Good Material by Dolly Alderton

Good Material by Dolly Alderton

Read by Arthur Darvill and Vanessa Kirby

9 hours, 54 minutes

Published January 2024 by Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group

Publisher's Summary: 

Andy loves Jen. Jen loved Andy. And he can't work out why she stopped.

Now he is. . .

Without a home

Waiting for his stand-up career to take off

Wondering why everyone else around him seems to have grown up while he wasn't looking

Set adrift on the sea of heartbreak, Andy clings to the idea of solving the puzzle of his ruined relationship. Because if he can find the answer to that, then maybe Jen can find her way back to him. But Andy still has a lot to learn, not least his ex-girlfriend's side of the story…

In this sharply funny and exquisitely relatable story of romantic disaster and friendship, Dolly Alderton offers up a love story with two endings, demonstrating once again why she is one of the most exciting writers today, and the true voice of a generation.

My Thoughts: 

Recently I've had the television to myself more and I've been searching for rom-coms like the ones they made in the 1990's (think Notting Hill, Two Weeks Notice, 10 Things I Hate About You) to no avail. I'm not necessarily looking for that same kind of story; I'm looking for those stories that truly match up romance with comedy, especially those with snappy dialogue. While a movie adaptation of Good Material won't have that same kind of happy ending, there is plenty of heart and humor here that I think would make a great movie. 

I listened to this one and was very much enjoying Andy's side of the story. Sure he's a grown man that needs to accept the fact that it's time to get a big boy job that he can support himself with, notably because his comedy career is going no where and he's unwilling to make any change to his routine. He's grown comfortable with his life and that's part of the problem. In the aftermath of the breakup, he falls into all of the usual traps. But I couldn't help but like him and root for him to grow up...and get over it, to be honest. 

In the back of my mind, as I listened to Andy's story, I kept wondering when that female narrator was going to come in...and then she did, telling us the story from Jen's point of view. And here's the thing, Jen does still love Andy. But Jen can see that, even if Andy changes, theirs is a relationship that simply won't give either of them what they need in life. 

I feel like I may have liked this book more than a lot of other reviewers, many of whom found that Andy was a flat character. But he was surrounded by characters, in my opinion, that helped flesh out his side of the story and make what had happened between Andy and Jen clearer. One reviewer, who read the book in print, felt the switch to Jen's voice was jarring; but, of course, knowing that there were two narrators, I was expecting it and looking forward to hearing her side of the story. Because there are always two sides to a story.