Acclaimed screenwriting and author Monica Heisey's Really Good, Actually was published first in January 2023. It follows a young woman named Maggie, who is broke, recently divorced, and failing at her graduate school thesis. But she is only twenty-nine, with plenty of time to live left. To cope with her divorce and the other bad things in her life, Maggie changes her life and asks tough questions about herself and what she wants with her life along the way. For instance, she decides to start randomly eating hamburgers at 4AM and starts to date once again.
Although Really Good, Actually became a bestseller quickly after its publication (likely because its author was a creative force behind the wildly popular Schitt's Creek), its reviews were decidedly mixed. On one hand, Kirkus Reviews loved the novel and called it "Smart, bighearted, and hilarious.” Publisher's Weekly wrote in their review of the novel that "Even in its darkest moments the book is very funny, and Heisey’s inspired skewering of urban millennial life hits the mark. Readers will gobble up this Bridget Jones’s Diary for the smartphone era." However, on the other hand, some feel that Really Good Actually, is too depressing, not very funny, and far too long. The Telegraph called Heisey's novel "lazy" and "pretty bad, actually."
