What To Read

If divorce comedy qualifies as a genre, this debut novel nails it. Monica Heisey, comedian and a former writer of the Schitt's Creek TV series, strings together bits of email correspondence, Google search histories and monologues from the mind of a woman who is trying to embrace her new life as a "Surprisingly Young Divorcée™."

While the book is not a memoir, it is based on Heisey's own life and her desire to see her own personal experience of divorce and starting to date again accurately reflected in a story — unlike the Hollywood representations of divorce.

"I think modern dating is pretty busted. I'm not a big fan of dating apps. I don't think its a very fun way to meet someone. It really makes homework of dating, and I think it shuts you off from so many different kinds of people," she observes. "There are many people I've had amazing connections with who I probably wouldn't have swiped right on for whatever stupid reason—they liked the wrong kind of music, or I didn't like any music; or, you know, we lived in inconveniently located parts of the city. When you're looking at someone's stats like they’re a baseball card, you can toss someone away who might be lovely."

When asked by Entertainment Weekly to give her best Hollywood pitch for the book she said "Well-meaning woman freaks out in an extended way." Needless to say, the book has been optioned and she's at work on a TV adaptation.  

Really Good Actually comes out January 16 and readers can preorder it here.

Reasons I Cried, November 12–23

Bus too full and too hot Neck looked busted Dogs, generally

Took a taxi home from a date’s house late at night, and the window was open and the city looked empty and beautiful, but I knew it was full of people, and I felt connected to them all, and also I was incredibly drunk

Tried five times to remember my password for the App Store, couldn’t do it, tried to reset it, couldn’t do that either, and eventually remembered it was my own name with an exclamation mark

Jiro saw me open a granola bar at work and witheringly asked if I was “treating myself,” and I was

Thought about how much effort my parents put into teaching me how to read

Had sex with Simon and it was lovely and caring, and the tears surprised us both

Yoga was very intense, and my body felt extremely powerful, plus the lights were off

One of my students called me “tall” in a charged way

Saw pictures of an ancient mosaic floor, discovered four feet under an old Italian woman’s backyard, perfectly preserved, waiting

Had sex with Simon and cried again, and then he asked about it, and I cried more

Watched a documentary about how many kinds of animals are extinct now

Someone stood me up during the wrong bit of my cycle

R. Kelly came on the radio in Clive’s car, and I said the song reminded me of high school, and Amirah said it reminded her of “the prevalence of sexual assault in the music industry,” and I felt like the rest of the car was judging me, and also Jon and I used to dance around the apartment to “Ignition (Remix)” all the time before we knew a) that R. Kelly was a rapist and b) that we were no longer in love

Used one of those calculators to determine how soon you can retire if you make X amount and save Y amount each month; found I could reasonably begin retirement in 238 years Steve from Sex and the City yelling, “There’s good stuff here!!” at Miranda, who cannot yet accept his love

This description of tomato sauce, in a magazine: “The genius of Hazan’s sauce lies in the fact that, although it’s basically a convenience food, made of only inexpensive, shelf-stable ingredients, it can’t be improved upon. Add fancy olive oil or fresh Genovese basil if you’re moved to; they won’t make it any better. The sauce is already as good as can be.”

Thought about running into Janet in the street the way you might encounter an ex-lover and try to maintain a distinguished distance while telling them they “looked well”

Found a postcard Jon sent me from Florida with a big pair of tits on it that said fake boobs & real attitude

Read all my Facebook Messenger chats from July 2014, when Jon went to Florida

Sex with Simon

Sex with Simon

Remembered everyone I love will die someday, many of them before me; that I will either know their deaths or hurt them with mine, and no matter what I do, the end is coming for all of us at a time we cannot know; that in the meantime my body will rot around my bones, getting creased and mottled and less efficient each day, and that this moment, right now, is the youngest and healthiest and most beautiful I’ll ever be, and I don’t feel that young or healthy or beautiful—I feel, actually, like I am losing a war with my own posture, and is it worse if my sister dies before me, or if I die before her, and what will I say at my father’s funeral?

A Tim Hortons commercial where some gay dads bring doughnuts to their daughter’s hockey practice

Excerpted from Really Good, Actually by Monica Heisey. Copyright © 2023 by Monica Heisey. Reprinted courtesy of William Morrow, a division of HarperCollins Publishers.