I didn’t like Everything I Know About Love by Dolly Alderton. It feels like a slightly cursed opinion to have as it seems that given my age and stage (twenty-six, white, engaged, recently unemployed), I am the target demographic.

I want to preface this review with a caveat that I listened to the audiobook. Normally, this doesn’t affect my reading experience, but as I saw someone else articulate in their review on Goodreads: ‘In audio form, I found Dolly frustrating [. . .] and self-indulgent where I might have taken the written format more light heartedly’. Like this reviewer, I think I may have found some of the flippant comments and quips easier to digest if I wasn’t hearing Dolly herself say them. I don’t think it’s unfair to say that you can find the same joke funnier in written form than when someone says it out loud.

The title is what drew me to this book. I’m not a self-help reader, but the way this book had been spoken about by peers irl and online made me want to dip in. I wanted to know everything Dolly knew about love. I knew what I knew about love, but I firmly believe in the time-old tale that you never stop learning. I wanted to learn more about love – that thing everyone wants to have and hold on to. Coming out the other side of reading this, I would say the title is . . . misleading; especially as Dolly was a known dating columnist prior to writing this book.

I expected stories and blunders, dating faux pas nudged on by alcohol or other substances, friends going through similar things. I expected each story to have taught her something about love and for her to pass that wisdom on to the reader. At the very least I wanted future-Dolly to interrupt and tell me her thoughts on these shenanigans and missteps. The stories were there in all their variations and embarrassments . . . not so much the reflection. The first half of the book made me feel like I was eavesdropping on a girl loudly recounting her boozed-up weekends to her friends.

I suppose the work around for recounting these stories without comment was to tie up each period of her life with a chapter called ‘Everything I knew about love at [age XX]’. These closing remarks on each era of her life would offer a couple of thoughtful points correcting past misconceptions followed by a list of random things that related to love in a peripheral way. The vibe, if you will, was along the lines of: what time of night is best to eat certain junk foods with your friends, or knowing when to ghost.

Don’t even get me started on the recipes. Yes, there were recipes. I think we all have our drunken midnight cheese toastie recipes memorised, but thanks anyway. [Post-script note: again the recipes could’ve been tainted by the fact that I had to listen to lists of ingredients and instructions. One recipe mentions rose water at least twice. There’s a recipe for basic scrambled eggs . . . I’m really trying here.]

It was the second half of the book where things picked up for me. Dolly opened up about going to see a therapist and the chapters became more vulnerable and revealing. I cried when Dolly talked about her low self-worth and her perspective on what being ‘loved’ meant. I was moved when she began to trust her therapist and stopped trying to impress her. I recognised myself in Dolly’s need to be liked by those around her. I would read an entire book about her journey with therapy. Though Dolly is candid throughout the book, this was the part that didn’t have bravado. She wasn’t trying to impress me with her early-twenties jaunts around upper-middle-class London. She was relatable, anxious, tangible. She was me and my friends and my sisters.

Spoiler alert: the book, after having trawled through various hetero relationships, concludes that the love that matters most is the love you have for your best friends. Dolly’s friends were her truest of loves. I would be lying if I didn’t tell you I was a little exasperated when I got to this part. I’d persevered through the aforementioned chapters, recipes and fake evites to various events, to get to the revelation, the ‘aha’ moment. The word ‘friends’ is literally crossed out on the cover. You can imagine my dismay when it turned out I was reading Everything I Know About Friends. Talk about a red herring.

If I could go back and do it again, I would read a hardcopy of the book. As a fellow Tall Girl who loves her friends more than life itself, I wanted to love this book. I’m about seven years late to the party on reviewing this, but it had been recommended so many times I hadn’t wanted to seem like I was missing a trick by leaving it on the tbr (to be read) pile.

I started watching the tv series on Neon. While the friendships felt true enough, I couldn’t help but wonder how I would feel if I was Dolly Alderton’s best friend from school and she wrote me into her show as Birdy. A quiet, straightlaced, devotee of Dolly’s counterpart, Maggie. Birdy’s light doesn’t shine half as bright as Maggie’s and after suffering through a book detailing failed attempts at romantic love that rounds out to tell you the most important love in the world is actually platonic friendship, the writing of Birdy’s character feels like another blunder.

Maybe I need to just watch the whole series. Maybe I just can’t relate. And that’s okay. The book is a bestseller, I just wish it had been called something else.