Book Title: Well, Actually
Author: Mazey Eddings
Publisher: St. Martin’s Griffin
Publication Date: August 2025
Well, Actually follows Eva Kitt, an aspiring serious journalist whose dreams are derailed by the harsh realities of the media industry. Instead of hard-hitting investigations, Eva finds herself hosting Sausage Talk, a quirky show where she interviews B-list celebrities over hot dogs, a setup that cheekily nods to formats like Chicken Shop Date.
From the very first line — “I always expected my career would revolve less around wieners than it does” — Well, Actually makes its irreverent tone loud and clear. It’s a banger of an opening, the kind that reminds you how literature has always prized unforgettable first sentences. In Eva’s world, we’ve moved on from just consuming clickbait content to having clickbait jobs, a shift that she navigates with biting self-awareness and begrudging humour. She wanted to be on the frontlines of investigative journalism; instead, she’s a viral media host, gaining traction for eating hot dogs with B- and C-list celebrities on Sausage Talk.
“I keep looking around, waiting for a bona fide grown-up to step in and handle the mess. It’s with a sinking heart that I realize that won’t be happening.”
Eva is 27, career-disillusioned yet still ambitious, and deeply aware of the performance involved in her job. Her inner monologue is filled with sassy, deadpan remarks about the state of the media, the hustle culture around her, and the exhausting effort it takes to turn something superficial into something meaningful. It’s here that Well, Actually echoes The Bold Type: Eva and her best friend Aida — “the blueprint of the hustle” — are both former journalism students whose idealism is being slowly chipped away by an industry that now prioritises algorithms over editorial ethics.
The specificity of detail is what makes the book feel so of-the-moment. Eva jokes about splurging on “silly little treats” — Diet Cokes and lattes — that “come with a splash of financial panic.” It’s witty, painfully accurate, and bound to resonate with millennial and Gen Z readers. These lines aren’t just throwaway quips — they’re incisive commentary dressed up in humour, giving the novel its distinctive bite. I get the feeling that Mazey Eddings would absolutely annihilate as an observational comedian.
While Eva grapples with the hollowness of her day job, she also seeks meaning through a more authentic outlet: a weekly column called Unlikeable, published on the Babble platform. Clearly modelled on platforms like Substack, Babble is described as having “given blogging a Gen Z facelift,” and it becomes the space where Eva can finally do the kind of writing she cares about: covering women’s issues, pop culture, and international analysis with the nuance she’s been craving. But here too, ambition is tethered to algorithmic struggle. She hopes to monetise her column, pitch interviews with authors and activists, and build something real, but the internet’s demand for quantity over quality is relentless. It’s reminiscent of Diane’s storyline in the final season of BoJack Horseman, where her young boss demands to feed the monster of content engines.
This existential spiral is compounded by the creeping feeling that her peers are outpacing her in love, in life, in LinkedIn-worthy success. So when she stumbles across a viral podcast clip from Rylie Cooper, a man from her past now reinvented as a podcast bro, it hits a nerve. Especially because, in Eva’s eyes, Rylie is the last person who should be dispensing advice. As she puts it:
“Rylie Cooper has built a platform on the fallacy that he’s the prophetic one to guide men out of toxic masculinity. This successful long con has earned him a heavily sponsored and well-listened to podcast. His over 1 million followers worship his gospel of how to be a halfway decent person with a penis dangling between your legs. The hypocrisy is unmatched.”
That moment — part wounded betrayal, part late-night fury — triggers Eva to post a video calling him out. It’s impulsive, cathartic, and predictably, it goes viral. Suddenly, the internet is watching, and both Eva’s bosses and her best friend Aida want to capitalise on the drama. They push Eva to do crossover episodes, first on Sausage Talk, then on Rylie’s podcast — feeding off the virality to drive engagement. Eva and Rylie find themselves reluctantly thrown back together, with Rylie proposing a bold idea: let him take her on a few dates, just enough to prove he’s changed.
What follows is a steamy, emotionally charged, and surprisingly introspective exploration of reconnection. Eddings smartly embeds flirtation and witty banter within very honest conversations about ambition, reputation, and the exhausting pressure of performing growth for an audience.
“Did you just call me princess?” Cooper asks, his grin lazy and dangerous.
“Yes. Does that offend you?” I ask, a hopeful lift to my voice.
“Or would you prefer baby girl?”
He laughs again, eyes crinkling.
“Princess will do just fine.”
There are affectionate nods to Gilmore Girls, media nostalgia, and pop-culture memory. Eva’s generation, after all, was raised on Rory Gilmore’s dreams of journalism — and now finds itself chasing TikTok metrics instead.
What makes Well, Actually exciting is how unapologetically it leans into the zeitgeist. This is not a story trying to be evergreen: it is rooted in the now, packed with references, career trajectories, and digital-age dilemmas that feel ripped straight from 2025. From its premise to its banter and dialogue, the book thrives on being sharply in tune with the chronically online. This is both its charm and its potential limitation. For readers immersed in internet culture, familiar with the chaotic hustle of media jobs, podcast personalities, and the cutthroat world of content creation, it will feel instantly relatable. However, its relevance is deeply tied to its moment, trading longevity for a kind of cultural immediacy that may not hold the same appeal a few years down the line.
While Well, Actually delivers an undeniably enjoyable reading experience, bursting with clever banter, razor-sharp observations, and a romance that crackles, the secondary characters don’t always land with the same impact. They often feel more like narrative tools than fully fleshed-out people, rarely inspiring the kind of loyalty, frustration, or emotional investment that makes ensemble casts sing. This might be, in part, because the dynamic between Eva and Rylie is so intensely lit, so magnetic and emotionally heightened, that everything else around it struggles to compete.
Ultimately, Well, Actually is a novel that feels like a snapshot in time — a time capsule of 2025’s media anxieties, internet vernacular, and identity politics. Years from now, revisiting it will likely feel like digital time travel, offering a vivid window into a moment of overpriced lattes and content fads.