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

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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 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™. 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™. This book is like someone's intrusive thoughts gone rogue. lol... I think I liked it more in the end because the character grew so much? But during that, I was constantly trying to hide from the cringy parts while simultaneously laughing at the absolute absurdity of some of it. 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.

My marriage ended because I was cruel. Or because I ate in bed. Or because he liked electronic music and difficult films about men in nature. Or because I did not. Or because I was anxious, and this made me controlling. Or because red wine makes me critical. Or because hunger, stress, and white wine make me critical, too. Or because I was clingy at parties. Or because he smoked weed every day, and I did not think it was “actually the same thing” as my drinking two cups of coffee in the morning. Or because we fell in love too young, and how could our actual lives compare to the idea we’d had of what our lives could be when we were barely twenty and our bodies were almost impossibly firm? Or because we tried non-monogamy for three months in 2011, and it was just fine, not great. Or because he put hot sauce on everything, without tasting it, even if I’d spent hours balancing the flavours from a recipe I’d had to scroll past a long and detailed story about some woman’s holiday to find. Or because he forgot our anniversary once. Or because I did our laundry never. Or because his large Greek family had not quite accepted me as one of their own, even after I learned his yiayia’s favourite poem for her birthday. Or because he walked in on me shitting that time. 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. Or because we went to Paris and had an argument instead of falling more in love or at least rimming each other. Or because I’d stopped imagining what our children might look like. Or because he’d never started. Or because I was insecure, and sometimes petty. Or because he kept insisting we go vegan, then sneaking pizzas into the apartment while I slept. Or because we finished watching The Sopranos and never started The Wire. Or because when we were first getting together, I’d kissed someone else, and sometimes still thought about her. Or because he was needlessly combative, with a pretentious streak. Or because I was a coward, whose work did not “actively seek to dismantle the state.” Or because I scoffed when he said that and asked about the socialist impact of his latest McDonald’s commercial. Or because he called me a cunt. Or because sometimes, I was one. Anyway, it was over. I had high hopes for this Canadian writer and comedian, a writer for the show Schitt’s Creek which I LOVE! 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. You know those miserable friends you avoid at all costs? This book was like being forced to listen to one for 5 hours straight. Painful. 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 . . .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! From the rating alone, it’s obvious this was NOT for everyone, but oh how I loved it. There’s nothing like making an imperfect fictional friend and this was another example of a “romdramedy” that had me laughing out loud one minute and “bless your heart”-ing Maggie the next. One of the most hilarious and barbed accounts of unexpectedly starting over I’ve ever read. . . . If you’ve ever felt lost and hoped that it was leading towards wisdom, Really Good, Actually is your novel.” — Stephanie Danler, New York Times bestselling author of Sweetbitter I feel like when you get a divorce everyone’s wondering how you ruined it all, what made you so unbearable to be with. If your husband dies, at least people feel bad for you. I am awake WAY too early because I accidentally took a weeeee depression nap after learning about a family member's illness. 🥺🥺I think my mind just needed to take a break to process so here I am awake at this unGodly hour. They say nothing good happens after midnight and I 100% agree with that.

Literally, one of the chapters is called: Emotionally Devastating Things My Therapist Said to Me Like They Were Nothing - I laughed way too hard for too long at this chapter for so many reasons.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. 🥺🥺 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. Through palpable tension balanced with glimmers of hope, Hoover beautifully captures the heartbreak and joy of starting over. 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. One of the most hotly anticipated, hilarious and addictive debut novels of 2023, from Schitt’s Creek and Workin’ Moms screenwriter and electric new voice in fiction, Monica Heisey.

Recommended by Los Angeles Times • Washington Post • GQ• Elle • Good Morning America • People • Guardian • The Times • E! News Online • The Globe and Mail • Toronto Star • The Week • New York Post • Shondaland • and many more! 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. I would have rated this book 3 stars, but one line caught my eye, and I felt it rather strongly as one of the most relatable thing I’d read in a while: 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. I give the author a lot of credit because she took a subject that is explored frequently in fiction, divorce, and yet came up with a story that felt fresh and new. That's a pretty big feat to pull off. Regardless of whether you have experienced a significant break up or not, there's some value here for any reader.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.” A book begging to be read on the beach, with the sun warming the sand and salt in the air: pure escapism.

One of the most hotly anticipated, hilarious and addictive debut novels of 2023, from Schitt’s Creek and Workin’ Moms screenwriter and an electric new voice in fiction, Monica Heisey. anyways, i really liked this one! and it's one of those books that feels weird so say you "liked" or "loved" because of the flawed main character ... and boy is she FLAWED! 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? plus (while it does take a while to get there) her character growth is EVERYTHING. i was so pleased with the ending and to see how far maggie had come. and not to mention this book is FUNNY. the sarcasm, wit, and dry humor sprinkled throughout was top notch.I've never been through a divorce, but they happen every day to the people we love around us... it was a great insight into what people really go through in cleaving their life from someone else's. I think the reason I had a hard time with this, even though there are some great insights... so much of this is a rambling mess? A prime example of how a storyteller's voice can pull you right in and keep you clinging to every sentence. . . . This is a book I will give to my closest girlfriends and say, ‘You have to read this.’” — Zibby Owens, GoodMorningAmerica.com 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. Maggie’s marriage 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.