A stunning, dark tale that incorporates magical realism and lyrical narrative. Great representation of chronic pain. Mona Awad delivers on wit, dark humor, and innovative plot. Not your typical, predictable read.

What did I just read? I’m still trying to figure this one out.
Miranda suffers from chronic pain and it consumes the first part of the book. Her friends have finally had enough, and she is finding herself more and more alone. She combines pills that weren’t meant to be combined and adds alcohol on top. She's seen doctor after doctor, tried a multitude of physical therapists. No one has helped. Is it in her head, like some seem to think? She’s a hot mess. On top of that, she works as a theatre professor at some no name college and is directing All’s Well That Ends Well, a play her students have no interest in.
I’ll warn you, at first I didn’t see any humor in the story. Miranda made me cringe more than laugh. For everyone who has an ailment that isn’t visible to the naked eye, it will ring true.
But then she meets up with three strange men. And one shows her “a trick”. And that’s when things start to get really interesting. I’m not sure what I was expecting. The magic realism here almost turns into a horror show. It’s a very strange book. Very dark, surreal, almost hallucinatory. I veered all over the place, trying to wrap my head around this story. What was going on here? At the end, I was no less confused. But it was so interesting, I enjoyed it. It would make an interesting book club selection as it gives you lots to think about.
My thanks to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for an advance copy of this book.

" Do you like tricks, Ms. Fitch?"

And what a trick we witness in All's Well by Mona Awad! The author of the dark campus novel Bunny returns with the story of Miranda Fitch, a former stage actress turned small-town college professor who is wracked with chronic pain after a fall from the very stage that she once graced.

Miranda's life has taken a sharp turn in the last five years. She was once a moderately celebrated Shakespearean stage actress, but then she toppled off the stage while performing as Lady Macbeth and she was forced to retire. After hip surgery and a slew of unhelpful appointments with doctors, Miranda has constant pain in her hips, back, and legs. She's in charge of the annual Shakespeare production, and this year she wants to put on All's Well That Ends Well, but the kids want to put on Macbeth. They stage a coup and get the dean to intercede, and this is what pushes Miranda to the brink. She encounters three strange men in a bar who seem to have an answer to her problems, and it doesn't take much for her to succumb to their advances. Suddenly everything in Miranda's life seems to go her way: her pain is gone, the set designer she's been making eyes at reciprocates, and her interpretation of All's Well is greenlit by a donation from some mysterious benefactors who insist they only want to see a good show. Where did her pain go, and how? Miranda doesn't quite care, although she has her theories, and we see her descend into a frenzied work ethic and manic confidence that can only end in disaster.

As someone who deals with chronic, invisible pain, Miranda's story is one that sadly hit close to home. In the beginning, people try to help. They offer words of sympathy. They commiserate with you. But after a while, it stops. When people cannot see the cause of pain, they can find it hard to believe in it. Awad illustrates this perfectly in All's Well. The descriptions of pain, the unhelpfulness of the doctors, and the depression were all palpable, and even though Miranda's morals were unquestionably gray you find yourself rooting for her. Miranda is fed up, she's tired, and she just wants what she deserves out of life. And if she has to "unintentionally" step on other people to do it...all's well that ends well, right?

I really loved the many Shakespeare references that were sprinkled throughout the book, and I found it funny that even though Miranda refused to put on the play Macbeth, she ended up in her own similar situation. She embodied both Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, grasping for something that she may have deserved but by utilizing nefarious means, all with the help of her own kind of Weird Sisters. Awad wove in references to All's Well That Ends Well, Macbeth, Faustian bargains, Freaky Friday-esque switches, crossroads demons, etc. The prose was great, the pacing was perfect (especially towards the end!), and the humor was dark but not overwhelmingly so. Awad has proven once again that she's the queen of twisty, dark campus novels.

"I am hypnotized by my own ruin."

All's Well, for me, has become an exercise in cutting my losses.

I had high hopes at fist. A genre-bending novel, packed with dark humor, lightly tinged with Shakespearean influence, and adorned by a perfect cover, sounds absolutely right up my alley. But I've been slogging through an ARC of this one for actual months, and it pains me to admit it, but this book is not for me.

Miranda Fitch directs the theatre program for the university where she works, haphazardly trying to inspire her students to take an interest in Shakespeare, especially his lesser-known plays. She's also suffering from chronic pain that infringes upon her ability to do or enjoy much of anything.

She starts to (what? see? visit? imagine? dream?) these three random men who (do what? caress her face? look at her with bloody eyes? know things about her?). I don't even know. The scenes aren't badly written, and wouldn't feel out of place in a book like Neverwhere, but it's all just so strange and I can't figure out the point of any of it.

Honestly, it is a mentally-exhausting book to read. I can do about 4 pages at a time, before I need to circle back with myself and try to interpret what I just read. At the same time, I get the impression that there must be a point somewhere, and perhaps I'm just not meta enough for that deep of a literary analysis.

I don't know. What I do know is that I've been trying to make something of this book for many, many weeks, and I will be grateful to finally start reading something else before bed every night.

—-

Thanks to Mona Awad, Simon & Schuster, and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review!

There’s a moment in All’s Well where our main character, Miranda, tries to hide what she’s been doing by saying its all a play. She raves that is is a play on Macbeth, on Dr. Faustus. This moment is clever- it’s exactly what you’ve been reading, which is why I’m mentioning it to you, lovely reader.

All’s Well is Mona Awad’s newest release which centers around Miranda Fitch, a college theater director with chronic pain whose students are in mutiny. When three men approach her in a bar and offer her a way out, she takes it- no matter the cost to everyone else around her.

If you, like me, loved Mona Awad’s Bunny, you will be similarly drawn into All’s Well. Like its predecessor, All’s Well begins in a fairly normal state, but once the chaos begins, it begins. It’s terrifying from start to finish, and the writing itself is like pure gold. Awad knows how to encapsulate an absolutely absurd story but make it feel so real, so believable, that you are rapt at every word.

I won’t say I had any massive problems with All’s Well, except that maybe I was underwhelmed. I do believe that’s my fault- this was one of my most hyped new releases- and it isn’t a criticism I think holds any weight in this scenario. Especially because this is a 4/4.5 out of 5 for me.

Awad captures the desperation that comes with pain perfectly. If you have ever had an injury that brings you to physical therapy, ever experienced a phantom pain no one could help you with- this book is for you. This book sees you. From the very first minute of this book, it is about how pain torments. It is about the pain we inflict on others in the attempt to escape the things that ail us. It is a book about how even just surviving is a challenge when every day is an ache.

I love Mona Awad. She has quickly become one of my favorite authors, and I am grateful to have gotten this early release copy of All’s Well. Go out and read this. Immediately. NOW.

This literary fiction novel follows Miranda Fitch as she struggles to find a way to manage her debilitating chronic pain. After her career as an actor ended, Miranda is now the theater director of a small college. Miranda wants to put on Shakespeare’s All’s Well That Ends Well but the student cast would rather do Macbeth. All's Well was the last play Miranda acted in before her accident and when the chance to redeem herself starts to slip through her grasp, she begins to spiral. Thankfully, she meets three strange men in a bar one night and they tell her that she'll get to put on her play as well as have the truth of her pain shown to those who doubt her. As we get closer to opening night, Miranda's life gets increasingly strange and unseen consequences take center stage.

So my feelings about this book can be summed up by: I think the book did a good job at what it was trying to do, but what it was trying to do was not for me. I liked this book alright while I was reading it, but I wish it had a stronger ending. Based on the synopsis for the book, I was expecting this to be a more externally focused story - basically Miranda versus the world - and for it to have a sort of horror/thriller vibe with the "mutinous cast hellbent on staging Macbeth instead". The story ended up being much much more focused internally on Miranda and her struggles and desires. There are still external sources of tension (doctors who don't believe her, her students, etc) but the majority of the narrative focused on how those external sources made Miranda feel and her reactions to some of these external situations. And while there are some strange magical elements to the story, they paled in comparison to the dissection of Miranda's psyche on the page. I think I misunderstood parts of the book synopsis and put my own expectations on the book to be something that it isn't. This was a really great lit-fic examination of the human experience and how lives can be changed in an instant but that type of story just isn't my jam.

I think the most stand-out element by far is the writing. It is incredibly immersive and entrancing but I didn't find it overly flowery. I usually find the prose in lit-fic stories to be self indulgent and almost feel like the author is showing off. I think Awad toes this line well and a good part of that is because a lot of the things she is describing in this poetic language are pretty terrible things like chronic pain and feelings of rejection and self-destruction. The narrative structure really helps emphasize Miranda's emotional state and when she is spiraling we will get these large chunks of text of description. Since this is an ARC, there is a chance the book formatting will change but these large blocks of text felt very intentional so don't think they will be changed in the final copy. I did have a hard time not skipping or skimming these large blocks but that is a personal issue more so than a problem with the narration. I had to force myself to slow down and make sure to not skip over these chunks so I could appreciate the story.

My main issue with the book was the ending. It just didn't really give me any real sense of closure or that the story was wrapped up in a satisfactory way. The best way I can explain without spoiling anything would be that the book ends with a sort of dread where we (and Miranda) know what will happen soon but it is left a bit ambiguous when exactly that event will happen. My issue is that this future event is tied pretty closely to the main story arc so instead of the ending being a bit mysterious or being a little open-ended (which is what I felt like it was going for) it ends up just feeling sort of unfinished. It felt like we were missing about 30 pages where we see the aftermath of the main plot and then this future event. We spent this whole book getting all this build up and this ramping up of the tension and stakes and the climax of the story raised those stakes even more and I wanted to see the full downfall on the other side of the climax.

I usually would say I'm a more of a character-driven reader but this was pushing it even for me. It is told in first person and we are the furthest inside any character's head that I've ever read. Almost uncomfortably inside at times. I think this is used to the greatest success in the chronic pain parts of the story. The story literally starts with Miranda on the floor in her office while trying to get well enough so she can go teach her class. We see her at her lowest and really jump into the deep end with her character and the reader can really empathize with her pain and how it affects her life. But we also get Miranda's inner monologue when it comes to the people and situations around her and I would categorize her as an unlikable protagonist. There's an interesting back and forth where we start to feel bad for her and her struggles but then she can be a real bitch to the people around her so then we don't feel as sorry. Obviously, people are complex and are never all good or all bad and I think Awad really highlights these differences in her characterization of Miranda.

So much of the prose was focused on Miranda's inner running dialogue that I did find the world to be a little underdeveloped for my liking. Also, since it is in first person, I wanted Miranda to interact more with the other characters so we could get a better understanding of how these other characters view her. I think Miranda projects a lot of her pain and anger onto people around her but I would have liked to see more of how that type of projection might have affected individual interactions. I also do want to mention that there is a magical healing aspect to the plot that may bother some readers. I don't have any chronic pain or illness so I can't speak to how that aspect of the story was handled from that perspective. I did think the way it was handled was interesting and not really something I had seen before.

Overall, this was a really interesting and immersive lit-fic story that really sunk us deep into the psyche of our main character. However, I would have liked more depth when it came to interactions between characters and the ending so overall this was a pretty middle of the road read for me.

Thanks to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for the ARC in exchange for review.

Expected publication date August 3, 2021.

↦ 4.5 stars

all's well is definitely a weird book. it reads like a fever dream, everything is slightly fuzzy at the edges. but i loved it so much. i can see why some people didn't like it. imo, this is one of those books you either love or hate.

miranda, the main character, is not a lovable character at all. she's in a lot of pain, she's mistreated by every single doctor she's tried. she has given up on any hopes of healing she ever had. however, she meets her shining star in the form of three mysterious men that promise her a miracle.

i loved being inside miranda's head. the writing style is spectacular and i really liked how witty and sarcastic she was. the way she slowly descends into absolute madness was so fun to read about.

chronic illness plays a great part during the story, but i cannot comment on the accuracy of the portrayal. the book is a great commentary on how some doctors tend to treat women - infantilize them, as if they're not capable enough to understand their own pain.

another thing i greatly enjoyed was the setting. i love anything related to theater, so i had the time of my life reading this. it reminded me of if we were villains, so if you loved that one, you might love this one as well. i loved the side characters as well, even if they didn't have important parts in the story.

i greatly appreciated the open ending. it was a proper finish line for the madness that goes on throughout the book and i quite enjoyed how few questions were actually answered in the end.

thank you to netgalley for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review!

Often time passes before I give feedback on an ARC I have read. Then I need to refresh my memory of the book. Not so with this one. This book stuck in my mind long after I finished reading. I found it to be quite original with many engaging elements.
Miranda was a rising theater star when an accident and the ensuing chronic pain cut short her career. Now she teaches theater at a small college. This year she’s determined to put on a production of All’s Well That Ends Well. Her students are rebelling and want to do the Scottish Play. There follows an almost Shakespeare power struggle complete with three “benefactors” (witches?). The topics of chronic pain and academic power struggles are nicely dealt with.

DNF'd after getting only to chapter 7 after 3 months of trying. The writing is sharp, the premise intriguing, and it is just not the right time for me to read this book!! Coming back to it maybe in the fall when I'm feeling the depression. Also when I can hold it in my hands and flip back and forth like I want to.

This book just didn't work for me. I kept reading, looking for the moment when the humor that had been promised would rise above the darkness, but it never did. The central character was so self-obsessed that I found "spending time with her" unpleasant.

CW for drug use/dependency/abuse (primarily prescription), suicidal ideation, chronic illness.

I am absolutely devastated that I did not enjoy this as much as I was hoping. I LOVED Bunny and while I did not necessarily dislike All's Well, I did not find it as compelling as Bunny, though I'm not sure I can pinpoint exactly why. It had the making of everything I love: Shakespeare, college setting, slight magical/mysterious elements, unreliable and unlikeable narrator.

I found Miranda to be very cringey to read at times, almost to the point where I had to stop reading. None of the side characters were particularly interesting or memorable.

I really admire Awad's way of narration that mimics the voice of the protagonist. You're probably thinking, Allison, it's a first person narrative, doesn't that automatically mean the narrative voice ~is~ the voice of the protagonist? But the answer is surprisingly "no!". Awad's writing physically depicts the characters rise or descent into elation, madness, or what have you. The writing breaks down just as the character does. You really get inside their head and stream of consciousness. I loved this about Bunny and I loved this about All's Well.

Overall, I'm not disappointed I read this but I am disappointed that I didn't love it as much as I wanted to. But that's a "me problem". I will absolutely recommend it to the right kind of person.

This was a read that I could appreciate, but not enjoy. The author's writing style and ability to convey chronic pain and the havoc it wreaks on a body and on relationships was admirable. Certain passages were incredibly drawn and deeply moving. And as a former actor I can say that the wry digs at the foibles and self-seriousness of certain theater artists were often laugh out loud funny and excruciatingly spot-on. So I while I could marvel at Awad's ability, I did find the whole almost unbearable repetitive and the main character's head was not a fun place to be - either before or after her mysterious transformation. That's not to say that I wish she had been more "likeable," only that I did not find the combination of the slow, repetitive plot beats and a very successful rendering of the protagonist's understandably pained and ugly headspace rewarding. Would only recommend to those looking for a bleak - sometimes amusing, sometimes breathtaking, but mostly bleak read.

This book was such a great departure from my normal domestic thrillers. The author had a super direct approach to the protagonist's condition that was, at times, hard to read. The reality of her pain is relatable for many and I think that's a great read for those struggling with chronic illnesses and conditions.

The line between reality and fiction is a bit blurry, which just contributed to the overall (likeable) oddness of the book. I finished the story with more questions than I started with, but it was definitely a unique reading experience that I'd recommend to a friend.

Thanks to NetGalley for the eARC of this novel in exchange for my review.

Aaah I REALLY wanted to love this because I was such a fan of Bunny! I was so intrigued the entire time but I think my issue was not being able to keep up with the pace and plot of the story. I would definitely recommend this if you're a fan of Mona Awad's work and know what you're getting yourself into with one of her books! I will definitely be giving this a second read once the audiobook is available!

All's Well is a dark, trippy, Shakespearean satire. Truly one of a kind. I'm temped to classify it as a full-on mind tunnel because of the many labyrinthine fun-house-mirror levels to it.

The main character, Miranda, is a college theater director who suffers from unrelenting back and hip pain from an injury she acquired back when she was still a promising young actress. (She fell off a stage.) That injury cost her everything: her marriage, her career, and her health, among other things.

With sympathy from loved ones, medical professionals, coworkers, and friends either running low or having expired because they don't listen, because they don't take her pain seriously any longer, she feels isolated. Surrounding her is a choppy sea full of judgment and scorn and disbelief. She's trapped in a chronic bubble alone where nobody can hear her screams. Everybody writes her off as a burden or a headcase, minimizing her suffering, or worse, trivializing it.

She's also adrift, hopeless, resentful, and desperate for any relief at all. That only intensifies when she decides to put on Shakespeare's most controversial play, All's Well That Ends Well, at the school where she works, which no one wants to see the students perform but her. She meets resistance and grief at every turn. No one will pay her any mind, and she's beaten down about it, almost too sick and exhausted to be fed up.

However, things start to change before long.

They grow foggier and stranger and better after she encounters three male strangers at a bar. They know her name. They seem to comprehend her pain. They claim to how to make it go away. As it happens, they turn out to be theater patrons who not only want to fund her play but want to watch her put it on for the public...or do they?

Who are these mysterious men, anyway? Why is it Miranda can't seem to register their faces? How come her back/hip symptoms not only dissipate but seem to afflict others in her place after she meets them?

What is happening? Who is to blame? Is there witchcraft afoot or can this all be chalked up to her bitter imaginings, bath herbs, and drugs which to help numb her constant discomfort? ​

These are the sorts of questions readers are left asking.

And the answers, if there are any, are fuzzy and deformed, which results in a lack of "what does it all mean" clarity that I suppose most would expect to be frustrating but I think is disarming in a good way because it's unique. It's singular. Like spinning out, it causes the sort of rush that leaves you momentarily unable to tell up from down.

The story itself is a wild, fascinating, disturbing plummet through the center of a pain-hazed, drug-induced, golden remedy imbued, under-the-theater lights rabbit hole. It sucks readers right in. It grabs ahold of them as they tumble, twist, plunge, and pitch inside Miranda's mind--blowing them about so they topple into the real blinding hurt and dismissal people (women especially) face when they are victims of invisible but debilitating health conditions.

It seems to ask: is there anyone out there who will listen? Care? Try? How come people only seem to understand when it's their turn, when they're the ones who are suddenly hunched over, broken and screaming and aching, so endlessly miserable they want to die?

Not only is this book a bizarre blend of horror and hallucination, of fantasy and reality, of twisted literary allusion and suffering, but there's also an undefinable quality to it that toes readers along the edge of a rim to unbalance everything. Something about it distorts, disfigures--warping the lives, emotions, and experiences of all the characters within so you're left wondering what's real and what isn't by the end.

Is there a way to tell the difference? Is there, you wonder?

Having already read it myself, I don't know. Many days later and I still haven't been able to reach a consensus.

3.5 stars

Thanks to NetGalley and Simon and Schuster for the ARC in exchange for my review.

i wanted to like this book so much because i read bunny which i didn’t like either but i just could not get into this book. the main character complained about literally everything all the time and nothing about this book was funny, the main character complained so much that the book actually just felt depressing

4.5/5

So Mona Awad has now written two phenomenally weird books about my two favorite things, writing and theatre, and I'm seriously starting to think maybe she just Understands Me. Or maybe that she wants to scare me away from college.

This book is exciting and energetic and strange, a mix between everything I liked in both Awad's 'Bunny' and M.L. Rio's 'If We Were Villains', with the themes of losing yourself in performance, blurring the lines between reality and shakespeare—which Awad does SO well. Miranda's descent into mania is thrilling to read: god knows I love a negative character arc, god knows I love some weird vague magic, god knows I love shakespeare.

I will say that chronic illness and chronic pain feature heavily in this novel. As someone who doesn't experience those things, I'd definitely be open to hearing critiques of that element, but I'm not the person to offer it. However, I can say I connected a LOT of miranda's experiences with doctors. Not being trusted to handle your own body, doctors who think they know your illness better than you, who infantilize and steamroll you, who blame you for your pain—woof. Boy have we been there.

Anyways! As someone who is about to go off to do both creative writing and theatre in college, Bunny and All's Well are gonna haunt me forever. Thank you so much to Netgalley and Simon and Schuster for giving me the opportunity to read this book!

If you liked Bunny, you’ll love this book. We’re back in the mind of an unreliable female narrator in a higher education setting. I love that! As a bonus, you get lots of Shakespeare which also works for me. I had never read the play that’s a huge part of the plot and was motivated to read the original after this book.
The main character, Miranda, is one I not only relate to but, as the book progressed, I found myself empathizing more and more with her. Everything is from her perspective. At the start, I thought this book was hilarious and really was enjoying the experience but as I kept reading the book descended into darker and darker territory and, to be honest, I wasn’t as happy a reader. It actually felt quite voyeuristic which is a compliment to the author; Miranda was so real, and I personally wouldn’t want someone in my head as much as I felt I was in hers. I did finish it as I was intrigued to find out how it ended.
Awad is a skilled writer and storyteller; she touches on many universal themes especially female pain and its avoidance while keeping us engaged in some action. I recommend this book if you want to think about how pain is dealt with in contemporary America. The ending is satisfying without being “happy”. This would be a wonderful book club pick if your group likes trying to figure out what exactly is going on. It is quite a fuzzy read. Many interpretations are possible and I would have loved some author’s notes.
I plan to listen to all interviews Mona Awad gives as I am fascinated by why and how she comes up with her characters and her plot. I recall listening to her talk about Bunny when I was halfway through reading it and it helped me appreciate that book a whole lot more.
Thanks for the opportunity to preview.
Mary

Mona Awad rocks. All's Well is a gem. There is so much to praise in this book.

First, I'm a huge fan of the unreliable narrator. Awad's use of italics and quotation marks to signify or suggest internal monologue — or sometimes interpersonal communication, which surprises both the reader and the main character — led to delicious unpredictability and uncertainty. The lack of clarity of what is voiced and what is merely thought casts doubt on the sanity and believability of the narrator, which furthers the parallels and allusions that Awad makes to Shakespeare.

There are many delightful Easter eggs to Macbeth throughout. This happens to be the play that the main character does her best to avoid putting on with her group of theater students. It so happens that much of Awad's All's Well is a nod to some of the most compelling parts of the Shakespeare play. Readers will enjoy this book even more if they have some Shakespeare fluency.

Awad's weaving of her main character's chronic pain and magic/healing opens discussion to the pain (true or imagined) that we embody (and often deny or hide) in our own lives.

Thoroughly enjoyed this book and look forward to all of Awad's upcoming work. Thank you, Net Galley!

I was really excited to read this, but I think I will try Bunny instead as this just wasn't for me.

Miranda is a theater professor suffering from a vague back/hip condition that causes her chronic pain. She's also staging a production of All's Well That Ends Well with an unenthusiastic group of college students.

I loved the overall idea of this (cranky professor at small liberal arts college working her way through academic snarkery and career ups and downs) and was hoping for a sort of feminist Wonder Boys. But I struggled to connect with this story or its characters. I'm sad. I've heard great things about Awad's other books so I'm going to try those instead.