Really Good, Actually: The must-read major Sunday Times bestselling debut novel of 2023
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Really Good, Actually: The must-read major Sunday Times bestselling debut novel of 2023
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I’d never considered how the taboo surrounding divorce (until much more recently) has meant that nearly all divorcee pop culture references have typically centred around middle-aged people who have families or homes that need to be divided and negotiated. Really Good, Actually provides a completely different perspective as Maggie and her ex have no children (but there is a cat), they don’t own their home, and they have no shared belongings. She’s also at the stage in her life where everyone around her is either newly engaged or about to get married, just as she’s coming to terms with her marriage coming to an end. The first to get married in her friendship group and now the first to get divorced, you can imagine Maggie’s internal struggle with coming to terms with her new reality. This book made me feel like the boy in Matilda who is forced by Principal Trunchbull to eat that entire chocolate cake. At first you think, oh yay cake. I enjoy this. But then you realize you are forcing yourself through more of the same with no new development until you are ready to just explode. It is much easier to digest in a more bite sized portions. The author has my attention at the start with the opening section which is really good but then she loses me. Whilst there are some laughs and also some heartache I struggle to get through this. Maggie is fine. She’s doing really good, actually. Sure, she’s broke, her graduate thesis on something obscure is going nowhere, and her marriage only lasted 608 days, but at the ripe old age of twenty-nine, Maggie is determined to embrace her new life as a Surprisingly Young Divorcée™.
The toaster line is typical of Heisey’s style: mostly ridiculous, yet with an emotional core that appeals to the heart. And Heisey knows how Maggie is feeling. The London-based Canadian author, who has worked as a screenwriter on the sitcom Schitt’s Creek, was herself married at 26 and divorced at 28. Here the immensely recognisable experience of heartbreak is heightened to a painful degree: how does someone who once seemed to have a relationship so perfect she made it legal, reappear into the world now she is divorced – and still in her twenties? Maggie is an interesting character in that she is more complex than first meets the eye. I'll admit to getting frustrated with her at times but to be honest that's kinda what made the book special. Had Maggie been written as a one-dimensional character , it would have been a fluffy, mindless read. Instead she's a hot mess and even though you might not make the same choices as her, on some level she is relatable. Looking for love in all the wrong places, continually texting and calling her ex because he said they should keep in touch (and he has their cat Janet, after all) and alienating herself from her friend group for being such a Debbie Downer, she’s having more than a bit of a struggle handling things . . . Of the 43 most stressful events that an average adult might contend with in their lifetime, “divorce” and “marital separation” rank at Nos 2 and 3 respectively, grimly sandwiched between “spousal death” and “imprisonment”. (“Vacations” and “frequency of family reunions” make the list too – useful to remember in the wake of the holiday season.) It’s a nugget of popular psychology with which Maggie, the heroine of Monica Heisey’s debut novel, Really Good, Actually, would be familiar.
Credit
stars: 2 stars for the book itself, but a million stars for goddess Julia Whelan's narration of the audiobook, so I'm rounding up. Maggie’s marriage is ending only six hundred and eight days after it began (despite being together nearly a decade) . . . Freshly divorced Maggie is open to trying and doing new things, including dating, journalling, working out and standing up for herself. With all of this, she crumbles weekly and spends days indoor hiding away from the world. With the help of friends she slowly faces her situation and make plans for next step. However, all that being said I have little doubt this but will be a hit if not because of the authors script writing credentials. The author also writes with astute observation at the absurdity of how life goes on despite big devastating life events that you can experience personally, and we see how Maggie tries to navigate the ‘normalness’ of the lives of her family, friends and work colleagues, and convincing her and everyone around her that she is happy and ok. I particularly enjoyed the impact of Maggie’s situation with her close group of friends (and how their friendship is tested by Maggie’s destructive behaviour) as well as Maggie’s relationship with Simon (Maggie’s self-preservation and detachment in this relationship was definitely relatable).
Maggie is getting divorced at 28. This book is the most hilarious break up commentary, alongside the funniest observations from her friends and we even see her attempt to find a new love 👀 In the movies, you are Diane Lane, or Keaton, or possibly Kruger, a beautiful middle-aged Diane who is her own boss and knows about the good kind of white wine. Usually, you do not continue living with your ex for weeks because you can’t make the rent on your dusty one-bedroom apartment alone. Generally, you are not a glorified research assistant and an advertising copywriter, respectively, whose most important shared financial asset is your one friend who always gets free phones from work. Certainly, you are not supposed to be twenty-eight years old and actively planning a birthday party with the dress code “Jimmy Buffett sluts.” Really, Good, Actually is also an incredibly powerful reminder that people don't need to be fixed, but they do need support, and they best possibly loving intervention you can provide if you have the energy to give? Also, to not mention any kind of random Japanese pottery theory about broken people... Really, though, let's all encourage our friends to seek professional help when we can see they're clearly struggling and we don't have the tools to help them. 🥺🥺
BookBliss
Well this was a darkly comical and often times tragically relatable read. Maggie’s marriage has ended just 608 days after it started, but she’s fine - really good, actually. Or is she? She seems to be embracing her aloneness and navigating the anxiety and unknown of her first year of divorce by throwing herself into new hobbies, dating, saying whatever comes into her head (over sharing x 💯!) and getting horribly drunk with her new divorced friend Amy. Maggie’s marriage has ended just 608 days after it started, but she’s fine – she’s doing really good, actually. Sure, she’s alone for the first time in her life, can’t afford her rent and her obscure PhD is going nowhere . . . but at the age of twenty-nine, Maggie is determined to embrace her new status as a Surprisingly Young DivorcéeTM. With that, another #tandemreadalongis done and dusted. This time, the group ventured into the rapidly falling apart world of Maggie. She finds herself in her late 20s, staring down the barrel of divorce. We follow her throughout the year of her separation, between split and divorce papers. There is no doubt about it: for anyone in their twenties or early thirties who has longed to see their experience of divorce depicted in contemporary culture, this book will be a balm. I just wish Heisey’s stamina for exuberant quips was a little lower. Laugh-out-loud funny and filled with sharp observations, Really Good, Actually is a tender and bittersweet comedy that lays bare the uncertainties of modern love, friendship, and our search for that thing we like to call "happiness". This is a remarkable debut from an unforgettable new voice in fiction. (From HarperCollins)
Maggie’s marriage has ended just 608 days after it started, but she’s fine – she’s doing really good, actually. Sure, she’s alone for the first time in her life, can’t afford her rent and her obscure PhD is going nowhere . . . but at the age of twenty-nine, Maggie is determined to embrace her new status as a Surprisingly Young Divorcée™. Really Good, Actually opens with the line My marriage ended because I was cruel and the narrator Maggie continues with a list of reasons her marriage ended. With an opening like that, it can only go downhill, and that it did. We meet twenty-nine year old Maggie reeling from a divorce from her college sweetheart. They have been dating for a long time and finally got married, the marriage only lasted 608 days. Now Maggie must navigate a new world, single, broke, emotionally erratic and trying to find out who she is outside of the world she created with her ex-husband. Three woman who join together to rent a large space along the beach in Los Angeles for their stores—a gift shop, a bakery, and a bookstore—become fast friends as they each experience the highs, and lows, of love. i would compare this book to a mixture of ADELAIDE and ROMANTIC COMEDY but tbh i liked it a lot more. i believe i read somewhere that it was being adapted into a movie or series and i think it would translate very well! First of all, the positives as I see them. The premise is a creative one and I do enjoy the new chaotic life Maggie now lives though the standout feature that appeals to me the most is the ironic, sarcastic tone and the social commentary. The friendships are good and there are some scenes that are entertaining as Maggie employs a multitude of diversionary tactics. The Google searches she does a funny too!
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Through way too many misadventures, Maggie FINALLY ENTERS THERAPY(!!!) and starts to gain some clarity. She definitely hasn’t figured her shit out, but there is a light at the end of the (probably very long) tunnel. Here's a list of alternate titles that went through my head while I was listening to Really Good, Actually: I think the problem with this book is that it’s not in its ideal format. This would have worked a lot better as a short story/essay collection. As a novel, it drags and meanders without a real sense of purpose or plot. Nothing really moves forward and it feels like a collection of comedy routines on a shared topic. The zany one liners also work a lot better in that medium I think. With this being a full length novel, endless jokes about the same topic get tiring. The whole thing is a bit of a ramble, really. We’re with Maggie and she’s spiralling and then not spiralling and then spiralling some more. It’s fun and relatable in a chaotic sort of way which is realistic if you think about it. There’s plenty introspection and the kind of deep thought that happens when your life is collapsing. Plenty drama. It would make for light (?) reading. At least to me, it was light ish. I recommend. You know how every funny book about a single woman who is a ‘bit of mess’ is compared to Bridget Jones? Well, comparatively? Bridget: step aside babes.
A hilarious and painfully relatable debut novel about one woman’s messy search for joy and meaning in the wake of an unexpected breakup, from comedian, essayist, and award-winning screenwriter Monica Heisey Maggie has been married for less than two years when her and her husband decide to get a divorce. Now Maggie is in her late 20s and single and trying to figure her life out after everything has been turned upside down.Maggie is a 29 year old struggling to come to terms with a fresh divorce and for some reason has zero self restraint. She is endlessly cringey; constantly acting poorly and saying awful things to her friends. I’m surprised her friends didn’t fall out with her sooner. Vacillating between the cringe-worthy/second-hand embarrassment-fueled moments of a person with no self-awareness.. and absolute heart-wrenching grief and denial... this story is hard to read. Somewhat in a good way, somewhat in a bad way? It's categorized as a novel, but most definitely makes you wonder how much of was real for the author. Laugh-out-loud funny, razor sharp and painfully relatable, Really Good, Actually is an irresistible debut novel about the uncertainties of modern love, friendship and happiness from a stunning new voice in fiction, Monica Heisey. Monica Heisey has been a writer for television comedy, including the award winning Schitts Creek, and has just published her debut novel Really Good, Actually. The story follows 28 year old Maggie as she navigates a new life after her recent divorce. Monica talks to Johny Pitts about the crossover between fiction and her own life and finding the comedy in self-improvement. However, it just goes on and on. It’s way too long as it’s all basically the same theme so there’s a lot of repetition. There isn’t a plot as such as it’s just Maggie‘s exploration of various things which eventually gets tedious. I can’t say either that I especially like her as a central protagonist and this is one of those occasions where I think that is important. She tires me out, wears me down quite simply drives me round the bend. Some references mean nothing to me as a reader in the United Kingdom but will mean something to North American readers.
- Fruugo ID: 258392218-563234582
- EAN: 764486781913
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