This is my first Mona Awad book but I thought it was incredible. I must get my hands on every other book this women has written. Ms. Awad did an amazing job writing the character of Miranda. Miranda wasn’t necessarily good or bad, but it was interesting going back and forth with the kind of person she is. The chronic pain she goes through every day actually terrified me. My mom has chronic pain and because of this book I understand her life so much better now. I really loved this story and how it played out. My attention was invested in this book the entire time. I honestly loved every moment of it.

Miranda Fitch is an actor with extreme chronic pain after an accident where she fell off of a stage. Because the pain makes it impossible for her to continue her career, she starts teaching acting and directing plays at a small college. Everything is going wrong, she is drugged out on pain killers and booze, the no one believes her pain is real, there is a revolt among her students when she is determined to put on Shakespeare's All's Well instead of Macbeth. One night she wanders into the bar and meets three strangers and drinks the "golden remedy". These three men help everything to completely turn around.
Ummm.....What the heck did I just read?!?! This reads like a hallucinogenic fever dream on steroids. In the vein of Gone Girl and the Woman in the Window, we have an unreliable narrator. This is slightly obvious in the beginning. By the end, you have no idea what is reality and what is not. I would have loved to read these sections from the perspective of other characters. If you know Macbeth or All's Well, this whole thing would make much more sense. My recommendation - if you love Shakespeare's works and/or theater, this is probably a book for you.

What a strange, beautiful little book. Mona Awad's ability to write complex, interesting, and strange women who so perfectly straddle the line between likable and unlikable is just unmatched. I wasn't quite as in love with this book as I was with Bunny, but All's Well certainly did not disappoint. Cannot wait to see what comes next from the queen of existential, speculative dark academia.

It was really really difficult for me to get into this book. I started it three different times before I actually stuck with it. The first half felt really slow and pretty boring, and the second half picked up so quickly that it was really difficult to follow what was actually going on.

I wanted to like this book so much more than I did. While I can appreciate the writing style, because it really is art, it was the only thing I truly enjoyed about this book. The pacing was too erratic and I felt like we were free falling through the story and it didn’t feel intentional. Her previous book remains a favorite of mine, so I’ll definitely still be picking up future books!

Ever since I read Bunny, Awad has been on my radar. I dove into All's Well with expectations for a complex, unlikeable narrator who is offset by the unlikeable people she is surrounded by.

In All's Well, Miranda has suffered from chronic pain since a stage accident, where she plunged off the edge to her near-demise. She was once beautiful, but is now withered, not only from the pain but the constant stress of convincing others that it is real. When she gains a magical ability to transfer her pain to others, The narration is dark and humorous, with moments of vacuum strength where we are drawn into the internal dialogue of the main character. It is hard to decide who to like and who to dislike, and this is Awad's strength. Everyone has a valid viewpoint, but everyone is still playing for themselves. Who will you play for?

Themes of control and unreality continually emerge, diverge, and betray each other. Without paying close attention, I think it is possible to lose the plot to the intense narration. I also think a strong understanding of Shakespeare would contribute to the narrative technique (most importantly Macbeth and All's Well That End's Well, which I studied so long ago I basically didn't remember enough to catch a lot of the easter eggs). Nevertheless, I think this macabre comic work is fiercely intelligent and asks questions that are difficult, in ingenious ways. It is hard to look away from, difficult to predict, and impossible not to enjoy.

An immersive yet difficult read, “All’s Well” is a palpably painful experience from start to finish. A gruesome story of grief, trauma, and the inexplicability of chronic pain, Awad’s portrayal invites readers into the feelings of frustration and misery that come with having a condition that can not be cured and which is continually misunderstood and even ignored.

Because others cannot wrap their minds around Miranda’s pain and find it uncomfortable, they refuse to acknowledge it. Many will feel much the same about this book, torn between feeling bad for Miranda and for what she is going through and being completely uneasy with the entire experience of becoming privy to those feelings.

Many readers will find Miranda to be a wholly unlikeable and annoying character, and reading her perspective can be unpleasant, to say the least, which both helps and hurts the story being told. Likewise, her slow descent into madness in a world that becomes less and less explainable will grip some readers and leave others furious.

Although the experience is worthwhile, the magical realism in this book surges to a point of heavy-handedness in the end that will turn many readers off, therefore narrowing its audience to an unfortunate extent. The shadowy nature of it all, though entertaining, leaves too much unsaid to be satisfying for most. The weirdness of it all will be truly enjoyable to only a small audience who are willing to endure what verges on gratuitously grim descriptions for such shadowy rewards. An audience who will appreciate the nuanced nods to Shakespeare and who will be alright with feeling stiff and agitated during every sitting.

I rated “All’s Well” 4 out of 5 stars.

Thank you to Simon & Schuster and Netgalley for an early copy in exchange for an honest review.

strange and witty. this book was such a vivid, wild, page-turning ride, and i enjoyed it thoroughly. some people here have complained about miranda complaining too much, but i didn't mind that at all lol, i thought her thoughts were compelling and i appreciated her wittiness and her honesty as well as this book's willingness to dive into chronic pain and the way society ignores it and tries to explain it away, particularly to the women like miranda who live with it. the theater aspect of this book was so much fun!! i love novels set at colleges, especially when professors are the main characters as i feel like it's so much fun to watch them interact with their students/watch their students interact. such a fun time truly! did not want to put it down, i had to put it down for like two hours to go to my lit class and the entire time i was like i want to go read it!!! anyways read this book, mona awad is a new autobuy author for me <3

Mona Awad has two incredible gifts as an author. First is her ability to force readers to live in all the uncomfortable, the dark and twisted, the unlikable corners of her characters. We see the novel's main character, Miranda, give into her worst impulses and enact a sort of "violence of indifference" on others, despite being victim to that same treatment throughout her experiences prior to and at the beginning of the novel. She writes in a way that is so deeply interior and puts all of her character's motivations front and center throughout the whole novel. You're not going to question why Miranda does what she does because she's going to be very frank about her reasoning. Her second gift is her ability to hold tension throughout her work. Once it picks up, there isn't a lull in that on edge feeling you get while reading. There wasn't a moment in which I felt relaxed while reading this book. I had a similar sensation reading her previous book, Bunny.

Both works are masterful displays of her gifts. Highly recommend.

I really, really wanted to like this book but I haven't been able to stick with it. My hope is that I return to the novel and in a different state of mind, enjoy it and rave about it. Today is not that day.

We love a story with representation, even if it is chronic pain and from a horrible life situation. Overall, just loved the story and the confusingness of it even if I'm still not entirely sure what was happening.

Shakespeare thriller/horror? Yes please! Just like If We Were Villains, I loved it and I want more! People need to write more Shakespeare related books!

3/5 stars

Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for providing this e-arc!

Not to be that person but Bunny was better

All's Well is such a well written look into chronic pain using the theater to mirror one woman's journey. The elements of magical realism woven into the plot accentuate the main character's desperation and manic highs, and actualize the pain that so many around her have dismissed.

This started strong, but faded toward the end. It is well written and relatable, but toward the end I did not understand what was fully going on. Strange and surreal, and not for everyone.

I'm not quite sure what I just read. It is classified as a darkly funny novel but I didn't find anything funny about it. All's Well is about Miranda, a theater teacher, who has to live with crippling pain. Then she meets three men at a bar and down the rabbit hole we go. I would describe this book as strange, confusing, a whirlwind, dizzying, and sad. Is Miranda in a dream? Is she having an out of body experience? Is she so sick she is hallucinating? I can't figure it out but what a ride Mona Awad takes us on!

Special thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a free, electronic ARC of this novel received in exchange for an honest review.

All’s Well by Mona Awad is a contemporary horror-comedy with a dash of magical realism. It features Miranda Fitch, a college theater professor with debilitating chronic pain, who spends just as much time managing her pain as she does convincing people it’s real. In charge of directing the annual Shakespeare production at her college, she’s decided to produce All’s Well That Ends Well, in spite of a cast of mutinous students who want to put on Macbeth instead. It seems they might have their way and this, too, will be taken from her, until she drowns her sorrows at a bar where she meets three mysterious men and makes a Faustian bargain that appears to change the tides in her favor.

While All’s Well is readable and enjoyable on its own, I would suggest quickly perusing a summary of William Shakespeare’s All’s Well That Ends Well in order to enjoy some of the more subtle nuances in this novel. Scholars classify Shakespeare’s play as a “problem play” because it features several problematic themes and generally unpleasant characters. Furthermore, while it contains a formulaic “happy ending” like all his comedies, it is far from satisfying.

Awad masterfully adapts and subverts key moments from All’s Well That Ends Well. A particular favorite of mine is how she treats the bed trick: Shakespeare uses it to prove that in the dark, all women are alike to men. He also gives women that knowledge, which allows them to wield it like a weapon when necessary. In All’s Well, Miranda consistently confuses or imagines her new beau as though he were her ex-husband, and it similarly turns into an exercise to help her get what she wants. It’s not good or nice, but who said power or control was supposed to be either?

Miranda’s experiences with pain also highlight important social commentary about health care professionals doubting women know their own bodies and pain levels. However, because Miranda is so unlikeable, it’s difficult to feel sympathy for her plight. And that is the problem: Miranda has been managing her pain for so long that it is a part of her personality now. Of course she’s unpleasant when no one ever believes she’s in pain, doctors fail to help her, and people and systems appear to collude against her well-being. But I worry that the novel features so many other wild, twisted elements that this critical issue will be easy to forget for those who doubt or question its validity. That certainly proves Awad’s point, but selective ignorance does nothing to help move the conversation forward for real people.

As readers barrel towards the conclusion, the novel takes on a sublime, almost Shakespearean quality (rather appropriately). Unexpected magic twists plots beyond recognition and reverses fates without warning. Miranda seems to find easy solutions for some of her biggest problems, but they haunt her to the point of madness at certain points. It’s challenging to keep up with everything, and not even Awad’s engaging voice could stop me from wishing for an intermission. I was somehow both bored and overwhelmed a little over halfway through the novel because I was ready for the climax. The novel felt overwritten while Miranda was at the peak of her madness, and the denouement didn’t give me what I wanted. As much as I enjoyed the beginning of this book, I was confused and unsatisfied by the end. It seems lazy to argue that was by design, given All’s Well That Ends Well is a problem play. I shouldn’t be left feeling as though someone ripped out the last 20 pages of the book!

All’s Well is a creative, macabre romp unlike anything you’ve read before. At times readers are left feeling unmoored and a little anxious as they doubt whether they want to go where the plot will lead. They’ll question who they’re supposed to be rooting for, and if all can ever actually be well for Miranda. But that’s part of the fun: Awad takes Shakespeare’s problem play…and plays with the problems.

All's Well is my first book by Mona Awad, and now I want to read Bunny. I love books that connect to Shakespeare, and there are some Dickens vibes with the three pathways that emerge for Miranda. It's a book that dares explore the topic of chronic pain and painkillers, though with an air of mysticism. As a person with chronic pain, it's good to see representation, though individual readers will have their own take on how it is expressed.

Many thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for providing me with this book. All thoughts are my own.

This tale was funny as all get-out, but very sad too. At times I was not sure if I was laughing until I cried or crying unto exhaustion. Either way, I was enthralled to the very last word.

3.5 stars rounded down--I really enjoyed this book and its unique take on Shakespeare, particularly the way Awad blended All's Well That Ends Well and Macbeth in Miranda's narrative. I also thought that Awad did a spectacular job writing about chronic pain, which I haven't really seen in a book before. That said, I found the resolution kind of disappointing, and I wanted more of an explanation or at least clues to what, if any, real-world consequences Miranda's altered mental state had caused.