Reviews with content warning for Ableism - All's Well

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Reviews tagging 'Ableism'

All's Well by Mona Awad

45 reviews

savvylit's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

All's Well has very intense descriptions of chronic pain. Miranda's pain truly dictates every part of her day. Despite her immense suffering, she experiences disbelief and cruelty from friends and medical professionals alike. Everyone Miranda knows suggests that her symptoms are psychosomatic. As if real, lasting pain wouldn't be a consequence of a traumatic accident. Mona Awad vividly and empathetically portrays Miranda's world of pain and the resulting painkiller addiction.

This wouldn't be a Mona Awad book, though, without a hypnotic descent into fever dream territory. After Miranda has a magical encounter at a pub, her narration becomes more and more unreliable. What's real in Miranda's life? She herself has no idea. This segment of the book was certainly an entertaining rollercoaster ride. However, it seemed to drag on and on only to maintain ambiguity. Perhaps my lack of familiarity with Shakespeare's less popular plays is what led to my feeling of disconnect from All's Well by its ending. I could tell that Awad was referencing Shakespearean tropes and characters but many of the references flew right over my head.

Content Warnings

dale1997's review against another edition

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dark tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Content Warnings

genny's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Gorgeous prose, oh my goodness. I was afraid Bunny would be a one-hit wonder in regards to my own enjoyment of Awad's work, but clearly that isn't the case! In fact, I'm a little peeved that this hasn't gotten the same amount of hype as Bunny, because it's fantastic IMO. Less comedic & visceral but equally as dark. I wish I wrote a review right after I finished this instead of putting it off for a week so that I could've gushed more thoroughly.

Apparently some people found Miranda's POV tiring, but I was engrossed. Awad does love her "can't tell if they're still experiencing reality" protagonists. I work in the medical field so the discussion about chronic pain was doubly haunting to me; I don't ever want my patients to feel unheard, to become this hopeless, although I understood the struggle of treating an "invisible" illness. Other than the Weird Brethren, there was probably a bunch of other parallels to Shakespeare's work that sadly went over my head. I already enjoyed this so much, I can only imagine how cool it must be to have that added perspective. Even the interview with the author at the end made for great reading, with the explanations about how theater/performance/pain can intertwine.

I'll leave a few of my favorite quotes here because I don't know what else to say other than I LOVED THIS, it was so freaking good.

I felt a drop, I told Grace. Felt their anger in the filthy air. Felt the sword above my head. Felt my doom in the thickening night as we drove here. Three silhouettes looming in my side mirror, loping along the shoulder like wolves. But the dread had strangely left me in the dressing room. I even smiled at the fog all around as I parked the car and walked toward Grace. Walked, not limped. Not yet. I held up my aching hands to the drizzle. Go ahead, I whispered to the black clouds gathering. Come for me.

Her leaf-green eyes have returned to their former brightness but there are shadows among the leaves now.

And my tear-streaked face impossibly smiling. Not the brightly beaming face of the young woman from the old Playbill photo, not anymore. No more eyes like stars, no more blinding eclipse. This face shines another light. This face says I have lived, I’m alive. This face says I’ve known joy and pain, known them both. I’ll know them both again.

Content Warnings

decie's review against another edition

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dark tense

1.0

something about this book just rubbed me the wrong way. a big part of that was definitely the way disability was talked about/used almost like a horror element in parts....it feels like it's supposed to show the reality of life as a woman with chronic pain, but it just ended up pushing cure rhetoric and framing disabled people as crabby old hags with "dead legs" who are resented by their former loved ones

until they are cured and "back to normal" for the happy ending

I am literally begging authors to stop using the magically disabled and tragically disabled tropes in their books. it really shouldn't be this hard.

I also felt like Awad was trying to have an unreliable narrator but made her so unreliable that half of the story was lost. we only needed one sentence from a onlooker's pov to make the entire book make sense, but we didn't get that. instead, we got a bizarre ableist fever dream without any clear messaging. wild.

Content Warnings

kam_pearson's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

Content Warnings

bluberrybooks's review against another edition

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challenging funny mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

I enjoyed the story writing and the story itself. The way she talks about pain and how the doctors and people around her treat her is very real. Doctors dismiss and don't really listen to their patients. They all have their own idea of chronic pain that is flawed and treat their patients horribly in different ways wheather they mean to or not. I have chronic apin and I related to doctors/ physical therapists not really understanding or not having the knowledge to help me. There were many lines that's struck me.

I loved the magic and dream sequences. It felt like a thriller, comedy, drama and realistic fiction all at once. I love the different genres combined

All's well really captures chronic pain and how ignored and overlooked it is by everyone around you even family.

Spoiler...

I love the character development even if it was small with most of the characters like Briana and how Grace apologized Miranda grew as a character as well.

This review is not well written, but I loved it overall

Content Warnings

foldingthepage_kayleigh's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

Content Warnings

rosalind's review against another edition

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dark mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

Had high hopes for this as it has all the ingredients that sounded perfectly up my street. The concept was intriguing and I can’t lie, as a chronic pain sufferer myself, I found moments extremely cathartic. But the writing style really let it down for me; for the most part, it felt heavy-handed and lacking in the kind of subtle exploration I was hoping for.

Content Warnings

taylortut's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Content Warnings

stevie's review against another edition

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dark mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

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