Really Good, Actually: The must-read major Sunday Times bestselling debut novel of 2023

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Had Maggie been written as a one-dimensional character , it would have been a fluffy, mindless read. I have so many friends going through a divorce on a regular basis, and I truly believe books are the best gifts! Now she has time to take up nine hobbies, eat hamburgers at 4 am, and "get back out there" sex-wise. Novels about women who unravel somewhere around the age of 30 aren’t exactly rare, but this one stands out both because it’s laugh-out-loud funny and because of the artful way Heisey reveals that her heroine is most definitely not OK. Her comedic talents are in no doubt in this effort, but she demonstrates a rare insight into modern relationships too.

Or because, in 2015, we attended nine weddings and got carried away, and a big party where everyone told us we were geniuses for loving each other then gave us three thousand dollars seemed like a great idea.but at the age of twenty-nine, Maggie is determined to embrace her new status as a Surprisingly Young Divorcée. It had been so inconsistent: one day tiptoeing around each other, speaking in the stilted tones of new colleagues on a work retreat, then slipping into old habits and kissing goodbye, eating off each other’s plates, fucking. Her ultimate breakdown is inevitable, and she has to work hard to win back the trust of the people who love her most—and regain trust in herself. People in general were very keen to suggest I hang out with other people they knew who’d divorced before they’d gotten gray hair. The other issue I had is that the writing style involved a lot of telling and not showing, which sometimes works for me but not so much here.

I feel like when you get a divorce everyone’s wondering how you ruined it all, what made you so unbearable to be with. News Online • The Globe and Mail • Toronto Star • The Week • New York Post • Shondaland • and many more! Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. It’s a nugget of popular psychology with which Maggie, the heroine of Monica Heisey’s debut novel, Really Good, Actually, would be familiar. Maybe I’d take a photo of my face on every significant day for the rest of my life, compiling a gallery’s worth in time for a show on my 80th birthday: my big potato head smiling at a PhD ceremony, weeping at my mother’s funeral, chewing thoughtfully on the first food my child ever cooked, a few boundary-pushing closeups during orgasm to generate some buzz, etc.This book is essentially the ramblings of an entitled and emotionally immature woman who does nothing but cry about how her husband left her. The author has my attention at the start with the opening section which is really good but then she loses me. i agree that there were a lot of moments that i cringed through while the FMC self sabotaged her life, but something about it felt relatable? Ebooks fulfilled through Glose cannot be printed, downloaded as PDF, or read in other digital readers (like Kindle or Nook). Almost every time Heisey comes close to a serious idea about Maggie’s inner turmoil – she also went through divorce as a twentysomething – it’s bookended with a deadpan quip.