Really Good, Actually
Monica Heisey
Rave
Positive
Mixed
Pan
Really Good, Actually
Monica Heisey
Rave
Positive
Mixed
Pan
Rave
Positive
Mixed
Pan
Funny and relatable.
The seemingly tireless facility for jokes and comic self-deprecation can also be wearing. It risks a certain glibness, allowing Heisey to skate over the more serious concerns buried inside the book: the deep feelings of brokenness and loss that come in the wake of a failed relationship. These are often glimpsed, before inevitably giving way to a joke.
Instinct for tone...is...conspicuously absent from Heisey’s work. The narrator, Maggie, has undoubtedly mastered the art of dry, cynical wit and, although the result is not exactly laugh-out-loud funny, it is often amusing.
Empathy is at the heart of Monica Heisey’s debut novel, Really Good, Actually.
Heisey’s portrayal of the joys and pitfalls of online dating will ring true, and Maggie’s self-deprecating, often snarky humor keeps the deeper themes of the story from getting too heavy. It’s a thoroughly modern take on 1990s chick lit, exaggeratedly over the top in the best possible way. Readers will cheer messy Maggie on as she stumbles inelegantly toward a happy, postdivorce life..
Really Good, Actually isn't all misery or jokes, though. Hidden among the body dysmorphia and self-improvement montages Heisey drops the kind of lines that require a pause..
Appealing.
Novels about women who unravel somewhere around the age of 30 aren’t exactly rare, but this one stands out both because it’s laugh-out-loud funny and because of the artful way Heisey reveals that her heroine is most definitely not OK.