Perspectives in Pieces

Happy April (how though?!) and I hope you had a lovely long weekend.

This week we take a look at Good Material by Dolly Alderton. I’ve read a few of Alderton’s books now and this is the first five star read from me, although I see online that this has not been everyone’s cup of tea. (As an aside, I must say that I very much love this cover).

I really enjoyed the writing style of this book. It was very readable, and I was hooked. I devoured this one in a day. What I particularly enjoyed is that it’s a break up story told from the perspective of a man in the aftermath of said break up - I don’t think this is an overly done narrative. I am always impressed when someone can write from the perspective of another person so unlike them - Alderton does this really well, I think.

This book also presents to us a narrator that is not unreliable per se but it is one persons perspective, and I felt when reading this that we were not quite getting the whole story - a good lesson for all of us in that we are just one perspective of an experience. Relationships are never objective, after all.

“Andy’s story wasn’t meant to turn out this way. Living out of a suitcase in his best friends’ spare room, waiting for his career as a stand-up comedian to finally take off, he struggles to process the life-ruining end of his relationship with the only woman he’s ever truly loved. As he tried to solve the seemingly unsolvable mystery of his broken relationship, he contends with career catastrophe, social media paranoia, a rapidly dwindling friendship group and the growing suspicion that, at 35, he really should have figured this all out by now. Andy has a lot to learn, not least his ex-girlfriend’s side of the story.”

A couple of people who have read this book messaged me to let me know they really didn’t enjoy it. Being inside the head of a somewhat unself-aware 35 year old man is perhaps not for the faint hearted! I would love to know what others thought of this one? Comment and let me know what you think, because life is too short to read bad books.