As a die-hard The Bachelor and The Bachelorette fan, I was impossibly excited when I learned that Andi Dorfman's book It's Not Okay: Turning Heartbreak Into Happily Ever After would be a tell-all memoir — aka filled with delicious stories about my favorite reality television show. The book, out May 17, doesn't disappoint. In unfiltered detail, Andi Dorfman writes about her very-public relationships with some of her most famous exes — including Juan Pablo Galavis (whom she refers to as "Number One") and ex-fiancé Josh Murray ("Number Twenty-Six.)
More importantly, however, she details her personal experience grieving the end of a relationship. This is a heartbreaking-but-hopeful examination of love, loss, and walking away from it all better than ever — in heels, no less.
It's Not Okay is written in diary form, opening on Day 1, when Andi introduces herself as heartbroken and distraught over her recent break-up from Josh Murray. On Day 4, the news goes public, and everyone in Bachelor Nation (and beyond) learns of their failed engagement. As she opens up about her painful break-up, she takes readers back to the very beginning, detailing her experiences auditioning for The Bachelor, leaving her job as an attorney in Atlanta, and traveling across the country to Los Angeles to meet the man who would eventually inspire the title of her book. She also gives readers a peek at her life pre-Bachelor, telling stories about the boyfriends of her past and revealing the myriad of ways they've shaped her perceptions of love and partnership.
Andi Dorfman tells Bustle she jotted her experiences down as they happened — like a diary — but revisited her writing later. She says:
Basically, I journaled in the moment. So the start of each day is "in the moment." Then — when it came to actually turning it into a book — I went back into all those moments and added a little more depth to them. At the end, I put my hindsight — my recollection and reflection of it all — which is where the “lessons learned” came out of. [That's] kind of where we broke that fourth wall and spoke to the reader and said, "OK, your life really isn’t over."
Though the book offers advice and "lessons" for overcoming heartbreak, Andi Dorfman didn't want it to read like a self-help book. Instead, she wanted women to know it's OK to drink red wine and eat chocolate and cocoon themselves in bed, because, well, break-ups suck. She says:
I read some self-help books and online articles — which I talked about in the book — and that kind of inspired me to write the opposite, in a sense. It was my first time writing, and, to be honest, I just wanted it to be raw... The whole point of it was to be relatable. To be a girlfriend. Because I'm a girl's girl through and through... I wanted it to be relatable and not preachy. Just kind of like what your girlfriend would say to you if she could just be frank and honest with you.
Andi Dorfman's book will certainly resonate with fans of The Bachelorette, as well as anyone who needs a relatable read about embracing the grief of heartbreak... and moving past it stronger than before.
Click Here to Buy It's Not Okay: Turning Heartbreak into Happily Never After, $15, Amazon
Reporting by Martha Sorren.
