Member Review

Really good, actually by Monica Heisey

Thank you Netgallery 4th Estate and William Collins for an arc for an unbiased review.

We open with Maggie listing why she and Jon broke up and the subsequent divorce. Yet, as she said, there was no big blow out moment, just a series of small fires they failed to put out.

I'm struggling on where to rate the book as a whole. When it worked for me, it was fantastic. Yet there are also elements that just dragged it down as I carried on.

So what did I enjoy? The premise as a whole works, and especially at the beginning, drew me in. The humour is often self-deprecating, sharp and contemporary. The friendships you start to see around Maggie are solid and believable.

But where it fell down for me at least was after a while it felt repetitive, and lost its lustre. Not that there was anything wrong per se with Maggie, but at times it felt a bit too one dimensional. While it was obvious going in, this book is about all facets of Maggie, I do wish we had more than Google searches, fantasies or text messages etc breaking the narrative up. A couple of times I felt myself craving just a different perspective.

I eventually plumped for 4/5 stars, although in reality it is more 3.5/5 stars 🌟
I feel it does enough to not warrant the mid range rating. I can see that this book will not be for everyone, and a lot of going to be on whether the humour lands as it is supposed to.