Review: Everything I Know About Love

After navigating university, relationships, and general life crises, now 34, Dolly Alderton’s Everything I Know About Love dives deep into her twenties and how they shaped her into the woman she is today.

Alderton grew up in England, her story takes place in and out of her hometown and university apartments, where she discusses her difficulties with body image, relationships, and friendships.

She describes her experiences through humor in one of the most authentic and relatable ways.

There's something so real about reading firsthand accounts of someone else's life and finding ways to relate them to your own experiences.

She explains the desperation of not knowing who you truly are and makes the reader feel seen through her struggles. Her description of the relationship she has with her body was hurtful. Yet her journey is deeply inspiring.

She writes about the grief that comes with death and trying to comfort those around you while also trying to take care of yourself. It’s a battle that, unfortunately, everyone faces in their lifetime, and she finds the perfect words to describe the hurt that comes along with it.

It was interesting that even though everyone grows up differently from others, we're still all relatively the same. Relatability is something that, as humans, we seek in each other because we all want to fit in. The most common thing everyone has with each other is that we all grow up, some more than others, but we do. It's inevitable.

Female friendships, relationships, and societal norms have all been something that people struggle with in their 20s. It's vital to make sure we keep relationships and friendships strong. For long periods of our lives, we think that these things are supposed to be easy, but in reality, it's hard to give someone all your energy and for them to give you that same energy back. Some days are harder than others, but sometimes it comes easily with specific people in our lives.

That's what's so important about love—pushing through the bad days to get to the easy days. It’s equally as important to make sure you're keeping the people who love you most at arm’s length, especially in a world so focused on driving people apart over the smallest things.