I don't understand why this book is considered to be laugh out loud funny. I found it to be profoundly sad. It is a story of Jen and Andy, who have broken up after a 4 year relationship. They love each other, but Jen doesn't feel that their relationship has what she needs. Andy can't seem to let her go. He drinks too much, has questionable dates, stalks Jen online, and bemoans to his friends that he doesn't understand why she left. He is a comedian, but he flounders at it. Jen has a high powered job and she excels at it. All their friends are having children, but she doesn't know if she wants a family.
The story follows their feelings over the course of several months.
I just felt sad the entire book - sad due to the end of a relationship. ( )

fiction - a (not very successful) stand up comedian Andy in 2019 London, England, UK copes with the sudden end of his 4-year relationship with Jen, who won't explain why she broke up with him.

Andy's not all that likeable (or funny), but he's not terrible either--mostly he mopes/whines about the breakup, and he is only tolerable because he knows he's wearing on his friends. Despite Andy's shortcomings, his story is mildly interesting, and as the months pass from summer 2019 to fall/autumn 2019, Andy's paranoid landlord/housemate Morris points out that something big is about to happen to the world; the pre-COVID timeline adds an extra layer of urgency. I liked the ending, but it was maybe a lot to drudge through to get there.

the twist at the end is that we finally hear Jen's side of the story, and she just does not feel the need to be someone's girlfriend, wife, or mother. With her home mortgage covered by tenant renters and having amassed significant savings, she decides to quit her high-paying job that she really doesn't like in early 2020 and plans to spend a year traveling the world in late March 2020 (!) as a 35 y.o. woman without the obligations to family/kids that her friends now all share. ( )

A story about a breakup mainly from the man’s perspective with some about the woman. The people around them were a bit more interesting. Set in England so the book was slightly more interesting. The stuff about comedians was fun ( )

A book club book, I forgot to record. Had its moments, but they were few and far between slogging through Andy, who for a comedian, didn't bring many laughs. Most of the other characters were more endearing. (I really liked his mom's view on the world.) ( )

Dolly, you are, as always, my literary hero 3 this book was SO SO sO SO SO GOOD! the way Dolly Alderton writes women's fiction without hating women is !!! and especially in this book where 99% of the book is written from the perspective of a man grieving a bad breakup. the most compelling part of this story is that Dolly manages to take the reader through the mania, the bargaining, and the desperation of searching for control in a situation that you did not choose to be in, and she does it without making us hate the woman who has caused the breakup. i think it was important to have a section from Jen’s perspective at the end of the book. it gives a lot of clarification to much of the breakup and pulls the reader from the typical pedestalization of a protagonist that inevitably occurs in fiction. Andy is not perfect. Jen is not perfect. the complexity of these characters on such a molecular level is stunning. and a huge shoutout to womanhood!! Jen’s struggle with wanting to exist outside of a relationship and the implication that all women want to have marriages and children struck such a chord to me. live laugh love Dolly Alderton ( )