After spending the better part of August in an autoimmune flare-up & chronic pain inflammation, what better book to feature today than Mona Awad’s latest release, ‘All’s Well‘, published on 8/3! Thank you @simonandschuster for my gift copy!
I’ve barely been on the ‘gram for the last wk due to my flare-up & lack of proper sleep due to my pain has had me in a brain fog so thick, I can barely think straight. I take some meds, but nothing like the woman portrayed in this book. (*For the sake of privacy, I prefer not to go into specifics regarding meds or my exact autoimmunes.)
From the critically acclaimed author of ‘Bunny’ comes a darkly funny novel about a theater professor suffering from chronic pain, who in the process of staging a troubled production of Shakespeare’s most maligned play, suddenly & miraculously recovers.
Miranda Fitch’s life is a waking nightmare. The accident that ended her burgeoning acting career left her w/ excruciating, chronic back pain, a failed marriage, & a deepening dependence on painkillers. And now she’s on the verge of losing her job as a college theater director. Determined to put on Shakespeare’s All’s Well That Ends Well, the play that promised, & cost, her everything, she faces a mutinous cast hellbent on staging Macbeth instead. Miranda sees her chance at redemption slip through her fingers.
That’s when she meets three strange benefactors who have an eerie knowledge of Miranda’s past & a tantalizing promise for her future: one where the show goes on, her rebellious students get what’s coming to them, & the invisible, doubted pain that’s kept her from the spotlight is made known.
With prose Margaret Atwood has described as “no punches pulled, no hilarities dodged…genius,” Mona Awad has concocted her most potent, subversive novel yet.
‘All’s Well’ is the story of a woman at her breaking point & a formidable, piercingly funny indictment of our collective refusal to witness & believe female pain. This unique story is about Miranda’s wavering mental health & grip on reality amid her battle w/ her chronic pain & the way invisible afflictions are perceived by peers.
‘All’s Well‘ is like following Miranda into the rabbit hole of pain meds, often chased w/ alcohol, as she alienates herself from friends & family as they grow tired of her moodiness due to her pain & meds. Is her inner monologue a descent into madness? This is a fiercely imaginative, deeply satisfying, intriguing, trippy novel that is also somewhat relatable at times, & also has a really cool cover. A solid, well-written novel!
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Mona Awad was born in Montreal & has lived in the US since 2009. Her debut novel, 13 WAYS OF LOOKING AT A FAT GIRL (Penguin Books, 2016), won the Amazon Best First Novel Award & was shortlisted for the Giller Prize. Her second novel, BUNNY (Viking, 2019), was a finalist for a GoodReads Choice Award for Best Horror, the New England Book Award & the Massachusetts Book Award. It won the Ladies of Horror Fiction Best Novel Award. Her latest novel, ALL’S WELL, released with Simon & Schuster on August 3rd, 2021.
She earned an MFA in fiction from Brown University & an MScR in English from the University of Edinburgh where her dissertation was on fear in the fairy tale. In 2018, she completed a Ph.D. in Creative Writing & English literature at the University of Denver. She currently lives in Boston.
*Mom Loves Reading* 