What saves this book from becoming corny is Monica Heisey's impeccable comedic timing and complete lack of any sort of filter. She certainly instills a feeling of secondhand embarrassment in the reader, but it's hard not to love and root for Maggie as she attempts to make sense of life again after extreme heartbreak.
— Peter
“This book follows a woman’s first year of singledom after her brief marriage unceremoniously falls apart. Depression, delusion, and self-pity all star here, but the author handles it all with tenderness and a dash of humor.”
— Tracy Affonso, Wellesley Books, Wellesley, MA
"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
"Hilarious, heartwarming, wise." -- Paula Hawkins, #1 New York Times Bestselling Author of A Slow Fire Burning and The Girl on the Train
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 Divorc e(TM).
Now she has time to take up nine hobbies, eat hamburgers at 4 am, and "get back out there" sex-wise. With the support of her tough-loving academic advisor, Merris; her newly divorced friend, Amy; and her group chat (naturally), Maggie barrels through her first year of single life, intermittently dating, occasionally waking up on the floor and asking herself tough questions along the way.
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.