All's Well

By: Mona Awad

Narrated by: Sophie Amoss

Length: 13 hrs and 8 mins

Publisher's summary

NATIONAL BESTSELLER
*FINALIST FOR A GOODREADS CHOICE AWARD FOR BEST HORROR*
*LONGLISTED FOR THE 2023 INTERNATIONAL DUBLIN AWARD*

“Dear Readers: This is one wild book! . . . No holds barred.” —Margaret Atwood via Twitter

“Mind-blowing. Equal parts brilliant and hilarious.” —Heather O’Neill, bestselling author of The Lonely Hearts Hotel and Lullabies for Little Criminals

From the critically acclaimed author of Bunny, a darkly funny novel about a theatre professor suffering chronic pain who, in the process of staging a troubled production of Shakespeare’s most maligned play, suddenly and miraculously recovers.

Miranda Fitch’s life is a waking nightmare. The accident that ended her burgeoning acting career left her with excruciating, chronic pain, a failed marriage, and a deepening dependence on painkillers. And now she’s on the verge of losing her job as a college theatre director. Determined to put on Shakespeare’s All’s Well That Ends Well, the play that promised—and cost—her everything, she faces a mutinous cast hell-bent 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 and a tantalizing promise for her future: one where the show goes on, her rebellious students get what’s coming to them, and the invisible, doubted pain that’s kept her from the spotlight is made known.

With prose Margaret Atwood has described via Twitter 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 and a formidable, piercingly funny indictment of our collective refusal to witness and believe female pain.

©2021 Mona Awad (P)2021 Hamish Hamilton

Critic reviews

2023, DUBLIN Literary Award, Long-listed

NATIONAL BESTSELLER

One of:

NOW Magazine’s “14 best books to read in summer 2021.”

Vulture’s “Most anticipated books of 2021”

Bustle's "Most anticipated books of August 2021"

CBC's "29 Canadian books we can't wait to read in August"

Entertainment Weekly's "Best new books to read in August"

CBC's "65 Canadian works of fiction to watch for in fall 2021"

Quill & Quire's "2021 Best of Fall guide"

“[A] surreal exploration of chronic pain, women's believability and visibility, and desperation that straddles the line between comedy and horror. . . . [W]here Bunny explored the dark side of universally human urge to belong, in All's Well, Awad directs her caustic commentary at a more pointed social problem: the refusal to acknowledge female pain.” (NPR)

“[A] nightmarish, hair-raising, diabolically smart treatise on pain—particularly as experienced by women. The type of pain that is real, but invisible (and overlooked, ignored). That much of Miranda's story is based on Awad's experience with chronic pain makes this all the more harrowing to read. . . . Awad's writing isn't merely intoxicating. It's incandescent.” (The Washington Post)