Good Material
THE INSTANT SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER, FROM THE AUTHOR OF EVERYTHING I KNOW ABOUT LOVE
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4.0 • 27 Ratings
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- €4.99
Publisher Description
*SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOLLINGER EVERYMAN WODEHOUSE PRIZE FOR COMIC FICTION 2024*
Every relationship has one beginning. This one has two endings.
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‘Funny – of course it’s funny – but also smart, insightful and sincere about heartbreak' David Nicholls, author of One Day
'A novel to be devoured, adored, underlined ... if only more books made you laugh as much as this' The i
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Andy loves Jen. Jen loved Andy.
And he can't work out why she stopped.
Now he is. . .
1. Without a home
2. Waiting for his stand-up career to take off
3. Wondering why everyone else around him seems to have grown up while he wasn't looking
Set adrift on the sea of heartbreak at a time when everything he thought he knew about women, and flat-sharing, and his friendships has transformed beyond recognition, Andy clings to the idea of solving the puzzle of their broken relationship. Because if he can find the answer to that, then maybe Jen can find her way back to him.
Andy still has a lot to learn, not least his ex-girlfriend's side of the story.
From the bestselling author of Ghosts and Everything I Know About Love: a sharply funny, beautifully observed and exquisitely relatable story of heartbreak and friendship, and how to survive both.
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‘Made me laugh while punching me in the gut. Loved this book’ AISLING BEA
'This is the greatest. You'll cry and laugh. I read it though the night. And I never, ever avoid sleep' CLAUDIA WINKLEMAN
‘I award it 13/10 on my QWJ scale (stands for Queasy With Jealousy that I didn't write it)’ MARIAN KEYES
'The author of Everything I Know About Love nails the zeitgeist with a witty, relatable and acutely insightful page-turner about the trials and tribulations of the lovelorn' Daily Express
Good Material, Instant Sunday Times bestseller, November 2023
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Breakups are always hard, and coming out of a four-year relationship in your mid-thirties, with your friends all coupled-up and raising young children, is possibly harder than average. Witty yet tender observations about this predicament are among the most charming elements of Good Material. For the most part, it’s from the perspective of Andy, a not-particularly-successful comedian whose girlfriend, Jen, has just broken up with him, as he tries to make sense of what’s happened. There’s beauty, anguish and a fair bit of comedy in people trying and failing to understand each other—everything is clearer when we hear Jen’s side of the story too—and loving each other but not always knowing how to put that love into practice. There’s also plenty of frisson and palpable fun in the couple’s recollections of the good old days, so even if we get why they broke up, we also get why they were together. Dolly Alderton knows how to write chemistry just as well as despair—and ultimately hope, too.
Customer Reviews
Gut-wrenchingly relatable.
This will make you see reflections of your own actions and the actions of others that will illuminate the meaning in both in a way you may previously have been unable to see. You will laugh and cry and want it to end and want to keep reading.