I feel like when you get a divorce everyone's wondering how you ruined it all, what made you so unbearable to be with. If your husband dies, at least people feel bad for you.
Maggie's marriage has ended just 608 days after it started, but she's fine - she's doing really good, actually. Sure, she's alone for the first time in her life, can't afford her rent and her obscure PhD is going nowhere . . . but at the age of twenty-nine, Maggie is determined to embrace her new status as a Surprisingly Young Divorcee (TM).
Soon she's taking up 'sadness hobbies' and getting back out there, sex-wise, oversharing in the group chat and drinking with her high-intensity new divorced friend Amy. As Maggie throws herself headlong into the chaos of her first year of divorce, she finds herself questioning everything, including: Why do we still get married? Did I fail before I even got started? How many Night Burgers until I'm happy?
Laugh-out-loud funny, razor sharp and painfully relatable, Really Good, Actually is an irresistible debut novel about the uncertainties of modern love, friendship and happiness from a stunning new voice in fiction, Monica Heisey.
The summary for this is so good! I was looking forward to a warm hearted, funny novel about learning to love yourself and be your own person and find value outside a relationship.
Instead I was annoyed by the narrative voice until I gave up and stopped reading.
It's a taste thing, I know, and other readers won't be annoyed at all. But Maggie was written in (what I felt was a) very stilted way. I thought "Maybe this is deliberate because she's heartbroken and in shock, and she'll loosen up as we go. That could be cool!" Nope. Still just as stiff and formal in the pages I checked at the back.
There are good points. Her friends are a good bunch, and beneath the language the story is more or less what I'd been hoping for. I just couldn't get past the tone, personally.
Not for me, but hopefully it does well.
Really Good, Actually publishes on the 17th of January, 2023 in both the UK (top image) and the US (lower image). I received a free copy and am giving an honest review.
No comments:
Post a Comment