THE PLOT: ‘Really Good, Actually’ by Monica Heisey is about a woman in her late twenties who has a breakdown after her divorce. Maggie is fine. She’s doing really good, actually. Sure, she’s broke, her graduate thesis 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. With the support of her tough-loving academic advisor, Merris; her newly divorced friend, Amy; and her group chat, Maggie barrels through her first year of single life.

SUMMARY: This was a fun, quick book that had me laughing and cringing in equal measure. A quintessential millennial mid-life crisis novel, the main character is a self-centred, neurotic car crash that you can’t look away from. She may come across as extremely annoying to some readers, but I enjoyed the one-liners and observations about life not going the way one expects. However, I wanted this book to have a stronger plot because it feels like a series of random events piling up, rather than a cohesive story arc. It also felt unoriginal, as if I’d read so many similar novels before, so, it’s only three and a half stars from me.

GOOD BITS:  The voice of the main character is very strong, with witty asides and sarcastic references that make you laugh out loud. Maggie is an absolute nightmare but that’s the point of her character – she’s a woman spiralling and it’s fascinating to watch the depths she’ll sink to. The author does a good job of conveying an unlikeable character and rambling millennial messiness, which I can definitely relate to.

NOT SO GOOD BITS:  Over the last five years, there have been so many published books about messy millennial women so the genre can feel a bit tired. Although the author managed to give Maggie a distinct personality and voice, inclusions of the therapy sessions, group chats and tinder dates felt a bit stale. I reckon this book needed a stronger plot, which would produce a more dramatic character arc. For example, if Maggie’s divorce triggered her to seek out a concrete goal, the story could develop around her failing/succeeding, and there could be a stronger demonstration of what she learned along the way. It could even be something silly like “when her husband leaves, Maggie decides she needs to find a date for the wedding they were supposed to attend together, but she only has three months.”

OVERALL: I’d recommend this book to fans of ‘Ghosts’ by Dolly Alderton, ‘Piglet’ by Lottie Hazell, or ‘Fleabag’ by Phoebe Waller-Bridge (TV Show). I read this on holiday and it’s exactly the kind of light-hearted book you can gobble up on a plane. However, I doubt I’ll remember it and I wouldn’t rush to buy anything else this author writes.

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