I really tried… but all was not well. This book was not for me and I gave up at ~30% after attempting multiple reads.
I did think the cover art was great!

Thanks to Penguin Random House Canada and NetGalley for the ARC!

<b>Big big thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a free, electronic ARC of this novel received in exchange for an honest review.

Expected publication date: August 3, 2021</b>

The storytelling is unlike anything I've ever seen before. This book centers a woman with chronic pain, the reader is face to face with how the medical system has failed her. The writing is immersive and kept me hooked! Miranda is a very flawed main character, to see how someone once had so much hope and then lost it very quickly.

Women's pain is so often not believed, by others or medical professionals. This book describes pain so vividly, it was very atmospheric. Reading about flawed characters makes us more sympathetic. We're all not perfect.

Miranda was a theater actress. She had an accident on stage that caused her immense chronic hip and back pain.
Now a theater professor at some small college in Massachusetts, she wants to put on a production of All's Well that End's Well, but her team of theater students want to put on Macbeth instead.

One strange night, she meets three strange men who promise her everything will be alright, all will be well in the end… They show her a trick and Miranda's life is changed! For the better, or for the worse? You'll have to read to find out.

I felt personally that the synopsis was a little misleading about how these two plays connected to Miranda. Minor spoilers: <spoiler>I thought from the synopsis that putting All's Well would be Miranda's way of reclaiming what happened to her. But her accident happened as she played Lady M in Macbeth, so THAT play would be "the play that promised, and cost, her everything" and not All's Well like mentioned in the synopsis.</spoiler>

Things I loved about this book:
-Miranda is a well rounded character in my opinion. She wants things and works towards getting them, no matter the consequences. She has a lot of feelings about everything!

-Mona Awad's writing made me feel so transported to another world! I have never been to Massachusetts or been interested in the theater world, but this was so much fun!

-I love the twists and turns this book took! Some chapters ended in a whisper, some with a cliffhanger!

Things other people might have difficulties with this book
-Miranda is quite unlikeable and that’s hard for some readers. She's judgmental and angry, so angry, for a lot of this book.

-the plot takes some time to pick up and move forward but I feel hat once it does it’s a worthwhile ride!

-minor spoiler about the kind of ending: <spoiler>it is ambiguous and not a lot of people like that.</spoiler>

This was such a great book!!! Mona Awad is such a strange writer, but I really love it. I think if people enjoy quirky stories, with missing pieces of a puzzle, this would be a great read.

All’s Well by Mona Awad : Book review

There are so many thoughts and feelings that arose when reading Mona Awad’s All’s Well - it’s dark, unsettling, blurry, frantic.. reading like a fast-paced stream of consciousness at times. Miranda, a theatre professor at a small college, is plagued by chronic pain after a fall from stage at the height of her acting career. Her pain is oppressive, all encompassing, and she feels nothing but bleak sameness ahead of her. Until she meets three men in a bar, and suddenly, after a series of confusing events, her vigour, her vitality is restored. The cost of such restoration soon comes into view.

The story felt reminiscent of Bunny, in its horror-ish, fever dream sort of vibes. The ?magical realism elements, or the constant uncertainty of what is real, what is imagined adds to the nightmare-esque quality woven throughout.

The topics and themes were so thoughtfully examined, such as the exploration of the experience of living with chronic pain, especially unseen injuries, the power dynamic between patient and practitioner, the way a woman’s power can be linked/limited to/by their beauty and youth.

Thick with unease and tension, it has stuck with me; I haven’t stopped thinking about it. It’s impressively written, the writing style unique. It’s not a book I would recommend widespread but to those who enjoy the weird, wonderful & dark reads sometimes - you’ll love it, as I did!

All’s Well by Mona Awad is an exhilarating read; I couldn’t put this book down! There were many twists and turns so expertly depicted that I found myself fully engrossed in the story. It is a dark read with pockets of comedy and sorrow and a really seamless integration of Shakespeare. It had me confused, disturbed, distracted - but in a good way! I didn’t find it depressing, in fact, I found inspiration in Miranda’s compassion for her students and those she loved, and for her passion for theatre. Miranda is a phenomenally crafted protagonist and her story (though confusing as it may be) is consuming. I found myself joyful when she was joyous and helpless when she was in pain. I thought about Miranda even when I wasn’t reading!

My only issue is that I really wish the end gave me more details. I get filling in some of the blanks with the imagination but my imagination was drawing blanks after everything it went through reading the book.

I could imagine this story easily translated into a play - one I would definitely go and watch. It also has me curious to revisit Shakespeare’s “All’s Well that Ends Well”! :)

This ARC was kindly provided by NetGalley and Penguin Random House Canada.

Dang. Another witchy banger from Mona Awad. If you like anything dark and weird, and especially if you liked Bunny, read this. Slow start but quickly ascends into a fever pitch of madness.

Still thinking about this book days later, which is rare for me.

Miranda Fitch is an absolutely miserable college theatre professor. Due to an accident years before, she now suffers from debilitating chronic pain - pain that cut her promising acting career short and blew up her life.

Miranda is angry at the world. She's tired of people who lack compassion, people who tell her that maybe it's all in her head, people who can walk easily and skip and stand up and sit down. She's tired of getting her hopes dashed again and again while searching for a fix. She reaches breaking point.

But before it's too late, Miranda is offered a miracle cure. But nothing comes for free, of course. As we watch Miranda spiral into something beautiful and terrifying, we're left to wonder: What horrible thing is she going to do next?

Awad touches on some really interesting things in All's Well. I enjoyed the reference to sad girl culture and pain glorification and how messed up that is when you take it in its most literal sense (be broken and be vulnerable but don't you dare be too broken and vulnerable cause that's not cute anymore).

As dislikable as she is, I found Miranda fascinating as a character. I had sympathy for her at the start. But as she continued to be just the most awful person, the doubts crept in: Maybe she is faking a little bit of this? A sad woman craving care or touch might exaggerate symptoms as a way to get a little bit more attention, right? And BOOM did I just became part of the problem? If the author was trying to make a point about how we're less likely to believe the pain of of those who are difficult or unattractive or disagreeable, then point achieved. On the other hand, Miranda is unreliable - we see the world only from her jaded point of view (and she admits that seeing young, limber people makes her pain worsen). But how does one measure pain? What is "real" pain? This book raises lots of interesting questions.

Miranda's horrible nature is unfortunately what made the ending fall flat for me. The choice Miranda makes at the end just didn't feel natural. I would have loved to see some happy moments from previous years, some kind of North Star that Miranda returns to (her recollections just aren't enough). I know this period of time is Miranda darkest, so she doesn't have many good feelings towards anything. But the ending felt more like Awad trying to wrap things up in a moralistic way that didn't naturally evolve from the story.

Overall, though, this was spooky and creepy and weird and I think I loved it!

Thank you to Netgalley and Penguin Random House Canada for the arc in exchange for my honest opinions.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for a free e-arc in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions expressed in this review are my own.

Well... this was a ride. All's Well is a wonderfully weird story featuring one of the craziest characters I've ever read about. I loved the unreliable narrator and not knowing what was actually happening. It felt like every time I knew what was going on something else would happen to throw me off. Throughout the story we are thrown into a lot of different directions without ever having everything totally explained. Reading this book is like having hallucinations, you never know what is actually happening and what is all in your mind. It's a wild tipsy ride only for those looking for the next weird thrill.

I still haven't read the synopsis for this book. In full transparency, I wanted to read this one because I've heard so many people talk about Bunny and how weird of a book it was and then I had the chance for an arc so I grabbed it. Now I'm thinking Bunny has to be one of my next reads because of how much I enjoyed this one.

I ended up DNFing this book. I didn’t like the writing style, and the plot wasn’t interesting at all. None of the characters really struck me. I resonated with the main character a bit, also having chronic back pain, so I felt conflicted in feeling poorly for her but also just ready for the book to move on from that. I got about 30% then gave up, maybe I’ll pick it up another time but I was struggling to get through what I did read.

This book is weird.

I really and truly cannot think of a better word to describe it. I have actually read one of the author's other books plus I have seen a lot of people talk about bunny so I did know going in that it would probably be weird but I honestly wasn't prepared for the level of strangeness. There were so many moments where I was confused and didn't feel like I knew what was happening and yet there's something so entrancing about the writing that I couldn't help but keep reading. There's a lot of self-medicating and overuse / abuse of drugs in the beginning of the book and the writing reflects that because it's literally as though you're reading the thoughts of a drug-addled mind. Miranda is so out of touch with the world around her that it's difficult for the reader to know what's going on as well because she's the ultimate unreliable narrator. I think if you have liked any of the author's other work or if you like surreal, kind of strange and haunting books then you will absolutely love this but this book was a difficult read and it will not be for everybody.

All's Well is a book about a former Shakespearean actress who after suffering an injury on stage experiences long-term, debilitating chronic pain. She ends up teaching theatre at a small New England college and spends most of her life completely zoned out and under the influence of pain pills and muscle relaxants as she tries to numb the pain enough to be able to get through her day. Despite her students wanting to put on Macbeth for their spring production she insists that they put on All's Well That Ends Well instead as she has a lot of fond memories of performing that play herself. I love reading books that involve Shakespeare but All's Well That Ends Well instead is one of the plays that I know the least about and so I was very curious to see how the story of the play and the story of the novel would mirror each other. The book starts with the main character Miranda the absolute lowest she could be, she can barely bring herself to get up because of the pain she is experiencing and she is desperate for relief. She's also incredibly isolated as everyone in her life has kind of drifted away and it's honestly really sad and hard to read about someone going through something like that. Things start to change for Miranda when she has a weird and surreal meeting with these three men in a bar. I don't want to give too much away but I would say this point is when the magical realism really takes effect and even though Miranda has a turning point here the book stays strange.

What I did really appreciate about this book is the way that Miranda's pain is portrayed. As a person who has dealt with chronic pain for the majority of my life I really understood what Miranda was going through and how frustrating it was for her to not be taken seriously and to not be able to "fix" herself. The descriptions of doctor's appointments and her friends pulling away from her because they didn't understood or didn't want to deal with her "drama" broke my heart a little bit. The way she was feeling and the way that people treated her was honestly kind of disturbing and a little bit frightening but also 100% how people with chronic pain are treated in real life a lot of time. Obviously this is fiction and the character is dramatized but even though I didn't actually like Miranda for most of the book I still really empathized with her and for me the way the author portrayed her pain was the best part of the book.

When I review books I normally take notes throughout to refer back to when I'm writing my review but with this book I did not take a single note. I didn't know what to write or focus on. I spent most of the book not really sure how I felt about it but it still felt like it was worth the read. Now that I have finished the book and am reflecting on it I'm honestly not sure if I understood it at all. If you asked me the point I don't know if I could tell you and I think that is because the way this is written everyone will legitimately interpret it differently and probably get something slightly different from it. This book made my brain feel like looking at abstract art makes my brain feel.

Overall, this book wasn't really for me but I can still recognize the skill which the author employs here. This was a read that was way outside of comfort zone and I'm glad I picked it up and challenged myself with it but ultimately I think I'm just not the target audience for this author/book and that's okay. It was still an interesting book though and I can think of a couple of friends who I will definitely recommend this to as it is right up their alley.

Women’s pain, and all the gaslighting, ignorance, uncomfortable silence, and outright denial that comes along with it are explored so astutely in All’s Well that I had to take a break halfway through because things were getting too “art imitating life” for my liking during a PCOS-fuelled flare up. But alas, all’s well. I made it through and am here to report that I am obsessed with this book.

Mona Awad has quickly become an auto-read author for me, with her unique ability to meld keenly observed statements about womanhood with absurdist and utterly demented storytelling. The story follows Miranda, a floundering theatre professor at a small east coast college whose life has been consumed by pain and benzos. She’s been all but left for dead by those closest to her, and the vultures circle at work, threatening to derail her tepid directorial adaptation of All’s Well that Ends Well- a Shakespearean work that means far more to Miranda than a 9 to 5 meal ticket. Enter three mysterious strangers… who sidle up to Miranda at her local dive bar one night explaining that pain can be transferred, and offering up a drink called the golden remedy. Needless to say, Miranda’s life quickly begins to change, but at what cost?

All’s Well won’t be everyone’s cup of tea, but it was certainly mine. The devastating depiction of Miranda’s struggle to live a semblance of a life with chronic, debilitating pain, mixed with the insane premise, served up a striking concoction of Faustian drama with “good for her” final girl energy. My favourite read of the year so far.

4.75 stars
Enjoyment 8/10

We meet Miranda, whose life has seen better days. The adage is true - it is pouring for our girl right now: After a horrible accident, her acting career is gone with the wind, her marriage is done, her back pain is here to stay, as is her painkiller addiction. All she has left is her job as a college theater director, but even that is starting to get wet!

Miranda feels that if only she can have a good run of Shakespeare's All's Well That Ends Well, things will be alright. But her cast has other things in mind and gang up on Miranda, demanding Macbeth instead.

These poor souls don't know what they have started because "Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none." followed their lead and is now "It will have blood, they say: blood will have blood."

That's not all their choice of play manifested - three strange benefactors who seem to know everything about Miranda show up in her life with promises of the future she feels she deserves: one in which she gets her play, her students get their dues, her invisible pain no one believes in, is made known. It seems like things might end well for Miranda after all. Or will something wicked her way come?

All's Well narrative is over descriptive and overdramatic. Still, it reads as an intentional choice that gives the story its atmosphere by building on the theatre vibes, and it puts the reader in Miranda's state of mind with all its artistic flair.

Miranda's is not an easy state of mind to be in, but oh, is she compelling! She pulls you in from the get-go and gives you no choice to walk away. Not that you'd want to anyway. Her inner world is like one of those horrible accidents where people want to look away but can't help staring instead. Miranda's PoV is dark, claustrophobic, and full of angst. But you feel that tiny light of hope fighting to flicker, and that's exactly the thing to which you hold on. Her energy shifts as the story unfold, taking you right with her. It was fantastic. So weird. It's like Awad bewitched the book!

The character work and atmosphere were flawless, in my opinion. All's Well was a book I simply couldn't put down and read in two days. Usually, I feel the need to take breaks from books this emotionally charged, as I get right into the character's head, but this book is so magnetic that I couldn't stop thinking about it whenever I wasn't reading it.

The only thing that kept me from giving it 5 stars was that it took me a few chapters to get into the flow because of the perspective.

All's Well was a crazy ride, a perfect homage to Shakespeare while keeping its unique voice. It is innovative, fresh, fascinating, and a little scary.

The third act was a wild, crazy, heart-pounding rollercoaster. Plan to read it in one go because it is a succession of WTF moments in the best possible way.

I can't wait to see what Mona comes up with next. WOW!

Disclaimer: I first read it as an ARC. In exchange for an honest review, I am thankful to Penguin Random House Canada, Mona Awad, and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of All's Well

4.5 stars

It wasn’t too long ago that I read Bunny, but apparently it was just long enough for me to forget the super strange magic realism form that Mona Awad favours in some of her work. She’s quite skilled at blurring the line between fantasy and reality, and she once again creates a believable protagonist with some interesting, if somewhat confusing, depths. I also love the social commentary she inserts into her fiction. Basically, I’m a fan, and I look forward to whatever weird novel the writer comes out with next.

DNF @ 37%

This book is super weird and actually quite well-written, but unfortunately, it's just not a book that I can personally read at the moment. Our main character Miranda suffers from chronic pain, a lot of which I also have experienced/currently struggle with, so reading about it is just a bit too triggering for me personally. For what it's worth, I thought the representation of Miranda's back pain in particular, though definitely exaggerated, was very representative of my own experience, and I think there's a lot of conversations to be had regarding the way the world treats people, especially women, with invisible disabilities. I would definitely recommend this book to others though if you like dark humour and a very eccentric, stream of consciousness narrative style, and I am very interested in Mona Awad's other works!

Okay, take all of the mysterious and creepy weird influence out of this book and there is a very real and very valuable message in it. It represents the people enduring chronic pain and how their voices are often stripped of them. Miranda’s struggles within her body and within her treatment are very clearly told and should be concerning for all of us. There is a particular scene when she is trying to speak up and is completely overpowered by her “caregiver” and it’s eerily imaginable and truly sickening.

Beyond that theme, the book takes a sharp turn and becomes more mystical and supernatural and that’s where the real fun begins. The immersion into the world of theatre is fascinating and the rollercoaster ride of events is as dramatic as any Shakespearean plot.

Part of the triumph of this story is the vicarious revenge that our protagonist gets on the people who have wronged her. Her justice feels so good…until it doesn’t. After all, everything has its price.

I shared the other day that “I am desperate to get to the end, but also wishing it would last forever” and then I blasted through the rest of it. Phew. The only words to describe the back half of this book are: frantic, intense and fast-moving. Once I finished reading it, I spent a good several minutes staring at the ceiling, thinking only, “whaaaaaaat?!?!?”

Thank you to Netgalley and Penguin Random House Canada for the advanced copy.

This book was a proper rollercoaster ride.

Dark and intense with some super interesting characters to go along this journey with. It's definitely not for everyone but it is something to read once just to experience.

Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Random House for the earc in return for an honest review.

There is an intensity, a mystery, and a non-stop energy to the story. You struggle with the pain of an actress who meets her toughest cast only to shift into a dramatic realm of magic, healing, and the struggle to understand what is happening to our cast of characters. A stunning book.

I unfortunately had to DNF All's Well. This was not the book for me. It's written in a stream of consciousness and it made me realize that I hate that. I hated being on Miranda mind and I couldn't be there any longer. Whit not having finished the book I can't rate it but since I have to to be able to post this review I'll give it a 2 but don't take that into consideration.

Thank you so much to netgalley and penguin random House Canada to let me have the chance to read and e-ARC.

This was a very interesting read. The storyline is why I originally requested it. The protagonist is Miranda, a former actor who was injured and now teaches at a small college. She's directing the play and no one seems to be happy with the Shakespeare she chose: All's Well That Ends Well. Themes of Shakespeare are woven around and through this woman's story, who's own story is heavily influenced by the theatre.

I am not super familiar with this particular play; although, I do have a pretty good working knowledge of Shakespeare. It didn't end up being necessary, which is a bonus as it opens this up to more readers. It did make me feel like I may have gotten some of the more subtle plot devices and themes.

The descriptions were very, very good. I really got a sense of this woman's reality; her pain and how it has affected her life. She's not particularly likeable. She's cranky, selfish and mean but pitiful. Her pain is clearly what has made her this way, or is it?

Everything is filtered through Miranda's point of view, so it becomes a bit suspect. Is it real? Is it accurate? That's part of the beauty of this writing. It's well done and creepy because it's well done.

I liked it. It wasn't happy or sad, but it was thoroughly compelling and well paced. A delirious romp into madness worthy of Lady Macbeth herself.

Would definitely recommend if you like anything Shakespeare, or a bit quirky.

Full of razor-sharp wit and gloriously dark magical realism. ALL’S WELL by Mona Awad is an unforgettable experience to read.

Wow! Mona Awad does it again! This was one of my most anticipated releases of the year, and I am so grateful to have received this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This book was so great! I really enjoyed the conversations surrounding pain and chronic illnesses. It was so frustrating how our main character Miranda's pain was not taken seriously as she has an invisible chronic illness.

I also really loved how weird this book was. I know it won't be for everyone, but if you loved Awad's other book Bunny, you will enjoy this one as well. I liked how a lot of elements of this book went unexplained as I'm here for the trippy reading experience.

I will definitely be buying a physical copy of this one for a future re-read. I feel like this will be one of those books that I get more out of it the more times I read it.