When I was a kid, Ghosts in the Graveyard was a game every kid knew. We grew up on a dead end street, and there were only two houses on our side with seven houses across the street, four of them with kids our age. We were friends with all of the kids on our block (How Well Do You Know Your Neighbors?), and the two properties next to ours were vacant, full of thick trees and an old foundation from a house that used to be there. We basically had a built-in playing field of the entire block with a lot of room to hide and run away.

When my daughter first learned Ghosts in the Graveyard at one of her birthday parties, it was a little bit tougher. The kids pretty much had our yard to play in, so hiding places were in the garage (spiders 🕷), in the bushes (mosquitoes 🦟), or just around a corner of the house with the hope that they could outrun the Ghost.

As an adult, ghosting takes on a whole different meaning. If you’ve ever dated or been friends with someone who just basically fell off the face of the planet, so to speak, you have been ghosted. If you’ve ever cut someone off without warning or explanation, then you, my friend, are the ghost. Personally, I can’t imagine ghosting someone. It’s just not who I am. I am not a fan of confrontation, but the idea of just cutting someone off doesn’t help anyone.

I’ve been the victim of ghosting, both by a guy I was dating when I was in my late 20s before I had ever even heard the term and by a friend who Dennis and I had known for years. That one actually hurt worse. (I wasn’t really that invested in the guy 🤣). The friend, though, came to visit us for a few days, left to go home early, and we never heard from her again. We had no idea why, and I still don’t. She didn’t even reach out after Dennis passed away, which despite the ghosting was still kind of surprising.

Now the big question…would I ever allow a ghost back into my life? A year ago, I probably would have said not a chance. With Dennis’s passing, however, I have learned the hard way that life is short and it is precious and we have no way of knowing what we’ll do in those last moments. The guy I was dating and the friend who vanished are not people I would let back in. But are there people I would always give another chance to? Probably…because as I said, life is short and it is precious, and the people you’ve spent your life investing in might deserve another chance.

I finished a new release recently that’s all about being ghosted. I wasn’t a huge fan. I expected it to be a romantic comedy, some of the other reviews talked about how funny it was. I didn’t see it. Remember I said that people you’ve spent your LIFE investing in might deserve another chance. Romantic relationships? Friends you haven’t known your whole life?

I’ll be teaching my daughter that there’s a “season” for everyone, and some of those seasons don’t last a lifetime. The hard part is figuring out who’s in it for a season and who’s in it for a lifetime. Maybe that’s why I wasn’t crazy about the book, but you can certainly be the judge.

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Book Review

⭐⭐
2 Stars for Ghosts by Dolly Alderton

354 pages
Publisher: Knopf
Publication Date: August 3, 2021
I received an advance copy of this title from NetGalley and Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.

Publisher’s Description

Nina Dean is not especially bothered that she’s single. She owns her own apartment, she’s about to publish her second book, she has a great relationship with her ex-boyfriend, and enough friends to keep her social calendar full and her hangovers plentiful. And when she downloads a dating app, she does the seemingly impossible: She meets a great guy on her first date. Max is handsome and built like a lumberjack; he has floppy blond hair and a stable job. But more surprising than anything else, Nina and Max have chemistry. Their conversations are witty and ironic, they both hate sports, they dance together like fools, they happily dig deep into the nuances of crappy music, and they create an entire universe of private jokes and chemical bliss.

But when Max ghosts her, Nina is forced to deal with everything she’s been trying so hard to ignore: her father’s Alzheimer’s is getting worse, and so is her mother’s denial of it; her editor hates her new book idea; and her best friend from childhood is icing her out. Funny, tender, and eminently, movingly relatable, Ghosts is a whip-smart tale of relationships and modern life.

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Main Characters:

• Nina – a 32-year-old food writer, working on her second book in a series of three, great friends with her ex-boyfriend, hasn’t dated in two years since their breakup
• Lola – Nina’s only single friend, a veteran of online dating, encourages Nina to download a dating app
• Katherine – Nina’s oldest friend from childhood, married to Mark, they have moved into the suburbs of London with their toddler Olive and have a baby boy on the way
• Joe – Nina’s ex-boyfriend, currently planning his wedding
• Max – a man Nina meets on a dating app

I wanted to like this book. The blurb sounded appealing with a funny story line. Anyone of dating age, especially in your late 20s and early 30s, can relate to being ghosted by someone you meet and seem to hit it off with. There are dozens of books and movies with back stories that include someone who has been ghosted (How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days comes to mind pretty quickly). It really had the potential to be funny.

But it wasn’t remotely funny. By the end, I came to the conclusion that this wasn’t only about being ghosted in the dating world. It’s also about letting go of the ghosts of your past, but that does not make for the funny story that other reviewers described. Until the very end, this story just became increasingly depressing and not something I enjoyed.

***SPOILERS*** SPOILERS***SPOILERS***

The book begins and ends on Nina’s birthday, and her 32nd birthday leads to a pretty crappy year, which is what we follow throughout the book. Sounds fun, huh? Let’s start with the title theme—the ghosting. Nina meets Max on a dating app. They have their first date, they have amazing chemistry. At the end of the date, Max tells Nina he’s going to marry her. They have a whirlwind romance, spending tons of time together, and after telling Nina he’s in love with her, Max disappears. He stops calling. He stops answering. He won’t text. Gone, the classic definition of a ghost in the dating world.

After five months, he shows up on Nina’s doorstep, telling her he was confused, things got intense too fast…and she jumps into bed with him to restart where they left off only to be ghosted again. WHAT?!?! I’m all for giving people a second chance, but you don’t just pick up where you left off when someone vanishes for five months. There’s a reason for the saying, “When people show you who they are, believe them.” At 32, Nina should know better.

In addition to the ghosting, Nina’s father has Alzheimer’s and is becoming progressively worse. He is wandering into the street, forgetting who people are, generally getting himself into dangerous situations. Nina’s mother refuses to acknowledge what’s right in front of her face and wants to continue with life as normal, pretending that there’s nothing wrong with her husband.

And then there’s Nina and Katherine’s fight. After Katherine has her second baby, she is more overwhelmed and exhausted, Olive is not taking to being a big sister, and Mark is not helping as much as Katherine needs. Nina is dealing with her own crap between her dad and her book and Max. Instead of confiding in one another, they push each other away. Totally understandable. They come back together and really talk to one another when Katherine shows up drunk at Nina’s apartment, but again…depressing. Not funny. Not even a little.

I think the only part of the book I found funny is when Nina goes to Joe’s bachelor party (she’s standing up on the groom’s side) and realizes that men have way more fun at a bachelor party and none of the endless preparation for the wedding the morning after. They get to show up hungover, get dressed, and proceed to the wedding.

The books ends with Nina having come up with a book idea that her editor loves, she is again happily single, she and Katherine are again BFFs, and life is good. I’m glad Nina got her happy ending in this book, but it was a really painful journey to get there.

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