With my penchant for memoirs and the acclaim around Alderton’s coming-of-age memoir, Everything I Know About Love, I decided to read a novel by the author before I read the story of her life. So, I picked Good Material. I got the ebook as well as the audiobook- which by the way was a great production. It’s a book based on the unhappy subject of heartbreak, but it’s peppered with humor that comes to life, especially so on the audiobook.
Jen broke up with her long-time boyfriend Andy. The book follows the 35-year-old Andy as he navigates the stages of the breakup. Andy comes across as this imperfect yet endearing human who is doing the best he can. He’s nursing his broken heart and his broken ego as his life spins out of control. The story is almost entirely told from Andy’s point of view, except towards the end where we get a glimpse into Jen’s perspective on the relationship. That is something I didn’t expect but it worked for me. Even in the shortness of Jen’s perspective Alderton masterfully manages to provide the reader with closure and capture a universal female experience.
I remember feeling the need to re-read this book on my Kindle (so I could highlight passages) immediately after I was done with the audiobook. I think it’s because Alderton examines relationships and the people in it, without the need to employ tropes, she writes about the messiness within relationships with great care and provides the reader with a lot to reflect on. While Good Material is not a classic romantic comedy with a happy ending, it still delivers some elements of a typical romantic comedy- meet-cutes, snappy dialogues, realistic relationship dynamics, and comical misunderstandings.
Here are some of my highlights.
- “You don’t let go once. That’s your first mistake. You say goodbye over a lifetime. You might not have thought about her for ten years, then you’ll hear a song or you’ll walk past somewhere you once went together - something will come to the surface that you’d totally forgotten about. And you say another goodbye. You have to be prepared to let go and let go and let go a thousand times.”
- “And I thought: if I feel single, wouldn’t it be easier to be single? And then I wouldn’t have to worry about disappointing someone or someone disappointing me? When I’m single, I know where I am. I am alone when I’m ill, but I’m not abandoned.”
- “It’s all so random and unfair – the people we want to be with don’t want to be with us and the people who want to be with us are not the people we want to be with.”
- “Bon Iver released a new single two days ago. I’ve been storing it up for my train journey back to London for maximum wallowing.”