Joined in 2023 
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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. I've been seeing this gorgeous cover all across Bookstagram and Goodreads so I'm hoping it's good! I just DNFed my last read, and I'm actually really proud of myself for that because I was genuinely not invested in it!
It is a priority for CBC to create products that are accessible to all in Canada including people with visual, hearing, motor and cognitive challenges. However, all that being said I have little doubt this but will be a hit if not because of the authors script writing credentials. 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. 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™. When you say that you feel you’ll never find another person willing to be in a long-term relationship with you, that makes me feel very personally sad. I wonder if we might ask whether you are willing to be in a long-term relationship with yourself?”The verdict: An irresistible debut from one of the screenwriters behind the hit comedy series Schitt’s Creek All of which is very obviously going to be a smash-hit television series at some point. It’ll probably be very funny. In a novel, however, the vague sense of disquiet Maggie feels about being ‘damaged goods’ never gets fully explored. 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. 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! One day,” she said, “and it will surprise you how soon this day will come, but one day you will wake up and feel good. It won’t last long, but then you’ll have another day where you barely remember this abjection, and another, and another, until that’s just your life. But for now, it will be hard. This is the part that’s hard.”
A book begging to be read on the beach, with the sun warming the sand and salt in the air: pure escapism. Through palpable tension balanced with glimmers of hope, Hoover beautifully captures the heartbreak and joy of starting over.
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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. Call it what you must, but you need to practise walking around and living life and being heartbroken at the same time. Not in an exciting way, where you're in the thrall of some new person, or buying something outrageous, or terrorising Jiro, but in the way where you still have to go to work when you have a toothache.’
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. 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?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 . . . Which, ultimately, makes this story of a woman finding strength in friendships slightly frothy. But Maggie is a lot of fun to be around. Really fun, actually. Need another excuse to treat yourself to a new book this week? We've got you covered with the buzziest new releases of the day. 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.
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 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 sequel to It Ends With Us (2016) shows the aftermath of domestic violence through the eyes of a single mother. 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.Maggie is too young to be getting divorced. But she is. Six hundred and eight days after the vows, her marriage has ended. 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.
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