‘Really Good, Actually’ Nails The Late 20s Experience

Ah, your late 20s. You thought you’ll really feel like an grownup if you have been eighteen, and that was clearly a joke. However now that you simply’re right here, you’re lastly feeling like you might simply have this grownup factor found out. You’ve bought an important group of associates, and also you’ve all agreed that you simply don’t want to start out the night time at 10 p.m. anymore. Effectively, a minimum of not each night time. You might not love your job, however you don’t hate it, both. And also you even make sufficient cash to not stress over each buy, lastly. You’re nearly even wanting ahead to turning 30, as a result of everybody says your 30s are higher than your 20s, don’t they?

Then, one thing pulls you again to actuality, like the person you have got been with in your whole grownup life, the person you fortunately married solely a yr and a half in the past, leaving you. Effectively, that’s what occurs when you’re Maggie in Monica Heisey’s debut novel, Actually Good, Truly, anyway.

So transfer over, Bridget Jones and Becky Bloomwood. As a result of there’s a brand new mess on the town, and this Surprisingly Younger Divorcée™ could have you laughing and crying alongside along with her as she spends a very regular period of time questioning each resolution she’s ever made.

Listed below are all of the the reason why it’s time to fulfill Maggie of Actually Good, Truly. 

The Unfiltered Narration

Maggie is aware of she’s the principle character of this story, and she or he has each proper to be. In any case, her husband has left her, taken their cat with him, and damaged all contact along with her, despite the fact that Ontario legislation means they’ll’t file for a divorce till they’ve been separated for a yr. Her graduate thesis goes nowhere, she doesn’t have the persistence for her college students, and she or he has no concept how she will be able to afford her now half-furnished condominium with out Jon.

So, yeah. Maggie has loads of issues to determine, and she or he doesn’t maintain again as she takes us alongside for the trip. We’re given entry to each single one in every of her ideas, from the embarrassment she feels each time she orders a burger at 4am to the query of why males who reside alone by no means have curtains to the judgements she’s fast to make of others however by no means say out loud.

Studying this e book looks like studying your ideas in some sort of distanced means that permits you to admire them for his or her sheer honesty and stunning humor. It looks like speaking to your very best good friend, the one you already know you may say completely something to and she or he’ll nonetheless be there for you, it doesn’t matter what. 

Let me simply say this: I used to be laughing so laborious whereas studying this e book that my husband thought I used to be watching cat movies. However, no. I used to be simply studying this e book on my telephone.

The Entertaining Interstitials

Interstitials are little vignettes inserted between chapters that break the normal narrative of a narrative. Unsuccessful ones will pull you out of the story world, however profitable ones will improve your studying expertise. And the interstitials in Actually Good, Truly are the perfect I’ve ever learn.

They run the gambit, overlaying every part from “Chosen Correspondence, Tinder” to “Causes I Cried” to “Emotionally Devastating Issues My Therapist Mentioned to Me Like They Had been Nothing.” My favorites have been the Google searches, that are precisely what they sound like: an inventory of Google searches from a selected day. Having just lately made risotto for the primary time, I bought an actual kick out of “risotto recipe simple” instantly adopted by “arborio rice substitute.” And the sequence of searches on Kate Bush was harking back to what all of us have been doing after binging Stranger Issues final summer season.

The Juxtaposition of Divorce and Trendy Courting

I’m a kind of annoying women who met her husband working at a grocery retailer at seventeen. I’ve, subsequently, by no means been on a courting app, and I can discover myself misplaced once I’m hanging out with associates who can go all night time speaking about nothing else. And whereas the horrors and delights of contemporary courting can completely be discovered right here, this e book can be the right learn for folks in long run relationships.

I simply associated to Maggie when she reminisced on her time along with her husband. How she couldn’t think about how completely different her life could be if she hadn’t been with him. How she had gotten so used to all the time having somebody there to assist resolve what was for dinner and fill her Sundays with. How she wasn’t positive what to do with all the ideas in her head now that she couldn’t share them with Jon each time she needed to. 

And what I beloved probably the most about Maggie’s re-entrance—or simply plain entrance—into the courting world is that it provides her the chance to actually discover her bisexuality for the primary time. Having been with a person since she was nineteen, Maggie says she isn’t bisexual “sufficient to depend,” and I felt that in my bones.

The Various Good friend Group

Maggie could possibly be doing higher along with her romantic relationships, however she actually has no lack of associates. There’s her group chat along with her closest associates from college: flippantly frazzled and emotionally turbulent Amirah, massive and stylish and homosexual Clive, never-cries Lauren, and cries-at-everything Emotional Lauren. Then there’s Amy, a brand new good friend who can be going by a divorce (although Maggie is fast to level out that it’s a little bit completely different as a result of Amy was along with her husband for 4 years, not ten). And there’s Merris, Maggie’s seventy-something-year-old tutorial advisor who finally ends up turning into far more than a colleague.

As Maggie navigates her separation, she actually makes some missteps on the subject of her associates. However they’re all there for her by all of it, as all good associates are.

Monica Heisey

Actually Good, Truly

Chuckle-out-loud humorous and full of sharp observations, Actually Good, Truly is a young and bittersweet comedy that lays naked the uncertainties of contemporary love, friendship, and our seek for that factor we prefer to name “happiness”.

Remaining Ideas

So whether or not you’re single or taken, feeling like an grownup or not so positive about that, in your 20s or in your 30s, it’s time to seize a replica of Actually Good, Truly by Monica Heisey. Simply ensure you’re ready to snort and cry your means by Maggie’s story.