What Penguin say:-
Nina Dean has arrived at her early thirties as a successful food writer with loving friends and family, plus a new home and neighbourhood. When she meets Max, a beguiling romantic hero who tells her on date one that he's going to marry her, it feels like all is going to plan.
A new relationship couldn't have come at a better time - her thirties have not been the liberating, uncomplicated experience she was sold. Everywhere she turns, she is reminded of time passing and opportunities dwindling. Friendships are fading, ex-boyfriends are moving on and, worse, everyone's moving to the suburbs. There's no solace to be found in her family, with a mum who's caught in a baffling mid-life makeover and a beloved dad who is vanishing in slow-motion into dementia.
Dolly Alderton's debut novel is funny and tender, filled with whip-smart observations about relationships, family, memory, and how we live now.
What I thought:-
An extraordinary treat of a book, one to savour and take time over, because it proved thought-provoking for me. Nina's situation is one many people would recognise, single and unattached in a world of coupledom, while her parents are facing new challenges as they grow older and her scholarly father begins the descent into dementia.
Persuaded to give dating apps a try, she chats on line with some decided frogs before her path crosses with Max and it seems almost perfect. But can anything - or anyone - be as perfect as he seems?
Dolly writes beautifully and wittily, with an original turn of phrase and a real gift for description.
