Everything I Know About Love by Dolly Alderton

I was so late to the party of this book, but I’m glad I held off. Reading it at 22 was perfect. I read it in 2 days after buying it at 3 am unable to sleep.

It made me thankful for the stories that make up my life so far, and nostalgic for the stories I haven’t even lived yet.

Its honest reflections and lessons on alcohol, age, love, sex, and friendship are intertwined with vivid recounts of poignant moments in Alderton’s life. She recounts her gained wisdom whilst allowing you to take your own lessons from her experiences, dispensing advice as a form of nostalgia, as Baz Luhmann says. 

A lot of the lines I read twice to take them in, as things that I’ve never actually been told before, things I needed to hear, things I have maybe avoided. Cliché as it sounds, things needed to be heard from an older sister.

It is confessional, vulnerable and extremely humorous. It is poetic and intimate, describing feelings in metaphors you have never considered before but that make complete and perfect sense. It is also deeply romantic. Towards the self, friends, the world, and life.

Everyone will see themselves at some point in this book, hear themselves speaking, and read things that could be their own confessions. Her experiences are unique and simultaneously universal. It made me grateful and warm.

Everyone has this book in them, and that is what makes it special. It instils a sense of excitement about your own life, of how you could fill pages with your own stories. It is a hedonistic yet profound account of life as a series of stories, moments, learning, and growth.