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I Can't Believe It's Not Better
"the only humour book I ever want to own…made me keel over with laughter." – Lena Dunham
"Monica Heisey makes me laugh hard and often." – Rob Delaney
I Can't Believe It's Not Better is a collection of stories, essays, advice, and drawings from writer and comedian Monica Heisey. Created to help you live your Best Life, this book offers tips on everything from workplace politics to sexting, from how to make your apartment look like you read design blogs to where to cry in public. Important guides like "How To Watch Literally Hours of TV At A Time" will help you sort your life out for good, while thought—provoking personal essays such as "Pizzas I Have Loved" and helpful exercises like "Are You Being Flirted With, A Quiz" provide some gravitas and perspective to help you navigate this modern world. Plus there is a very weird short story about bees.
Funny, smart and charming, this book is the perfect accompaniment to your next life crisis, or at least an easy and appropriate gift for the niece you don't know very well but want to impress.
Monica Heisey is a writer and comedian from Toronto. She has written for VICE, Playboy, the Guardian, Rookie, Cosmopolitan, The Hairpin, The Toast, Hello Giggles...
"Monica Heisey makes me laugh hard and often." – Rob Delaney
I Can't Believe It's Not Better is a collection of stories, essays, advice, and drawings from writer and comedian Monica Heisey. Created to help you live your Best Life, this book offers tips on everything from workplace politics to sexting, from how to make your apartment look like you read design blogs to where to cry in public. Important guides like "How To Watch Literally Hours of TV At A Time" will help you sort your life out for good, while thought—provoking personal essays such as "Pizzas I Have Loved" and helpful exercises like "Are You Being Flirted With, A Quiz" provide some gravitas and perspective to help you navigate this modern world. Plus there is a very weird short story about bees.
Funny, smart and charming, this book is the perfect accompaniment to your next life crisis, or at least an easy and appropriate gift for the niece you don't know very well but want to impress.
Monica Heisey is a writer and comedian from Toronto. She has written for VICE, Playboy, the Guardian, Rookie, Cosmopolitan, The Hairpin, The Toast, Hello Giggles...
220 pages, Paperback
First published May 13, 2015
65 people are currently reading
3374 people want to read
About the author
Monica Heisey
3 books855 followersMonica Heisey is an essayist, comedian, and screenwriter from Toronto. Her writing has been published in The New Yorker, the New York Times, Vogue, Elle, The Guardian, Glamour, New York Magazine, and VICE, among others. She has written for television shows like Schitt's Creek, Workin' Moms, and Everything I Know About Love, and created her own romantic comedy for SkyTV, Smothered, which aired in December of 2023. She lives in London.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 89 reviews
July 23, 2015
What was this? I truly did try to read it with good intentions - the review in the newspaper was good, and a friend of mine really likes the website She Does the City, where the author writes a column.
But this was terrible.
The kind of awful that makes you think all those old people complaining about Millennials are actually right. This is the kind of self-aware, navel-gazing, solipsistic, narcissistic drivel that seems to pass as both "funny" and "profound" by many people who read fashionable literary magazines, go to brunch on weekends and then talk about how profound the essays were in the above-mentioned literary magazines.
These essays were neither funny, nor profound. They were immature, annoying and abrasive.
I can see where Heisey was trying to go - she just wasn't getting there. At least for me. I'm a bit disappointed by how much I didn't like this book because I was looking forward to some good caustic, funny essays on being a young woman in the city.
Ah well. Perhaps next time.
But this was terrible.
The kind of awful that makes you think all those old people complaining about Millennials are actually right. This is the kind of self-aware, navel-gazing, solipsistic, narcissistic drivel that seems to pass as both "funny" and "profound" by many people who read fashionable literary magazines, go to brunch on weekends and then talk about how profound the essays were in the above-mentioned literary magazines.
These essays were neither funny, nor profound. They were immature, annoying and abrasive.
I can see where Heisey was trying to go - she just wasn't getting there. At least for me. I'm a bit disappointed by how much I didn't like this book because I was looking forward to some good caustic, funny essays on being a young woman in the city.
Ah well. Perhaps next time.
July 22, 2015
Did I laugh? Yes. Am I glad it's over? Yes.
July 11, 2020
I can't believe this book is not better
June 1, 2015
Trying way too hard
March 2, 2016
The essay on the personification of Pinterest completes me
Want to read
April 28, 2015I wish there was an "excited to read- absolutely can't wait to read" button!
January 22, 2024
Do yourself a favor. Don’t read this. It really was awful. I will forever judge the person who recommended it.
February 12, 2019
I should have known I wouldn't be crazy about this book as soon as I saw Lena Dunham endorsed it and declared it to be one of the funniest books she's ever read. In the ongoing debate of whether Lena Dunham is the worst or not, I am firmly on the YES SHE IS side of the argument, so poor Monica really didn't stand a chance.
Even if I ignored the quality of celebrity who endorsed it, she just did not captivate me the way I would have hoped. Sure, I laughed out loud as she described vomiting on an airplane and giggled gleefully during the section on things to keep in mind in a work place (such as the fact that a blazer will never allow an outfit to go from business to casual, no matter how hard you might want it to #truth) but those are literally the only 2 places I got real amusement from this collection. It ultimately felt like she was trying way too hard to be charming and witty in every single sentence.
Do I think she's not funny? No. I'm sure she's amusing as anything IRL, but I think she suffers from the same syndrome I do: we're not funny on command.
Honestly, I spent half of this book thinking "this is exactly why I don't write a book/have a YouTube channel/do a podcast." Being entertaining on command is nearly impossible when you are naturally entertaining. (Is my head swelling or is it just me? I'm going to continue on anyway.) For those of us gifted with big mouths and strong opinions, it can be difficult to turn all that into something people actually care about when push comes to shove. We exist in the moment, in the wild, and as soon as you put us in any sort of box it feels unauthentic.
I actually think the strongest parts of this book were the more serious pieces she wrote on feminism, sexual identity, and body image were the most believable. I could tell these were things she cared about deeply, but they just felt out of place in a "humour" collection. It just kind of felt like she was writing for 8 different audiences and didn't actually appeal to any of them.
(Also, somewhat sidenote: the random doodles she included? 100% distracting and irrelevant. They weren't overly amusing, they weren't that well done, and they felt thrown in just to make her more "quirky" or "Relatable.")
Let's just chalk this up to further proof that humour books are nearly impossible to get right and add it to my ever-growing list of books that disappoint me because authors don't know what they're doing. To quote Heisey herself, "I can't believe it's not better."
Even if I ignored the quality of celebrity who endorsed it, she just did not captivate me the way I would have hoped. Sure, I laughed out loud as she described vomiting on an airplane and giggled gleefully during the section on things to keep in mind in a work place (such as the fact that a blazer will never allow an outfit to go from business to casual, no matter how hard you might want it to #truth) but those are literally the only 2 places I got real amusement from this collection. It ultimately felt like she was trying way too hard to be charming and witty in every single sentence.
Do I think she's not funny? No. I'm sure she's amusing as anything IRL, but I think she suffers from the same syndrome I do: we're not funny on command.
Honestly, I spent half of this book thinking "this is exactly why I don't write a book/have a YouTube channel/do a podcast." Being entertaining on command is nearly impossible when you are naturally entertaining. (Is my head swelling or is it just me? I'm going to continue on anyway.) For those of us gifted with big mouths and strong opinions, it can be difficult to turn all that into something people actually care about when push comes to shove. We exist in the moment, in the wild, and as soon as you put us in any sort of box it feels unauthentic.
I actually think the strongest parts of this book were the more serious pieces she wrote on feminism, sexual identity, and body image were the most believable. I could tell these were things she cared about deeply, but they just felt out of place in a "humour" collection. It just kind of felt like she was writing for 8 different audiences and didn't actually appeal to any of them.
(Also, somewhat sidenote: the random doodles she included? 100% distracting and irrelevant. They weren't overly amusing, they weren't that well done, and they felt thrown in just to make her more "quirky" or "Relatable.")
Let's just chalk this up to further proof that humour books are nearly impossible to get right and add it to my ever-growing list of books that disappoint me because authors don't know what they're doing. To quote Heisey herself, "I can't believe it's not better."
November 6, 2015
Quality LOL. I learned that sexting nowadays doesn't involve text anymore; just pix. I feel so old-fashioned now.
August 19, 2015
4.5. Incredibly relatable as someone in their late 20's. Her short story about being a bra is one of the most original short stories I've read. I'm very glad this book was recommended to me.
November 22, 2022
I would have enjoyed this more in my 20s.
May 2, 2015
obviously i'm giving this a perfect score, come on now
July 25, 2021
I Can't Believe It's Not Better: A Woman's Guide to Coping With Life by Monica Heisey is a humorous collection of essays, lists and other writings. The title immediately attracted me to this book. That and the fact that the cover looks like a ransom note from a seriously unbalanced unicorn.
Why is life not better? That's an excellent question. If you've been asking yourself the same question, this book is not going to give you the answer, but it might make you feel just a little less shitty than you did before reading it. And really, isn't that the best we can all hope for at this point?
As someone who was once gifted the box set of The Wire from a man who shall remain nameless (he knows who he is), I most appreciated "A Poem for Boys."
If you are uncomfortable with graphic talk of sex, I would suggest finding a different book. Sex is not the only thing covered in this book, but Monica did kind of write about sex for a living, so you've been warned.
Bonus points for the Simon Cowell obsession. I am not obsessed (I swear), but he is really much nicer in person than on TV. He also loves dogs tremendously, and I can get on board with that. Also for being an unapologetic Cat Fancier. That's me too!
Why is life not better? That's an excellent question. If you've been asking yourself the same question, this book is not going to give you the answer, but it might make you feel just a little less shitty than you did before reading it. And really, isn't that the best we can all hope for at this point?
As someone who was once gifted the box set of The Wire from a man who shall remain nameless (he knows who he is), I most appreciated "A Poem for Boys."
If you are uncomfortable with graphic talk of sex, I would suggest finding a different book. Sex is not the only thing covered in this book, but Monica did kind of write about sex for a living, so you've been warned.
Bonus points for the Simon Cowell obsession. I am not obsessed (I swear), but he is really much nicer in person than on TV. He also loves dogs tremendously, and I can get on board with that. Also for being an unapologetic Cat Fancier. That's me too!
October 27, 2019
I have two degrees of separation with Monica Heisey (one degree? Not sure how the degree formatting works... I know someone who knows her, anyways) so I've heard a lot of really good things about this book since it was published 4 years ago. I'm glad that I didn't get around to it until now though, because there's a LOT of humour in here that would have gone straight over my head back then! Now, being 25 (compared to Heisey's 26 at time of writing/publication), I feel like I can relate way more to pretty much every entry in this guide.
If you're a woman in your mid- to late-twenties, please pick up this book. It's hilarious, so true it hurts, and will make you feel just that much less alone in this weird world.
If you're a woman in your mid- to late-twenties, please pick up this book. It's hilarious, so true it hurts, and will make you feel just that much less alone in this weird world.
December 14, 2020
Full review will be up on my blog soon, but here are just some thoughts:
The first time I literally LOL'd at the book was on page 112 when Heisey lists "Your phone's front-facing camera turning on unexpectedly at a low angle" as something that is rude.
And the chapter "What People Say To Me Because I Write About Sex" was very reminiscent of almost all the chapters of Lindy West's book Shrill.
The chapter "Working From Home: How To Do It" is certainly relevant to 2020. (You know it, girlfriend!)
I did enjoy the drawings scattered throughout the book and the chapters that were just poems. But I think the humor was a little too specific to the author's own experiences, many of which were not mine. And that's where the book fell short for me.
The first time I literally LOL'd at the book was on page 112 when Heisey lists "Your phone's front-facing camera turning on unexpectedly at a low angle" as something that is rude.
And the chapter "What People Say To Me Because I Write About Sex" was very reminiscent of almost all the chapters of Lindy West's book Shrill.
The chapter "Working From Home: How To Do It" is certainly relevant to 2020. (You know it, girlfriend!)
I did enjoy the drawings scattered throughout the book and the chapters that were just poems. But I think the humor was a little too specific to the author's own experiences, many of which were not mine. And that's where the book fell short for me.
May 7, 2023
Exactly. Here's an example of what to expect: The author writes a list of over 25 things that are rude and 10 of them are funny -- really funny. So, why the other 15? Truly had to skim through this book for the gems -- and there are gems -- but the unfunny stuff is SO unfunny that I almost gave up and put the book down. At least four times.
June 7, 2017
The book used so many anecdotes and yet didn't feel at all like Heisey was self-indulging. It was a great, easy read, while also somehow being borderline profound. My only hang-up (and yes, this is worth one star to me) was that I located more than one typo (including double words).
April 22, 2018
It baffles me that this was even published. The book is not funny, original, or clever in the slightest. I could not even finish it. The author tried way too hard to be funny and random, but it's just a bunch of immature drivel that's hard to follow.
December 10, 2021
An absolutely hilarious collection of writing, full of inspired sketches: the women held for yogurt testing, a Pinterest binge and the diary of an overworked bra. Yes being from 2015 it made me feel old and long for a simpler (better) time but it also made me laugh out loud a lot.
March 15, 2023
OK...I have a soft spot for Monica Heisey after reading "Really Good, Actually," so I couldn't *dislike* this book, per se, but had I read this memoir/listicle/idk-what-to-call-it without the context of her novel I would have been extremely confused.
September 16, 2024
Her next novel "Really good, actually" was a lot better than this one. Short & cute reads. A little too simplistic for my taste - a cheaper version of Norah Ephron's personal essays, but I'm excited to see how Heisey's voice continues to develop!
September 15, 2025
There are maybe 1-2 stories that are okay. It was really hard to get through this one. It was like watching bad stand up comedy.
I really enjoyed the author’s other book, so I’m shocked how bad this one was.
I really enjoyed the author’s other book, so I’m shocked how bad this one was.
July 24, 2017
I love funny ladies. And I especially love funny Canadian ladies. Monica Heisey doesn’t disappoint in this collection of anecdotes and advice. It’s laugh out loud funny!
September 4, 2017
A perfect feminist summer beach read.
March 12, 2018
I am so glad I picked this up for $2, because I just didn’t get it...at all..
April 21, 2018
Relatable.
Monica Heisey understands you and your obsession with food, while in bed, while wearing that bra that most likely has seen better days. Dear undergarment, may you rest in peace.
Monica Heisey understands you and your obsession with food, while in bed, while wearing that bra that most likely has seen better days. Dear undergarment, may you rest in peace.
June 20, 2018
Hilarious!
May 7, 2019
Super cute and funny, with some remarkably creative short stories. A light read.
June 17, 2019
Hilarious, true, relatable light read.
August 4, 2019
3.5 Not groundbreaking, but a few good laughs. The poems were particularly funny. Easy and enjoyable.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 89 reviews