I picked up All’s Well by Mona Awad at the B&N hardcover sale. It’s on the Tournament of Books shortlist, and I knew some friends had read and liked it. This book follows a professor in a dwindling theater department as she directs the Shakespeare play All’s Well that Ends Well. On top of mutinous students who would much rather perform Macbeth, Miranda also has to deal with unrelenting chronic pain, as a result of a previous fall from a stage. 

 

At first I thought this book would not be for me, mostly because while I don’t mind an unlikable narrator, I don’t love being inside the head of someone bitter and unreasonable. Not that Miranda isn’t justified - but at first I was kind of like, just do the other play?? Eventually this book takes a turn, and while it isn’t any less dark, it gets weirder, and I started to like it a lot more, to the point where I could not put it down because it was so exhilarating. 

 

This book is darkly funny and bizarre. The line between what is real and what is happening inside Miranda’s head is blurred. The dizzying conclusion of this story could have been a bit more clear, but it still worked. Awad is a gifted writer and storyteller, and judging by this book, her mind works in unique and mysterious ways. I’m definitely going to go back and read Bunny, her first novel. I’d recommend this if you like dark comedies (comedies? Tragedies? It’s a bit of both), unlikable narrators, and wild rides.