Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for providing this eARC.

All Better Now takes place in a post-Covid world where a new virus, Crown Royale, is spreading rapidly, leaving people unburdened and content when they recover from it.

I understand the concept of Crown Royale, and the behavior of one of our main characters, Ron -- the idea of the radical spread of joy and peace globally seems great, arguably ideal! But Crown Royale still kills people. Because the virus at the core of this book -- a book developed out of our recent history with COVID-19, a book that has come out in a time where Covid, influenza, RSV, pneumonia, tuberculosis, and measles are running rampant, and where we stand on the precipice of a dangerous avian flu outbreak -- has a death rate, in any capacity, I just couldn't buy what Shusterman was selling here. Even though every death is peaceful, even though the virus gives that final gift to its victims, it felt nearly impossible to root for the "good guys," even though the bad guys were horrible. The whole thing just felt misguided and irresponsible, and like the book was undermining all of the good points about misinformation and the capitalistic value of psychological oppression.

Beyond my qualms with the execution of the book's premise, I did think the characters were interesting, and the writing at a sentence level was rock solid. Shusterman is popular for a reason, and that is clear on the page here. I did think the story was a bit too long, though I did appreciate the time spent on developing the characters early before the bulk of the plot got underway. I wouldn't want to sacrifice too much to trimming the story down, but I would have liked a bit of a livelier pace.

In all I do think people will like this book, especially Shusterman fans. I just think it was a bit poorly timed and insensitively executed.

The fact that Neal Shusterman is on my atuo-read list is beside the point when the book is THIS GOOD. A virus where the after effects are happiness? Sign me up! Kidding aside, this book explores how those in power, money, government, etc. thrive on misery. If you are happy/complacent, you don't need too much out of life. This means people are buying and spending on outrageous things (and everyday things) to feel fulfilled and happy. Of course they would push an agenda saying the after effects were dangerous! This book is close to what reality would look like if something like this were to happen. Is that scary, exciting, terrifying? It's all of the above and more. I couldn't read this fast enough.

Really fascinating premise that is more nuanced than first expected. Who wouldn't want to feel eternal bliss after getting sick? But what really are the ramifications of never feeling loss, regret, pain, or sorrow? Shusterman is a master a the complexity of human experience.

The story got to be a little long. I wonder how it could have been shorted to reach more audiences.

Sadly this was a DNF for me and I love Neal Shusterman!!! This was just a miss. It was slow and I just couldn't force myself to read on.

Another impeccably done hard hitting story by Neal Shusterman. There is not another author that I know of that can present tough topics as well as he can. This one was a bit heavy for me because it’s so pandemic centered. However, it absolutely accomplishes what it sets out to.

Thank you Neal Shusterman, Simon and Schuster Children’s Publishing, and NetGalley for my advanced review copy! My opinions are my own.

Plot - 3
Writing and Editing - 5
Character Development - 4
Personal Bias - 4
Final Score - 4

I enjoyed this book. The character build was spot on and made for a very entertaining read, but that is expected for NS. Thank you Netgalley for the arc!

The Arc of the Scythe series is one of my favorite series of all time so I’m always excited to read anything written by Neal Shusterman.

I could see so many things in this book that made me initially fall in love with Neal’s writing style. He is so great at weaving together seemingly unconnected story-lines to remind us just how small the world can be. There is a deadly virus quickly spreading around the world and the reader gets to experience its effects through the eyes of multiple people of varying backgrounds. Just like anything of importance, everyone has a different opinion on the virus itself. Should it be contained, eradicated, spread without concern, etc. The lingering side-effect of the virus is what creates such strong viewpoints — if you survive the virus, you are eternally happy and completely unbothered.

The narrator gives a stellar performance and breathes life into the various characters and their personalities. I started reading this one with my physical copy and finished with the audio. However you choose to read, this one is 100% worth adding to your list!

"Even a crocodile can grieve for its prey, my love."

I just flipped the last page on his newest story. After covid a new viral outbreak is on the climb but this one comes with an altering after effect.... happiness.

Now this isn't horror but it has an almost body snatchers feeling to it as people who recover come out of their fever completely happy. To the point you debate the chemical changes going on in their dna. Its a well done representation of society and the reactions as different people from different walks of life make the decision to be infected, fight against the spread and even profit from it.

The four main povs intersect in different ways. I liked how Shusterman combines the scientific povs (alpha spreader and immune) and the political povs (cure profit and the fight against it). It makes you debate morals, human rights and also makes you wonder if having certain emotions stripped from you still make you who you are in the end. 

I did find that character connection wasn't as front and center as the plot.  I was more immersed in the viral aspects of the story. Some slow portions cropped up but overall an enjoyable science fiction/dystopian read. Perfect for Shusterman fans.

This book had a super interesting concept and I really wanted to love it but I felt like it dragged a lot around the middle. The book is about a pandemic that causes recoverees to be happy and content all the time. People who haven’t contracted Crown Royale are terrified of what it could do to the world as a whole, causing economic infrastructure to crash. But recoverees just want to spread the virus to everyone…

Again, I wanted to love this one but I just didn’t. Parts were too long and the characters weren’t that interesting. Some parts were kinda scary to think about but overall it just wasn’t my favorite.

4.5 stars
I feel like I am the rare Neal Shusterman fan whose favorite series of his is The Skinjacker Trilogy rather than Scythe. So for anyone who loves that series like I do, great news: this book has a lot of the same elements that made that one so great!

All Better Now has the classic Shusterman set up with complicated questions about humanity and the meaning of life packaged in a deceptively simple-sounding YA tagline. While his series like Scythe and Unwind drop you into a world where everyone has long-since been living with the book's key stakes, I think the thing that sets All Better Now apart is that you're watching the new world order unfold alongside all the characters. There's something particularly interesting about seeing the newly discovered reprecussions of a world where everyone is infected with happiness happen in real time, and to see what consequences are immediately evident to everyone, and what things are set up to potentially grow into bigger issues down the line.

The problem I've typically had with Neal's series outside of Everlost is that I've had a hard time feeling invested in the characters, but I felt like the character work in this book was some of his best. It's possible that I connected with them more because they had archetypes that were so similar to those of his characters from Everlost, but regardless, I really liked the particular perspectives that he set up and the variety of roles we got to see each of them play.

I think my only real complaint about this book is that I wish it were a series rather than a standalone. While I think part of the reason that Neal ended the book how he did was to avoid giving anything that felt overly prescriptive as to which side was in the "right", it still did leave off in a way that essentially felt like a cliffhanger despite this book (as far as I know) being a standalone. There were a lot of things set up in this book that could be explored more and that seemed like they would have more of their own causes and effects, and so I'm holding onto hope that there will be more to come from this world in the future.

A new virus emerges in the post-COVID world. This one has a higher death rate and after recovery people are changed. It is not a change like COVID with persistent brain fog or health issues though, instead, all recoverees suddenly have different priorities. They care about others above themselves, they are not interested in material things or wealth. This is terrifying to the richest in the world, who are all working to stop Crown Royal. The book follows three young people and their experiences surrounding the disease. One who gets it, one cannot, and one will do anything to stop it.

Very quickly I decided that I thought this book was genius. I was telling everyone around me all about it, but then the book progressed and lost some of the shine. I struggled with Ron in this book and his motivations. The middle dragged a good bit and I kept setting it aside to grab other books that grabbed more of my interest. By the end, it picked back up.

Overall, a good book but it had potential to be so much more!

Thank you to Net Galley, Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing, and Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers for the DRC. All opinions are my own!

3.5/5

All Better Now takes place in a dystopian future where another pandemic dubbed Crown Royal is plaguing mankind. People who survive it become utterly happy and pacifistic. Three teens experience the pandemic differently. Mariel, a homeless girl whose mother died from the disease, finds she is immune to it. She meets and falls for Ron, the depressed son of a billionaire, who survives Crown Royale with a changed disposition and is determined to infect anyone who hasn't had the disease. Morgan has been chosen by a wealthy Hungarian survivor, Dame Havilland, to find a vaccine against Crown Royale. Interesting ethical questions are explored as Ron and Mariel travel across the country trying to infect as many people as possible. Meanwhile, Morgan tries to find them, as Mariel’s immunity is key to finding a way to eradicate the disease. The ambiguous ending lends itself to a sequel.

What choice would you make?

The Crown Royale virus seems to be everywhere and it either becomes fatal or creates a happy mindset in survivors. Mariel and her mom are homeless and she believes that the virus would make life great but her mother doesn’t. Ron, the youngest of six children, hosts his rich father’s Airbnb and welcomes people to stay for four nights at the beautiful penthouse for a very cheap price. This will be the last stay before the penthouse closes. His father is wanting to live in isolation so they don’t catch the virus and give all their money to charity because they’re out of their right minds, all caused by the Crown Royale virus. Morgan reaches her internship meeting, where she meets with a very rich woman who has recently been diagnosed with Crown Royale and wants to bequeath everything to Morgan to eradicate the virus. Ron becomes an alpha-spreader, Mariel is immune, Morgan wants to do everything possible to eradicate the virus and after inheriting tons of money and partnering with Ron’s extremely rich father, she has the means to.

Likes/dislikes: I love the inclusion and representation of several different ethnicities and cultures. The stories of random people and encounters intrigued me and helped cement the nature of the virus and its effect on people. I enjoyed how the author explored the choices people made and their actions. Interesting story.
Mature content: PG for kissing.
Language: R for 65 swears and 6 f-words.
Violence: PG for death.
Ethnicity: Ron is of Spanish descent. Morgan is Eurasian, Mariel is white.

As someone who was an essential worker during COVID, this one hit me personal but in the best ways. Thoughtful, relevant, and exciting from start to finish. All Better Now is one of the best books I’ve read so far this year and days later I am still thinking about it. Loved the characters, loved the questions asked and I’d love to see a sequel.

I will read everything that Neal Shusterman writes! I was so excited about the premise of this book. I thought it would be amazing. Honestly, it was just okay for me. I had a hard time keeping all of the characters and locations straight at times. It also felt a little long in the middle. I think the idea of a new strain of COVID is brilliant and I loved thinking about if the new strain was really all that bad...who is really on the right side of things in this case? But it just kind of dragged in the middle for me. And I say that as someone who lives in-between Kalamazoo and Kokomo :)

(summary start)
All Better Now by Neal Shusterman (releasing Feb 4, 2025) is a YA thriller about a world changed by the Crown Royale virus. While it has a 4% mortality rate, survivors experience lasting happiness, disrupting society. Those in power, fearing loss of control, push a narrative that perpetual joy is dangerous and rush to develop a vaccine. Three teens from different backgrounds find themselves caught in a battle that could redefine humanity. The novel explores themes of societal control, the ethics of happiness, and the true cost of contentment.
(summary end)


i did take my time and really enjoyed this novel. it’s told from a birds eye view so we are seeing how Crown Royale is affecting a lot of different areas (jails, the rich, the poor, the resistance, those fighting against it) and that worked well for this novel. because in my mind when something as big as an infection is going around, I wanna know how it’s affecting everybody who exists.

neal shusterman did an amazing job at making sure I didn’t really know who to root for. But from the beginning, I was hoping Morgan would succeeded with anything that she wanted to, and I don’t know what that says about me as a person. I don’t wanna go into any more details to give away why I feel the way that I feel but just know it’s gonna have you trying to understand everybody’s side and of course probably not picking a side but as a person we always pick different sides.

this was my first novel by neal shusterman so I’m so excited to read his other series.

I really thought that I would love this one, since I have liked Shusterman books in the past. The premise sounds great. I found myself not really engaged with the story though. I found it easy to put down and didn't really care if I picked it up again. I think this was due to a few factors. One, I didn't connect emotionally with any of the characters. I didn't get to know them enough and they didn't have enough of a voice. Maybe it's because of the 3rd person point of view.
And, second, there was just too much. It was too long and it dragged. It was easy to skip or skim and still know what was happening and not miss anything. The ending was also weird and ambiguous. Unless this is a series, it was disappointing.
All in all, I didn't hate it, but I definitely didn't love it and would only recommend it to people that I know don't mind slow stories with deep philosophical questions that don't mind ambiguity.

If you knew that catching a new sickness would change your outlook on life to only find the good, would you chance to get sick? This is the question the characters within All Better Now face as a new pandemic has emerged. We follow characters as they live through a second pandemic and how each chooses to handle the idea of getting sick. I found this book utterly fascinating in the first 30% because, as the reader, we are learning about this new sickness and trying to figure out if it is good or bad. I personally didn't agree with some of the characters and their choices after being exposed to Crown Royal. I think this is a well-written book, and I think that Shusterman does a great job at writing engaging dystopian, but I prefer the Arc of the Scythe trilogy better than this.

*Special thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing this free ARC in exchange for an honest review. Pub date: February 4, 2025

I’ve loved every Shusterman book I’ve read, but struggled to get through this one. It’s incredibly well written, but I found myself bored waiting for something to happen. This made me feel like I was on a carousel just going in circles instead of making any progress. Interesting concept and characters, but left me wanting more.

This book is so freaking good. It's creative, imaginative, writing with such humor and passion and emotion while tackling so many real issues and ideas. It mirrors life and how the world works so well, and all the characters are ones that you could root for. It was amazing that so many characters working at different purposes and with different motivations could make me not be able to choose a side - everyone was convincing (and again mirrors so much how society acts). The characters were flawed and vivid and I could not get enough. I love that it's a standalone but also I could just keep on reading. The writing is SUPERB and I adore this author so much. He makes you think while reading while also keeping you hooked and engaged and throwing so many curve balls at you