Why I needed…Maggie from Really Good, Actually

Note: This isn’t a detailed literary analysis or review, rather more of a personal reflection. No spoilers for the book.

Having been separated/divorced for over three years now, I’ve been seeking novels with divorced main characters. I happened upon Monica Heisey’s Really Good, Actually, and while I have criticisms of the book, reader comments have left me surprised by the often visceral loathing for the main character, Maggie.

What’s the book about? Twenty-nine-year-old Maggie is recently separated after 608 days of marriage. Queue months of unhealthy eating, terrible dates, and generally self-destructive behavior.

I get it. This is not the friend most people want. They’re a train wreck who doesn’t want your help or your pity–they want to stop the pain but can’t get out of their messy, illogical, and maddening spiral.

And I found her absolutely relatable.

I’ve noticed a trend with fictional women that I connect with: readers often outspokenly reject them because they’re “just a mess” and “make no sense.” Having been these things myself, I’m starting a new blog series, Why I needed…

After I finally spoke the word divorce to my then-husband, things got even harder than they already were. It was like my soul detached, watching from afar as my body entered an eerie autopilot mode.

I still managed to excel at the everyday. I was the lead writer on a highly technical, multi-billion dollar proposal. I kept being a mom and prioritizing my kids. I moved to a small apartment and made it a home.

But some days, my soul would reconnect, and I’d cry endlessly at work. I’d say things to near-strangers that sounded absolutely batshit, and I knew it. But I couldn’t stop it.

So then I’d split again, and re-enter autopilot.

I needed friends but was afraid that the poison I felt inside would infect them too. But those who stuck by me (and who I let in) were lifesaving.

Why was divorce different for me than other “bad stuff”? When I survived a mass shooting, I felt like no one understood me, but they still gave me grace. When my dad died, people truly empathized because we all experience death. And in both cases, the “bad stuff” was, in no conceivable way, my fault.

I chose divorce. So the unraveling that followed could appear self-imposed. In Maggie’s case, she didn’t clearly initiate the divorce, but reader comments indicate frustration that she wasn’t dealing in a more healthy way.

There’s a mistaken belief that if a hard thing doesn’t break you, then someone else is weak if it breaks them. The truth is, we’re complex beings with different DNA, synapses, and life experience. And I appreciated Maggie’s raw self.

What’s next?

Why I needed (in no particular order)…

• Shallan from The Stormlight Archive (book series)
• Devi from Never Have I Ever (Netflix series)
• Kaira from Dear Zindagi (movie)
• Laura Jean and Kitty Covey from To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before (book series) and XO, Kitty (Netflix series)
• Zarah from my own book 🙂