Everything I Know About Love

A celebration of our female friendships, of our messy years, and of growing up together. Glittering with wit, heart, and humour, it’s a book to share with every woman you’ve ever been lucky enough to call a friend.

When it comes to the trials and triumphs of becoming a grown up, journalist Dolly Alderton has seen and tried it all. In her memoir, she vividly recounts falling in love, wrestling with self-sabotage, finding a job, throwing a socially disastrous Rod-Stewart themed house party, getting drunk, getting dumped, realising that Ivan from the corner shop is the only man you've ever been able to rely on, and finding that that your mates are always there at the end of every messy night out.

I know that love can be loud and jubilant. It can be dancing in the swampy mud and the pouring rain at a festival and shouting You are amazing over the band. It’s laughing until you wheeze. It’s walking along the street together on a Saturday night and feeling an entire city is yours.

I also know that love is a pretty quiet thing. It’s lying on the sofa together drinking coffee, talking about where you’re going to go that morning to drink more coffee. It’s folding down pages of books you think they’d find interesting.

I know that love happens under the splendour of fireworks and sunsets, but also happens when you’re lying on blow-up airbeds in a childhood bedroom, sitting in A&E or in the queue for a passport.