Good Material

Dolly Alderton

Average Rating 8/10 (1 Review)

Every relationship has one beginning.
This one has two endings.

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.

'This is the greatest. You'll cry and laugh. I read it though the night. And I never, ever avoid sleep.'

Review by Ben Macnair (100224) Rating (8/10)

Review by Ben Macnair
Book Source: Not Known
Rating 8/10
By now we know what to expect from a Dolly Alderton novel. Well written, believable characters, well drawn scenarios, scenes that make sense, imperfect people with imperfect lives, and Good Material is no different.

We meet Andy, a 35 year old career comedian, still waiting for his big break. He has done a bit of TV, regularly gigs all over the country, but he has just broken up with Jen, after four years of a happy relationship.

As Andy moves around, trying to get over Jen, making his move on an Instagram influencer, eventually finding some form of comfort with a much younger woman, are let into his life. His close relationship with his Mum, his Birmingham based youth going against his London set later life, with Ari his oldest friend from University.

He, Jen, Ari and Ari’s wife Jane are a close knit group, until the break up severs that. They don’t want to take sides, but report on each other’s life, Seb, Jen’s unsuitable new suitor from work. He is everything that Andy isn’t.

Andy eventually finds himself the lodger of Morris. A decidedly strange man who cleans his curtains on Christmas day, and has an unrequited postal friendship with Julian Assange. The friendship is well drawn and believable, with Morris agreeing to spend Christmas Day with Andy. Some more of Morris in the book would have been good.

There are also a couple of chapters towards the end of the book that see the relationship and the inevitable breakup from Jen’s side. If you have ever seen 500 Days of Summer, it is something like that. Boy meets Girl, boy develops deeper feelings, and then the couple meet and part as friends, with the career of the male protagonist seemingly on the up.

The comedy scene and the camaraderie between comedians is also well explored. They support each other when things go well, and commiserate when they don’t. Andy gets a bad review and it goes viral. He finds himself dropping down a pay threshold on the comedy circuit.

The writing is sharp, the pace and the characterisation is well drawn. The story is plausible with a good ending. It lives up to Dolly Alderton previous work, and it has something to commend it to anyone who has fallen in love, and then out of it. We all get better, eventually.
Ben Macnair (10th February 2024)