Heady and fearless, All-Night Pharmacy takes us through Los Angeles and beyond on a journey to find family, love, and self-reclamation. From Apples to Sasha to Salvation, the bar that starts it all, Madievsky crystallizes each image into poetry and imbues her characters with both yearning and humor. I wish I could go back in time and spend another weekend falling for these characters for the first time. If you’re looking for a book to capture you, devastate you, resuscitate you (basically, all the feelings), look no further!

The writing in this story was beautiful. The narrative was compelling and eloquent and Ruth Madievsky is clearly very talented. It touches on so many things- Jewish trauma, sexual trauma, family relarionhip issues, addiction, lesbianism, and more.

That being said, it left me with a feeling of “that’s it?” For a young woman who clearly has so many things to process and work through, she makes such little progress. She gets sober, she meets Sasha, she finds her sister… but then what? She goes home, Sasha stays in Russia, her sister stays in Boston. MAYBE she goes back to school, but we don’t know that for certain.

Definitely a high quality book in terms of ability to tackle major issues with a brilliant writing style, but, for me, it fell short of the 5* mark simply because it felt so unfinished… but maybe that was the intent…

A beautiful book that manages to balance being many things, all at once.
There’s two core pieces to the story- the fraught relationship our unnamed narrator has with her sister, (who is mainly a presence for a huge chunk) and the relationship she is seeking to have with herself.
We watch the narrator move through falling into an opioid addiction, seek recovery, befriend an Iguana named Apples, and fall in love with a psychic. All while forming her own cultural + sexual identity.
And yeah, it slaps.

All-Night Pharmacy is about all the ways we can loose our sense of self and how we might begin to find it. Our unnamed narrator is defined by her relationship to others to the point of destruction--by her sister, by the people she finds herself in relationships with. This book delves deeply into codepency, drug addiction, and how what looks like salvation might be very far from it. I found the aspects about intergenerational Jewish trauma very moving and handled in ways I haven't seen them before. I also thought the narrator's steamy queer romance was portrayed well. Overall, a solid, fast and interesting read.

Okay this was such a wild ride, I had no idea where it was going to go. It was like a neo noir mystery mixed with contemporary unhinged girly realness. As a queer person I am always into a queer book as well, and this one delivered, although what was interesting was the queerness/romance was not the main plot, it was a secondary plot and done really well. I was riveted the whole time wondering where the heck Debbie was!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Wow. A glorious, gut-wrenching novel. A coming of age story filled with all of the angst and cringe that that entails, but, ultimately delivers on the promise of hope.

This book is so good! It's sad, funny, thoughtful, disturbing, and insightful. Ruth Madievsky's voice is wholly original, and this debut is such a vibe. Our unnamed protagonist has just graduated high school in the heart of Los Angeles, with a mentally-ill mother and a pill-addicted sister, she gets involved with the wrong crowd right away and develops terrifying addictions of her own. When her sister goes missing after a night out gone wrong, she looks for love in all the wrong places until (years later), she is able to begin searching for her.

The novel is about trauma, queerness, abandonment, all with a sprinkle of coming-of-age. You want to give the narrator a hug, and a cold glass of water, and the ability to take care of herself. The journey Madievsky takes us on is unexpected, often times darkly funny, and pulsing with Eastern European and Jewish heritage. The voice is fresh and hopeful and will stay with me.

Fun and so original. I need more from this author, their creative vision was so wonderful here. I will be recommending it to those who look for funny, but smart and poignant books.

A propulsive story about addiction and family and trauma that kept me guessing at every turn. What a treat it was to dive into this world!

Thanks to the publisher for the e-galley! I look forward to whatever Madievsky writes next.

This book will live within me for awhile.

It was enthralling and evocative, pulling a wealth of emotions out of me at every carefully crafted and beautifully-devastating line.

A book about generational trauma, substance use, agency, mental illness, and about those who go missing from our lives, whether geographically or for those who disappear within themselves.

I highlighted so much of my digital copy of this. The story was haunting, queer, and hopeful. The imagery throughout the book was striking and left an impact.

Further, it was a brilliant portrayal of what it means to be a second or third generation immigrant. The pangs of wanting to live a life that our ancestors would be proud of, while not knowing if it’s possible or even worth living according to someone else’s ideals of freedom and self actualization. And, above all —how absolutely imperative it is to discover our own.

One of my favorite passages that resonated with me (as a queer individual who has been estranged from my own faith community, culture, and family as a result):

“I would not live in service of my dead’s vision for me, a descendent they never knew, who’d never asked them to sacrifice what they lost. I wanted to believe I could honor them by living the life I chose for myself, by making choices that, for them, were never even on the table. That there was a world where my dead saw me — a recovering addict with a psychic girlfriend and a missing sister, estranged from Judaism and unable to speak any of their languages —and felt proud.”

Ruth Madievsky, thank you for this work.
Thank you to Catapult, Counterpoint Press, Soft Skull Press, and NetGalley for the ARC of this title.