Well Actually by Mazey Eddings Summary, Characters and Themes

Well Actually by Mazey Eddings is a contemporary romantic comedy that examines how online personas, past trauma, and messy emotions collide in the digital age.  The novel follows Eva Kitt, a journalist stuck in a humiliating entertainment job, and Rylie Cooper, her ex-boyfriend turned influencer famous for preaching emotional awareness.

When Eva’s drunken video mocking Rylie goes viral, the two are thrown back into each other’s lives through a manipulative media stunt.  What begins as a public relations disaster turns into a story about second chances, vulnerability, and rebuilding one’s sense of worth in a world obsessed with viral narratives.

Summary

Eva Kitt, a struggling twenty-seven-year-old journalist in New York, spends her days hosting an embarrassing online segment called Sausage Talk for Soundbites, a clickbait media outlet.  Her job consists of interviewing minor celebrities while eating hot dogs on camera—an experience she finds degrading and meaningless.

Her friend and producer, Aida, encourages her to stick with it, believing it could eventually lead to better opportunities.  But Eva feels creatively suffocated, lonely, and frustrated.

Her once-popular online column, Unlikeable, has become stagnant, and she’s lost touch with the ambition that once drove her.

One drunken night, while doomscrolling through social media, Eva discovers her ex-boyfriend Rylie Cooper’s new persona as a self-help influencer who lectures men on how to be emotionally mature.  Angry at his hypocrisy, she records a rant mocking him and calling out their brief, terrible relationship.

She uploads it impulsively, assuming few people will see it.  By morning, the video has exploded across the internet.

The backlash—and viral fascination—brings chaos to her professional and personal life.

Eva’s boss, Landry Doughright, sees the scandal as a gold mine and orders Eva to capitalize on the attention by interviewing Rylie live on Sausage Talk.  Despite Eva’s protests, she’s pressured to cooperate.

The interview, intended as a publicity stunt, quickly becomes charged and unpredictable.  On camera, Rylie proposes a challenge: six dates to prove he’s changed and isn’t the jerk Eva remembers.

Cornered and aware that her career depends on playing along, Eva reluctantly agrees.

The media and online audiences become obsessed with their dynamic, interpreting their hostility as romantic tension.  As memes spread and fans ship them online, Eva and Rylie begin exchanging texts filled with sarcasm, flirtation, and growing chemistry.

Their first “date” ends in disaster—a chaotic series of mishaps involving a car accident, allergic reactions, and a failed helicopter ride that exposes Eva’s intense fear of heights.  Though furious, she finds herself drawn to Rylie’s awkward attempts to connect.

As the challenge continues, Eva learns more about Rylie’s personal struggles.  When they record a podcast episode together, he surprises her by recalling intimate details from their college days, suggesting his feelings were real.

Despite her defensive humor and anger, Eva begins to recognize the sincerity behind his efforts.  Their banter slowly softens into curiosity and empathy, though she still suspects his motives.

Rylie eventually invites Eva to a therapy session with his counselor, Roberta, to confront their past.  Through painful honesty, they unpack what really happened years ago: Eva had been inexperienced and emotionally vulnerable, while Rylie had been drowning in grief over his sister’s death and shame from a secret relationship.

Their college breakup was not about cruelty but emotional paralysis.  The session exposes their mutual pain and unresolved feelings, opening a path toward forgiveness.

Afterward, they share an emotional evening together that turns into a romantic and deeply intimate night.  Yet old fears resurface—Eva, terrified of being hurt again, sneaks out in the morning.

Photos of her leaving Rylie’s apartment soon flood the internet, reigniting the gossip cycle.  Despite the humiliation, Rylie shows up at her door, confessing that he loves her and wants to build something real.

Eva admits she loves him too, and they decide to face the fallout together.

Rylie later reveals more about his transformation after his sister Hailey’s death—how grief drove him into apathy and substance abuse until he hit bottom and began studying human behavior to help himself and others.  His influencer persona, once derided by Eva, emerges as a genuine attempt at healing and outreach.

Hearing this, Eva gains a new respect for him and acknowledges her own avoidance of vulnerability.

Their public relationship becomes official during a high-profile fundraiser where both are guests.  Eva’s boss Landry and her manipulative son William confront her about breaching company rules, and she’s fired after standing up for herself and refusing to exploit her relationship further.

Soon after, a leaked security video of Eva and Rylie kissing circulates online, clearly orchestrated by someone inside Soundbites.

Shattered, Eva retreats into isolation.  But her friends and Rylie rally around her.

Aida, furious at the company’s ethics, helps trace the leak back to William.  Eva, realizing how much workplace toxicity she’s endured, decides to fight back.

With Aida’s support, she collects testimonies from colleagues about harassment and intimidation at Soundbites.

Her exposé is eventually published in the New York Times, revealing systemic abuse, exploitation, and the manipulation that destroyed multiple careers—including her own.  The article triggers widespread backlash against the company, prompting an internal investigation.

Meanwhile, Eva and Rylie’s relationship stabilizes as they learn to balance affection, accountability, and independence.

The story closes with Eva reclaiming her creative confidence and professional integrity.  On Rylie’s podcast, the two openly discuss their mistakes and growth, emphasizing that love isn’t about perfection but honesty and continual effort.

They joke about continuing their six-date challenge “forever,” ending on a note of hope and renewal.

Well Actually ultimately explores how personal pain, internet fame, and gender expectations intersect in the modern world.  It’s a romantic comedy that refuses to sugarcoat self-sabotage or the difficulty of change.

Through Eva and Rylie’s messy, emotional journey, Mazey Eddings crafts a story about self-acceptance, communication, and the courage to choose love even when the world is watching.

Characters

Eva Kitt

Eva Kitt, the central protagonist of Well Actually, is a young journalist navigating the chaos of digital media, ambition, and self-identity.  At twenty-seven, she’s trapped in a job she finds degrading, working on Sausage Talk—a viral-oriented video segment that undermines her intelligence and talent.

Her inner life, however, is rich with contradictions: confidence built as armor, humor masking insecurity, and defiance concealing deep loneliness.  Eva is a woman who oscillates between craving validation and scorning those who offer it, a dynamic rooted in her fraught upbringing where affection was conditional and recognition scarce.

When her impulsive video calling out Rylie Cooper goes viral, Eva’s life spirals into both chaos and opportunity.  What begins as humiliation becomes a journey of reclamation—of her voice, her boundaries, and her emotional truth.

Her transformation throughout the novel is profound: she moves from cynicism to vulnerability, from performance to authenticity.  Her wit, sarcasm, and emotional volatility are her defenses, but beneath them lies a longing for sincerity and connection.

By the end, Eva evolves into a woman who no longer performs for attention but speaks for herself, channeling her pain into purpose through her exposé and rediscovery of self-worth.

Rylie Cooper

Rylie Cooper, Eva’s former flame and eventual love interest, embodies a study in reinvention.  Initially seen as a hypocritical “nice guy” influencer profiting off self-help platitudes, Rylie’s true depth unfolds slowly.

His public persona—calm, articulate, emotionally aware—conceals a past marked by grief, guilt, and self-destruction.  The death of his sister Hailey fractured his family and sense of identity, leaving him emotionally hollow during college when he first met Eva.

His silence after their brief relationship wasn’t cruelty but paralysis born of trauma and shame.

Rylie’s arc is one of redemption and accountability.  His decision to face Eva again, first for public image and later out of genuine remorse, reflects a man learning to reconcile performance with truth.

Through therapy and self-reflection, he becomes the emotional counterpart to Eva—patient where she’s reactive, tender where she’s guarded.  His vulnerability, especially in revealing his grief and bisexuality, reframes him as someone who is not “perfect” but striving toward emotional honesty.

In the end, Rylie’s sincerity and compassion become the anchor that allows both of them to heal and love authentically.

Aida

Aida, Eva’s producer and confidante, represents both the moral and pragmatic voice in the novel.  As Eva’s closest friend within the toxic ecosystem of Soundbites, she walks the line between ambition and ethics.

She genuinely cares for Eva but is also complicit in the exploitative media machine that exploits scandal for clicks.  Aida’s character exposes the blurred boundaries between friendship and professional survival in high-stakes digital journalism.

Her journey mirrors Eva’s, though in a quieter register.  She learns the cost of loyalty to a broken system and eventually chooses integrity over compliance, resigning after discovering the company’s role in leaking Eva’s private moment.

Through her, Mazey Eddings highlights the quiet courage of those who resist institutional toxicity not with outrage, but with principle and solidarity.

Landry Doughright and William Doughright

Landry Doughright, the calculating executive behind Soundbites, and her son William embody corporate opportunism at its worst.  Landry is shrewd, manipulative, and unrelentingly pragmatic—using empathy as a façade for exploitation.

She sees Eva’s scandal not as a human crisis but as a marketing opportunity, illustrating the predatory dynamics of click-driven media.  Her son William, in contrast, is more overtly toxic: entitled, misogynistic, and reckless in his hunger for power.

He represents the new generation of media executives who confuse virality with value.

Together, they act as the narrative’s antagonistic force—not villains in the melodramatic sense, but reflections of systemic rot in modern workplaces.  Their eventual exposure through Eva’s article is not just personal revenge but symbolic justice—a reclamation of agency from those who commodify vulnerability.

Ray

Ray, Eva’s friend and emotional support, offers levity and grounding throughout the novel.  His wit and warmth counterbalance Eva’s self-destructive impulses, and his presence in the story underscores the importance of chosen family.

As a chef and creative, Ray’s own confidence and self-assuredness highlight what Eva lacks early on: a sense of stability and self-acceptance.  Through him, Eddings adds texture to Eva’s world—one where friendship and humor become lifelines amid public chaos.

Lilith and Steve

Lilith and Steve, Rylie’s roommates, provide a glimpse into his softer, more domestic side.  Lilith, especially, plays a crucial role as a bridge between Eva and Rylie, grounding their chaotic dynamic with humor and perspective.

Their inclusion gives the story a communal warmth that contrasts the isolating nature of fame and digital scrutiny.

Themes

Identity and Self-Perception

Throughout Well Actually, Eva Kitt’s struggle with self-perception forms the emotional core of the narrative.  Her professional persona—a sardonic, “unlikeable” woman on camera—is both a shield and a trap.

Eva constructs this identity as a defense against the constant judgment and dismissal she faces in media spaces dominated by male executives and internet audiences hungry for controversy.  Her exaggerated bravado masks deep insecurities about her worth, creativity, and likability.

The viral video that catalyzes the story acts as a mirror, forcing Eva to confront how much of her public image has been defined by others’ perceptions rather than her own agency.  Her journey becomes one of reconciling her authentic self with the version the world consumes.

She grapples with being both the subject and the storyteller of her life, a tension that reflects broader questions about the commodification of female identity in the digital age.  By the novel’s end, Eva begins to reclaim authorship over her story—not by abandoning her confidence or humor, but by rejecting the false dichotomy between vulnerability and strength.

Her acceptance of her messy, multifaceted identity stands as a declaration that authenticity is not about perfection, but about self-honesty in a world built on curated performances.

Gender, Power, and Media Exploitation

Well Actually lays bare the ways gendered power dynamics permeate professional environments, particularly in entertainment and media.  Eva’s experience at Soundbites highlights how women’s bodies, emotions, and mistakes are routinely commodified for profit.

Landry and William exploit her scandal with Rylie for clicks and ratings, weaponizing humiliation as content.  The show “Sausage Talk” itself is a metaphor for the objectification of women—its premise literally placing Eva in a position of performative consumption before an audience that reduces her to spectacle.

Her bosses’ cynical belief that controversy equals engagement exposes the media’s appetite for female downfall, while Eva’s eventual exposé reclaims that narrative by revealing how systemic misogyny operates behind the scenes.  Moreover, Rylie’s transformation into a “reformed nice guy” influencer underscores how patriarchal structures allow men to rebrand their toxicity as redemption, often at women’s expense.

The novel challenges the idea of male apology as sufficient repair, instead demanding accountability and equity.  Through Eva’s refusal to be silenced or used, Mazey Eddings critiques not only the industry’s exploitation of women but also the cultural complicity that turns female pain into entertainment.

Healing, Grief, and Emotional Growth

The story’s emotional depth emerges most poignantly through Rylie’s backstory and the shared vulnerability that ultimately connects him and Eva.  His grief over his sister Hailey’s death and his subsequent self-destructive behavior reveal the long shadows of unresolved trauma.

Similarly, Eva’s emotional guardedness—rooted in familial neglect and early romantic humiliation—shows how unhealed wounds shape adult identity.  Their relationship evolves not through grand gestures but through the painful work of acknowledging and communicating emotional truths.

The therapy session becomes a symbolic turning point, confronting their past not as a means of rekindling romance alone, but as a way of confronting the internalized shame both have carried for years.  Healing, in Well Actually, is depicted as nonlinear and uncomfortable.

Eddings rejects the idea of love as a cure-all, portraying it instead as a space for mutual accountability and growth.  The act of listening, apologizing, and forgiving—both oneself and the other—emerges as the truest form of emotional intimacy.

By the conclusion, Eva and Rylie’s connection embodies the possibility that self-awareness, when paired with empathy, can transform pain into renewal.

Feminism and Agency

Eva’s story is also a study in reclaiming female agency within a culture that punishes women for asserting it.  Her arc from reluctant participant in her own exploitation to outspoken journalist exposing workplace harassment charts a powerful feminist trajectory.

The novel situates her empowerment not in defiance alone, but in solidarity—with Aida, Ray, and even with herself.  Her decision to publish the exposé against Soundbites, knowing it could jeopardize her career, becomes an act of moral courage that redefines success as integrity rather than visibility.

Eddings presents feminism not as rhetoric but as lived resistance: a refusal to shrink, to apologize for ambition, or to conform to narratives of “likability. ” Eva’s story also subverts the traditional romantic arc—her love story with Rylie does not rescue her but evolves alongside her self-assertion.

In choosing to tell her truth, she dismantles the very systems that sought to silence her.  Well Actually ultimately positions feminism as an ongoing process of self-ownership, showing that empowerment begins when women refuse to be edited out of their own stories.

Authenticity in the Age of Social Media

The digital landscape serves as both catalyst and battleground in Well Actually, revealing how online spaces distort identity and emotion.  Eva’s viral video functions as a symbol of how quickly private anger becomes public spectacle.

The novel captures the paradox of digital life: a realm that promises connection but breeds alienation, where every post becomes a performance and every vulnerability risks exploitation.  Eddings portrays social media as both toxic and transformative—it destroys Eva’s professional stability yet also gives her the platform to expose systemic corruption.

The online world amplifies judgment, misogyny, and voyeurism, yet it also becomes the stage where Eva reclaims her voice.  The tension between curation and authenticity defines much of her inner conflict: how to exist publicly without erasing what is human and imperfect.

By the end, her willingness to share her story on Rylie’s podcast marks a reconciliation with the medium itself—no longer as an arena of spectacle, but as a means of truth-telling.  The novel’s meditation on digital authenticity ultimately asks whether connection can survive the noise of performance, and it answers through Eva’s growth that honesty, even when messy, remains the most radical form of self-expression.