Review of All’s Well by Mona Awad

*All’s Well* by Mona Awad (2022). Published by Marysue Rucci Books.

Mona Awad’s work is something I have been trying to get into for a while. I had always heard about the kind of writing she did and knew that the TikTok girlies that I sometimes hang around with were obsessed with her, but for the longest time I had just never bothered to have the energy to pick up her books.

Part of it is that I am such a big procrastinator when it comes to reading. Sometimes when I really want to read a book, I don’t even get to it until a couple of years later. Like this is actually a serious problem for me, and I don’t know how these keeps happening. I want to break the cycle!

Anyways, what convinced me to finally read her work in general was the fact she selected my short story/flash fiction piece as runner-up for a big prize for BIPOC authors over at Salt Hill. I was very pleased by the win, as I had expected absolutely nothing at the time, and it gave me the motivation to read her novels.

And I certainly do have some thoughts! All’s Well is the most recent one I read, so let’s get into my review of it.

A college theater director with chronic pain makes a devilish deal in order to get what she wants.

Our main character in this novel is Miranda Fitch, who was once a promising theater actor. She had a big accident while on the job, which has left her with crippling back pain. Now, she barely scrapes together a job at a local college as a theater director, which she kind of lied on her CV to get.

But things aren’t going so well. One of her students is bratty and influential, and when Miranda wants to do the Shakespeare play All’s Well, the girl rallies her friends and parents to try and get MacBeth to be the school production instead. Naturally, the girl also wants the lead role.

This effectively pisses Miranda off, despite making an ally with a shy student who makes strange, herby bath bombs for her chronic pain. However, Miranda comes across three men who seem to know way too much about her, which is a bit suspicious, but they promise they can help her.

Soon, her back pain starts going away, and then the school finds out they got a mysterious donation from three men in order to put on All’s Well, making Miranda’s wishes come true. Suddenly, the bratty girl from before starts getting pains in the same way Miranda had them, effectively making karma come true.

The girl rallies another professor, who is on her side, and tries to claim that Miranda is a witch. Miranda points out how incredulous those claims are, and then when the girl becomes too sick to come to school, casts the other shy student in the lead role.

As Miranda is able to go around her life normally now, her personality also starts changing throughout the course of the book. She becomes more seductive, confident, and willing to do what it takes in order to keep this piece of prosperity she has been blessed with lately.

And that leads us down a crash course towards the end of the novel, showing that you can’t just run away from certain situations and make shady deals with the devil.

Overall Thoughts

I think Awad is such a good writer when it comes to create these dark atmospheres, as well as complicated protagonists who have edges of darkness to them, leading to the main plot lines. She is such a good writer, and I can look up to her in those ways firmly.

I had trouble with her other two novels I read (Bunny and Rouge), but I think this novel was a lot easier for me to read overall. I enjoyed it, but I don’t know if I would come back to it anytime soon.

But if you’re interested in the book and her work, definitely pick it up. Theater people have egos, and I think this is a good novel to show that is, indeed, the truth sometimes.

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