All's Well

This was like a fever dream in the best way! I love Mona Awad's writing. I loved Bunny and All's Well has been equally intense but in its own way. This eerie and deep down endearing tale has all the best parts of Mona Awad's writing and humour with a very fresh story. I hated to be in Miranda's head for most of this book but I ultimately loved the novel.

I abandoned this novel after a couple of hours reading. The principal character – or really the only character – projected a misanthropy that, however understandable, became tedious.Miranda is a drama teacher whose acting career was ended by a fall, leaving her with chronic pain. The plot is set around her college’s production of All’s Well that Ends Well. Curiously Megan Abbott used much the same idea in her last novel, to much better effect.Her therapists – all men and unsympathetic to Miranda – are called Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, complemented by her ex-husband, Paul. Every character referenced something or somebody else. There was something too calculated and confected about All’s Well. There was also a lot of repetition: we are reminded multiple times that Miranda left Paul, not the other way round. I can appreciate how chronic pain may make a sufferer self-centred but, here at least, it smothered the writing.Gave up.

Amidst all the many receptions and rewritings of Shakespeare plays, this is one of the most creative I've read as Awad takes inspiration from the problematic All's Well That Ends Well, mashes it up with Macbeth in particular with a smattering of other allusions including, importantly, Doctor Faustus but allows her own confection to take flight in an unashamedly modern and feminist direction.Best of all, this starts in a realist style but soon veers off into the magical, surreal, multilayered and fantastical territory that the original plays made their own, with an overt theatricality that channels the spirit of All's Well without being in the slightest bit confined or constrained by that play's plot. An acquaintance with that play serves well to highlight the cleverness of this book, from the controversial and doubled figure of Helen[a], to the presence of a contemporary version of the 'bed trick', and the 'back from the dead' trope (also gesturing to Hermione from The Winter's Tale) gets an added resonance via its connection to healing on multiple levels.Amidst the fun and mayhem, and the increasing psychological chaos, this also makes pointed comments about gender and gendered power, figured via the three male 'doctors' who replace the witches from Macbeth (and note the multiple uses of the word 'weird' around them, as well as the subtle way they reflects the three phases of the moon giving an association with Hecate, goddess of witchcraft, especially the one who is only ever seen as 'a sliver' to represent the new moon) - and who contrast with the doctors and other healers who refuse to listen to Miranda (NB. The Tempest) and her own assessments of her chronic pain and the treatments that might help.Anyone who has read Awad's Bunny will already be familiar with the cool way she mixes up the kooky and the serious, and her unique vision and style - a tour de force that is clever, pointed, dark and grotesque in places, but which miraculously comes back to its starting point: all's well that ends well.

All’s Well was a wonderfully weird book that completely captured me. It may have been my first Awad book, but I know I will pick up more of her work.I was initially drawn to that intriguing promise, blending some dark academia with a supernatural twist and a psychological hellride. Awad delivers all of this and so much more. This is a very, very clever book that plays with those little doubts in your head. The entire headspace of Miranda is a darkly comic, bleak and horrifically suffocating space to inhabit. Awad ensures that you are just as caught up in her misery and struggles, leading to a richly nuanced and painfully honest depiction of chronic pain. You feel as bogged down as Miranda in everything, so when a glimpse of hope appears, you follow the rabbit all the way down.I really loved the way Awad explored the traditional temptation narrative. The meta touch of the play within a play felt inspired, as did all of the Macbeth references due to it being the choice preferred by the students. I can only describe the plot as something akin to a mixture of Macbeth and Doctor Faustus, with its hellish landscape and superbly executed touches of horror. There’s also threads of magic and something more beneath the surface. Awad leaves everything through a foggy haze, with plenty of ambiguity and things left unsaid. Narratively, this is a bizarre and confusing book that offers itself up to the reader to untangle and interpret as they wish. I love that ability to go back through and just tear through the story, adding together your own inferences and implications. It makes the story that much richer and tempting to sink your teeth into.All’s Well was one hell of a wild ride, with its trippy, dark aesthetic probing the realities of living with a chronic condition and a treacherous tale of temptation.