightly different problem - again it is Dolly Alderton centring herself instead of exploring ideas. It's alright - it is just a bit of a tired gig at this point.

Let's first get the main disadvantage out of the way, and maybe this is just a 'me' problem and not much to do with any of Alderton's writing talents at all. After a while of reading books that have a conversational tone - in which the reader feels as though they are sitting for a cup of tea or coffee in a cosy cafe with the author. It can feel more tiresome to read than that of a comforting therapy session. There's little description or depth of thought and it seems as though several points are getting repeated. This is great if I was reading just one book by the author and moving on, but I feel like there's something on my part here too. I have read quite a bit of Dolly Alderton's work in a short space of time and I think I may have Alderton-related fatigue. Perhaps I will come back to this work again, in the future, and reread it for a better experience.

There's several things that the middle class woman could consider 'relatable' in this text. Apart from that, the author does a great job at making the writing seem universal. Every woman has spoken or acted in these ways before and there is something more universal in the solutions as well. Dolly Alderton has always had a way with making her own problems seem like they have happened to all of us. Her themes of love and friendship almost feel like they could've happened to you but at the same time, we are completely aware that they are exclusive to the writer - seeing as we are reading the book to find out about them.

I would ask Dolly Alderton, if I could, to write more fiction novels and put these themes such as: love, friendship, growing up, making big mistakes and having to clean up the mess afterwards and even death - into those novels in order to explore things in more depth than she can possibly do with herself. For me, this book seemed too close to Everything I Know About Love and thus, came off a little bit sameish. Apart from this, Dolly Alderton puts her points across well. I have found that a lot of people have said that the questions asked within were boring, but I didn't find that at all. I think she had selected the questions carefully to be well-rounded and meaningful - I just don't think the depth of answers matched the questions that were asked from time to time.

I will say that Alderton has good intentions. Yes, it might just be a collection of newspaper articles but I think this anthology has been specially curated to offer us insight not only into a mixture of themes and ideas, but also into Dolly's writing style. She is genuine and wants to give good advice - she is well intentioned with a great amount to offer in the way of wit. Though the book perhaps wasn't something I enjoyed as much as her book Ghosts - it can definitely give us a look as to how her writing has evolved over time.

All in all, I think I'll return to this book when the Dolly Alderton fatigue has drifted away from me, perhaps then I will think about the book differently.