All's Well

All's Well

Mona Awad

Enjoyment: 2.5Quality: 3.5Characters: 2.5Plot: 3.0
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From the critically acclaimed author of Bunny, a darkly funny novel about a theater professor suffering chronic pain, who in the process of staging a troubled production of Shakespeare’s most maligned play, suddenly and miraculously recovers. Miranda Fitch’s life is a waking nightmare. The accident that ended her burgeoning acting career left her with excruciating, chronic back pain, a failed marriage, and a deepening dependence on painkillers. And now she’s on the verge of losing her job as a college theater director. Determined to put on Shakespeare’s All’s Well That Ends Well, the play that promised, and cost, her everything, she faces a mutinous cast hellbent on staging Macbeth instead. Miranda sees her chance at redemption slip through her fingers. That’s when she meets three strange benefactors who have an eerie knowledge of Miranda’s past and a tantalizing promise for her future: one where the show goes on, her rebellious students get what’s coming to them, and the invisible, doubted pain that’s kept her from the spotlight is made known. With prose Margaret Atwood has described as “no punches pulled, no hilarities dodged...genius,” Mona Awad has concocted her most potent, subversive novel yet. All’s Well is the story of a woman at her breaking point and a formidable, piercingly funny indictment of our collective refusal to witness and believe female pain.


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  • Reading Update from 100%

    what did i just read...really have no clue what was in her head and what wasn't or the meaning behind any of it 😅

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  • Reading Update from 41%

    Okay another witchy element introduced with Ellie's bath salts...but they don't seem related to the 3 men, so I'm waiting to see what role they'll play...

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  • Reading Update from 13%

    Is this experience a result of the mix of pills and alcohol or did we enter into a witchy realm?

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  • Enjoyment: 3.5Quality: 4.0Characters: 3.0Plot: 3.0
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    well! I feel like I need to read a dissertation on what the hell happened in the last 25% here.. Awad is known for weaving fairytales and cultural lore into her stories, and unless you can recognize the symbolism it feels like a nonsense fever dream. As someone who hasn't read All's Well or Macbeth since high school, I felt totally lost, like I was only picking up half of what I was supposed to. Despite this, I still enjoyed the journey and flew through this. It's a story you can sink into, and Awad's smooth, witty prose carries the reading experience.

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  • Enjoyment: Quality: Characters: Plot:

    All's Well is a trip from start to finish, original, audacious, and fascinating. I haven't read Mona Awad's previous work, so I wasn't sure what to expect, but I was utterly sucked in by the dazzling, dizzying prose and pain-addled protagonist. I thought the ending could have been a little stronger, but I was completely absorbed from the first lines, and had a hard time coming up for air. You can drown in writing like this, and I'm excited to read more from Awad.

    Thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for the advance copy in exchange for an honest review!

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