It’s okay. The spare room is where the baby sleeps now, so I’m in the living room on a blow-up mattress, but it’s all right.’

We agreed I would call at seven but I wait until three minutes past to make a point that she doesn’t get to call the shots any more. I scroll to her name in my phonebook: Jen (Hammersmith). We found it funny - my chosen life partner, reduced to a borough. It’s not funny now it’s lost all its irony. It’s just a fact. I am about to call Jen (Hammersmith), a woman who I would probably never be friends with, who lives in a part of London I would never visit. This is the greatest. You'll cry and laugh. I read it though the night. And I never, ever avoid sleep' CLAUDIA WINKLEMAN

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I award it 13/10 on my QWJ scale (stands for Queasy With Jealousy that I didn't write it)' MARIAN KEYES Annoyingly loquacious and was on a debating team at her school, which meant I didn’t win an argument in nearly four years even when I was right about loads of them. Jonathan Safran Foer’s Eating Animals. I read it when I was 24 and it completely changed the way I thought about consuming meat and fish. The first book that made me cry – Love Story by Erich Segal. I think it made me realise the simple fact of how stories can move us. A relatable, laugh-out-loud story of a thirtysomething failed comedian struggling with a break-up Sunday Times Style

In addition to following the progress of Andy’s recovery and meeting some very good characters along the way (Ari and Jane‘s children are hilarious for example), there are some excellent music references, some hair obsessing and hair envy, some other ventures where Andy tries to reinvent his 35-year-old self, with limited success. The last section is Jen’s point of view, whilst it may not be especially long it is very illuminating and explains a lot. I’m glad we got this as it gives a broader understanding of their relationship. The ending is extremely satisfying. The male perspective is rarely the focus in romantic comedy, but Dolly Alderton’s new novel corrects the imbalance… Relatable, funny and refreshing.”Would take an hour to go to bed, no matter what time she got in, because she’d do a seven-step skincare routine, browse shopping apps and listen to podcasts. And yet only left twenty minutes from her alarm going off to having to leave the flat in the morning. Always used to boast about how she’d reject an OBE if it were offered to her because of her apparent lefty republican values but would never know why she’d be offered an OBE in this fantasy when I asked her. We don’t work like that, Jen, but thanks.’ There is a pause that I wait for her to fill. She doesn’t. ‘So goodbye, then, I suppose,’ I say with weary cheer. ‘And we’ll just text if we need to talk about flat stuff or whatever.’

When she would go for a run in the evening she would come into the living room, stretch in front of the TV and say ‘What’s this?’ and make me explain the programme I was watching even though she knew what it was, just to make a point that she was exercising while I was watching Help, I’m a Hoarder! Genuinely laugh-out-loud funny —with characters straight out of a Richard Curtis film (the elderly lodger who’s prepping for doomsday is a highlight) —whipsmart dialogue and relatable millennial themes (Alderton’s forte) mean there’s never a dull moment. Despite it being a pleasingly easy read (we tore through it in a single day), Good Material still manages to be thought-provoking and wise.” Genuinely laugh-out-loud funny – with characters straight out of a Richard Curtis film – whipsmart dialogue and relatable millennial themes (Alderton’s forte) mean there’s never a dull moment ... Thought-provoking and wise The Independent, Best New Books to Read This Autumn She’s fine, she hates you, her Zumba class are plotting your death.’ Another arctic pause. ‘She’s devastated, obviously.’ Her unbearable sister Miranda who carries nonsensical homemade signs at protests saying things like HISTORY IS WATCHING and who I know hates me because she always ranted about ‘straight white guys’ when she came round for dinner, no matter the topic. She used to say ‘Sorry, Andy’ but didn’t by the end.

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Your therapist suggested that I “write a letter to my ego”, so I’m sorry if I’m not gagging to hear whatever she advised.’ Pretended she’s unsure about wanting children because she cares about the planet, but I think she just didn’t want children with me. She conjures up some plausible maxims, too, enlightening readers about “The Flip” (the change in power that occurs in every relationship doomed to failure) or the 90/10 rule (rebounders will invariably gravitate to people who embody the crucial 10% that was missing in their otherwise fine exes). WONDERFUL ... Shot through with Dolly's characteristic emotional intelligence ... Very funny ... Such a pleasure to read. I devoured it ... I award it 13/10 on my QWJ scale (stands for Queasy With Jealousy that I didn't write it) Marian Keyes

One of the foremost ‘it’ writers of our time . . .Whatever ails you, Alderton can fix it with her intimate wisdom . . . There is no writer quite like Dolly Alderton working today and very soon the world will know it.” Good Material contains a lot that will resonate with anyone who has experienced a difficult breakup – bumping into your ex with their new partner and hoping the ground will swallow you whole; storing up the things you want to tell them – but ventures into enough other areas to have a broad appeal. I think it was very important to have a section from Jen’s perspective at the end of the book. It gives so much 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. I see bits of myself in both of them. Which, as a writer, I know is very very very difficult to accomplish. The complexity of these characters on such a molecular level is stunning and inspiring, to say the least.Just as she did in both her memoir and her 2020 debut novel Ghosts, Alderton explores friendships beautifully, probing the anxieties around being left behind while other friends reach milestones, and the bittersweet pain of seeing a friend’s career soar while your own is flailing (“I’m pleased for him,” Andy notes when spotting a five star review of a fellow comic’s show. “I can’t read past the fourth sentence”). Oh she did it and she did it well. A compulsively readable examination of the weirdness of breaking up with your partner and generally surviving your mid-thirties. Good Material introduces us to stand-up comedian Andy, whose life is going okay. His career hasn't really taken off and when his girlfriend breaks up with him for reasons that don't make sense to him ("she wants to be single"), he ends up living out of a suitcase in his best friend's spare room, trying to process what happened to his life and asking himself the scary question of whether he shouldn't have figured it all out by now, aged 35. The book is so easy to read and still feels profound and relatable in its revelations. I consider being able to pull this off incredibly hard and Dolly Alderton did it without ever drifting off into either pretentious, patronising or unrealistic territory. And despite us all probably having read at least a dozen novels about some sort of breakup, I thought there was enough in here to make this feel fresh – particularly the rumination about being in your thirties. Their demographic is challenged by significant generational conflicts, too – boomer and gen Z characters repeatedly question Andy’s received wisdoms about love and relationships. When Andy retreats to the reassuring regularity of his suburban childhood home, the conversations he has with his mother about accepting rejection prove vital in reframing his self-awareness and vision of what his future might look like.