There is no doubt that Dolly Alderton is the true spokesperson for the young and in- and out-of-love crew. Her previous work of fiction, GHOSTS, brought us a unique, determined woman trying to figure out her life at 30. Like her essays in DEAR DOLLY and EVERYTHING I KNOW ABOUT LOVE, Alderton is your best confidante --- the person with all the tea in the breakroom, the one who sits next to you on a plane and ends up spending your vacation with you. Honest and unfailingly vulnerable, her humor makes her an absolute expert on modern-day love.

"Bright and funny, heartwarming and heart-pounding, GOOD MATERIAL gives us a rollercoaster ride through modern love that rises several stories above the average rom-com."

But Alderton doesn’t like to be bored, so here is GOOD MATERIAL, her latest novel. Written from the point of view of a heartbroken young man trying to get over his crushed love, the book offers us a perspective that doesn’t get a lot of play in fiction or nonfiction --- the male perspective.

Andy is a nice guy. He is grieving the loss of his girlfriend, Jen, in the most recognizable way: sad-sack journaling and other New Age methods of release. He is smart and decides that if he is able to dissect all he did wrong and backtrack to the point where he could start over, Jen will come back and they can try again. So how is he going to do that?

Andy confides in his friends and gets dumb advice from them as if he is in a bizarre version of “Sex and the City.” He and his pal, Avi, sit around and watch Harry Potter films. As they recover from one very unhealthy night out at the pubs, Avi exclaims, “This. Is. The problem,” in response to Andy whining about Jen. “Heterosexual men and women are not well-matched. There was a factory fault when God, whoever she is, made them with the hopes of compatibility.” Then they launch into a diatribe about what Avi refers to as “reverse break-up schedules,” and suddenly we realize what is happening.

Alderton, with her British wit and wisdom, has done the opposite of most romance stories, novels, movies, fan fiction, etc. The man is the main focus of the book, the one who is in pain. The narrative revolves around the masculine brain under attack, which is not the norm in most romantic comedies. This exciting departure is a fun change of pace. Of course, some weird sickos do consider LOLITA a comedy and Humbert Humbert, the long-suffering pedophile and first-person narrator, a comic character. I cannot agree with that, but I am sure there have been few, if any, modern novels that take the perspective of the tossed-away, overly emotional guy instead of the woman in the broken relationship.

Andy succeeds where other male narrators do not. He is kind, sincere and does not fall into lechery in order to fix his broken heart. But then Alderton breaks that narrative and allows us to hear from Jen as well, the one who instigated the breakup and isn’t crying her eyes out. This laser-specific take on the attitudes of men and women now comes full circle, with a pair of first-person narratives telling us the story from two different angles. It works. Spectacularly.

Bright and funny, heartwarming and heart-pounding, GOOD MATERIAL gives us a rollercoaster ride through modern love that rises several stories above the average rom-com. As the novel hovers at a higher altitude, you will breathe fresh air and enjoy the sweet and smart tale that Alderton has crafted, bewitching a lot of you through the doldrums of these final weeks of winter.