In her debut novel, Monica Heisey captures the messy, uncomfortable reality of modern breakups with razor-sharp wit and surprising tenderness. “Really Good, Actually” follows 29-year-old Maggie as she navigates the aftermath of her 608-day marriage, serving up a cocktail of millennial angst, genuine heartbreak, and self-deprecating humor that goes down both smooth and burning.
A Divorcée’s Odyssey
Maggie’s journey through her “Surprisingly Young Divorcée™” life feels painfully authentic from the first page. When her marriage to Jon dissolves and he moves out of their Toronto apartment, taking their beloved cat Janet with him, Maggie spirals into what could easily become a cliché story of heartbreak. Instead, Heisey delivers something much more nuanced.
What makes this book shine is how it refuses to romanticize post-breakup life. There are no transformative yoga retreats or passionate flings with mysterious strangers (though Maggie certainly tries for the latter). Instead, we get Maggie ordering “Night Burgers” at 4 a.m., endlessly cyberstalking her ex via her cat’s Instagram account, and sending increasingly unhinged texts to her friends.
The novel chronicles approximately one year of Maggie’s life, from the initial shock of separation through her thirtieth birthday, with all the humiliating missteps, false starts, and genuine growth that happens along the way.
Heisey’s Voice: Sharp, Funny, and Unflinching
Heisey, known for her work as a television writer on shows like “Schitt’s Creek” and “Workin’ Moms,” brings her comedic talent to the page with spectacular results. The prose crackles with observations that are both hilarious and devastatingly accurate:
“I’d been reading a lot of books I’d seen on stylish women’s Instagrams, propped up in the sun next to a crystal. They were full of long, descriptive sentences and whimsical digressions about old movies I had never heard of. Normally I found these books a bit corny – all that vulnerability, all those florid descriptions of sunlight – but these days I couldn’t get enough of them.”
What elevates the novel beyond just being funny is Heisey’s willingness to let Maggie be genuinely unlikable at times. She doesn’t soften Maggie’s narcissism, her neediness, or her occasional cruelty to the people who care about her. This honesty creates a character who feels completely real – someone who makes you cringe, laugh, and occasionally want to shake some sense into her.
The Supporting Cast
The novel is populated with a vibrant supporting cast that both grounds and challenges Maggie:
- Amy: Maggie’s overly positive, spin-class-loving divorced friend who becomes an unexpected anchor
- The Group Chat: Maggie’s longtime friends (including two Laurens) who provide both support and necessary reality checks
- Merris: Maggie’s elderly supervisor who reluctantly becomes a reluctant mentor figure
- Helen: A therapist who treats Maggie with the perfect blend of compassion and no-nonsense directness
Each character serves as a different mirror for Maggie, reflecting aspects of herself she’s not always ready to confront. Particularly effective is Maggie’s evolving relationship with Merris, which grows from exploitative to genuinely meaningful in a way that never feels forced.
Breaking Up in the Digital Age
One of the novel’s most astute observations centers on how technology complicates the already difficult process of ending a relationship. Maggie’s obsessive social media stalking, her performative posts to prove she’s “doing great,” and her late-night texting binges all ring true to anyone who’s experienced heartbreak in the smartphone era.
Heisey brilliantly captures the cognitive dissonance of experiencing genuine pain while simultaneously crafting an online narrative about it:
“It’s hard to explain exactly how mortifying it is to have had a wedding when your marriage ends almost instantly thereafter. The relationship had been longer than the marriage – much longer – but so what? To have that all-eyes-on-you, congratulations-on-your-big-moment, till-death-do-you-part day, with its attendant preparation and fights with family and guest list issues and thousands of dollars, turn out to simply have been a very expensive Tinder photoshoot for your friends is … well, it’s not ideal.”
The Heart Beneath the Humor
What prevents “Really Good, Actually” from being just another witty breakup novel is the emotional depth Heisey brings to the story. Beneath the self-deprecating jokes and sarcastic observations lies a thoughtful examination of identity, growth, and what it means to be alone.
In one particularly poignant scene, Maggie realizes she’s never lived by herself before:
“It was my first time, ever, living alone. Growing up with my parents, sister, two dogs, and a rotating series of doomed hamsters, our house was bustling. It was barely a transition to move to the din of university residence halls… After graduation we ventured further into Toronto, and Emotional Lauren and I became the fifth and sixth residents of an enormous house in the west end…”
This realization leads to one of the book’s central questions: Who are we when we’re not defining ourselves in relation to others?
Where the Novel Occasionally Stumbles
For all its strengths, the novel isn’t without flaws. The pacing occasionally lags in the middle sections, with some of Maggie’s spiral beginning to feel repetitive. A few of the secondary characters – particularly Jiro and some of the dating app connections – veer into caricature territory.
Additionally, while the novel gestures at broader social issues – millennial economic anxiety, the housing crisis, social media’s impact on mental health – these themes remain somewhat underdeveloped, functioning more as background texture than substantive commentary.
A Realistic Take on Growth and Healing
What’s refreshing about “Really Good, Actually” is its resistance to neat narrative arcs. Maggie doesn’t magically transform into her best self by the final page. Her growth comes in fits and starts, with plenty of backsliding along the way. By her thirtieth birthday, she hasn’t “solved” her life, but she has begun to see herself more clearly.
The novel’s ending strikes the perfect note – not a triumphant “getting over it” moment, but a quiet recognition that healing isn’t linear, and that’s okay:
“I thought about next year, how I had no idea what it would be like, who I would meet, what they would do. Things would happen to me, and I would make decisions, and sometimes they would work out and sometimes they wouldn’t. It would carry on like that, over and over…”
Final Thoughts: Uncomfortably Relatable and Brilliantly Observed
“Really Good, Actually” is a standout debut that manages to be both hilarious and heartfelt, often in the same sentence. Heisey has crafted a contemporary novel that feels timeless in its emotional truths while being thoroughly modern in its specifics.
For readers who enjoyed:
- “Queenie” by Candice Carty-Williams
- “Ghosts” by Dolly Alderton
- “Normal People” by Sally Rooney
- “Such a Fun Age” by Kiley Reid
This novel will particularly resonate with anyone who has ever:
- Sent a text they immediately regretted
- Stalked an ex online
- Tried on a persona that didn’t quite fit
- Wondered if they’re the only one who doesn’t have life figured out
In Maggie’s messy, imperfect journey, readers will likely recognize pieces of themselves—which might be uncomfortable at times, but is ultimately what makes “Really Good, Actually” so genuinely good, actually.
The Verdict
Monica Heisey’s debut novel announces her as a formidable new voice in contemporary fiction. With its perfect balance of humor and heart, “Really Good, Actually” offers a refreshingly honest portrait of modern love, friendship, and the sometimes excruciating process of finding yourself when your life hasn’t gone according to plan. It’s a book that will make you laugh out loud on one page and feel seen on the next—a truly impressive accomplishment for any writer, let alone one publishing her first novel.
Whether you’re happily coupled, newly single, or somewhere in between, this novel offers something valuable: the comforting knowledge that being a mess is sometimes just part of being human, and that’s really good, actually.
