Have you ever had an terrible day that you simply’d like to neglect? And then one other, and one other? Yet you don’t wish to admit the sample to your self, not to mention to anybody round you, so you retain pretending that every part is OK? We’ve all been there, and this empathy is on the coronary heart of Monica Heisey’s debut novel, Really Good, Actually.
As she approaches 30, Maggie has been busy as a graduate scholar in Toronto, constructing a life along with her new husband—till that disappears in a second, with the shock of a breakup. She can’t work out the way to transfer ahead, whilst everybody round her, from her graduate faculty adviser to her buddies, tries to assist her see a method by. She can’t fairly decide up the items, which readers witness in obsessive emails, Google searches, group chats and conversations. Instead, she tries to persuade everybody (significantly herself) that truly, she actually is sweet—even nice.
Maggie’s voice is participating, permitting readers to really feel her ache, cringe at her adventures and communication makes an attempt, and root for her to seek out her footing. She’s a quintessential mess, making selections that aren’t what anybody would advise, and but she doesn’t wallow (at the least not for too lengthy). We cheer her on, hoping that she’ll determine all of it out, or at the least some of it.
There’s humor and beauty in Really Good, Actually—a lightness of contact, a wry wit. Maggie is a lady disembarking from conventional romance to seek out herself. And whereas her marriage may need been brief, her voice is enduring, and her journey is participating, shocking and recent.
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