The following version of this book was used to create the guide: Alderton, Dolly. Everything I Know About Love. Harper Perennial, 2021.

Dolly Alderton’s memoir, Everything I Know About Love, follows her friendships, pursuit of love, and independence from her adolescence into her thirties. At the outset of the text, Alderton was a teenager living in a suburban town outside of London. She felt trapped by her banal neighborhood and used MSN Instant Messenger to talk to boys and expand her friend group. After drinking for the first time, at a bar mitzvah when she was ten years old, the author used alcohol to establish her independence and feel like an adult. When she started university, drinking continued to be a tool for Alderton to feel autonomous. She binge drank her way through university and pursued sexual relationships to feel worthy of love.

When her best friend, Farly, began a serious relationship with Scott, the author was afraid that she was losing her best friend. She believed that Scott was usurping her role as Farly’s confidant and companion. While she was jealous of the attention Farly gave to her boyfriend, she also felt deficient in her own pursuit of love. Her first romantic relationship ended after a year, when her boyfriend, Harry, who she was not in love with, dumped her. She lost her appetite and struggled to eat which led her to believe that the attention she received from being in a smaller body could help her to find love. While restricting initially gave her a sense of control, the eating disorder soon led her to feel detached, ornery, and lonely. She began recovery after she fell in love with Leo. At the outset of their relationship, she chopped off her hair and felt like she was shedding the hyper-feminine standards of the male gaze. However, she subconsciously knew that she was still manipulating her appearance to appease the sexual fantasies of a man.

Later on in the text, after the death of Farly’s sister, the author began spending more time with her best friend. She comforted Farly and supported her through grief. Shortly after, Scott broke off their engagement and Alderton booked a trip for them to visit Sardinia, on the weekend that would have been Farly’s wedding day. They swam in the ocean and discussed love and loss. When the author began seeing a therapist, she was able to recognize that she did not have a solid sense of self-worth; her self-destructive behavior, attention seeking, and alcoholism had been directed by a desire to please others and avoid her insecurities.

After a failed romance, with David, an intimacy coach who she met through work, the author recognized that she deserved more than fleeting sexual attention from her romantic partners. While she used to define romantic love as separate from platonic love, her friendship with Farly helped her to acknowledge that love manifests in a multitude of forms. Despite her lack of long-lasting romantic partners, she had the support, comfort, and stability she craved in her relationships with Farly, AJ, Belle, and India. Female friendships helped her to find independence, self-worth, and support. At the end of the text, when reflecting on her current understanding of love, the author expands her definition of the emotion to include platonic love. She encourages her reader to evaluate how love is present in their own lives, even if it is not packaged in a romantic relationship.