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I was very sold on the set up though: a young, pithy woman goes through a divorce and has to cope with all the changes that brings. She struggles to achieve independence (financial and otherwise) when she’s been part of a couple for so much of her adult life. She doesn’t necessarily know entirely who she is, how to go about being a responsible adult, or have complete control over her emotions and even though I haven’t been married or divorced, it was relatable. Unfortunately for me the execution fell short, but maybe if I experienced divorce I would appreciate it more. 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. A tender yet sharp debut, detailing the self-discovery and absurdity in heartbreak." — The Canadian Press
Really Good, Actually – HarperCollins Really Good, Actually – HarperCollins
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. 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. Monica Heisey makes me keel over with laughter and recognition.”— Lena Dunham, actress, screenwriter and bestselling author Prepare for a charmingly messy and relatable reflection of modern love and the elusive search for happiness in Heisey's heartfelt and hilarious debut novel.”— E! News
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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. 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.
Really Good, Actually by Monica Heisey | CBC Books Really Good, Actually by Monica Heisey | CBC Books
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.” Monica Heisey was born in Toronto at the very end of the 1980s and has spent most of her adult life in London, after moving there in 2010 to pursue an MA in early modern literature. She is an author, screenwriter, essayist, and occasional comedian. She works mostly from bed and has accepted that this will impact her posture. 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 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™.However, all that being said I have little doubt this but will be a hit if not because of the authors script writing credentials. Heisey's writing has appeared in Vogue, Elle, Glamour, and The New Yorker. [3] Her first book I Can’t Believe It’s Not Better: A Woman’s Guide to Coping with Life, a collection of essays, was published in 2015. [7] The book was based on her blog-based advice column She Does the City. [1] She published her first fiction novel, Really Good, Actually, in 2023. [2] It was inspired by her divorce at 28 years of age and the absence of that experience in popular culture. [5] The book was written over the course of 2020 and has been optioned for a television series. [5] A cringe-filled, funny—and surprisingly poignant—look at one woman’s self-discovery after heartbreak.”— People
Really Good, Actually by Monica Heisey | Waterstones Really Good, Actually by Monica Heisey | Waterstones
PDF / EPUB File Name: Really_Good_Actually_-_Monica_Heisey.pdf, Really_Good_Actually_-_Monica_Heisey.epub 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. 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.Maggie’s marriage is ending only six hundred and eight days after it began (despite being together nearly a decade) . . . 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. 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™.
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