Summary

A darkly funny novel about a theatre professor suffering from chronic pain who, in the process of staging a trouble 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. A potent, subversive novel, 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.

Why I chose to read this book
I don’t think I’ve ever read a book where the main character suffers from chronic pain. I was curious to see how this would be approached and if I could tolerate reading this book. Sometimes when a topic is too close to home, it’s just too difficult to read about it. Alas, the premise was intriguing enough for me to decide to give it a try anyway. 

Thoughts & Opinions

I’m so glad I decided to give this book a chance. Magical realism is not a genre I have ever willingly picked out but the Shakespearean All’s Well had more than enough realism to keep me invested all the way. It is absolutely delicious, devious, and exhilarating. I was cracking up from the beginning. 

This book left me on such a high, that it was incredibly challenging to move on to a different book afterward. Nothing will ever compare or have that same spark! I can honestly say it has become one of my favorite books and I highly recommend it. 

We are plunged into Miranda’s world, in a sarcastic, witty, and dark-humored look into her life as a high school theater teacher. With her theater glory days far behind her following a stage fall, Miranda is stuck with apathetic and awkward high schoolers. The contrast between her pain-riddled body and her students, young and pain-free supple bodies angers her. Her detailed account of the long physical therapy journey is all too relatable. Physiotherapists abandon her left and right. I’ve been abandoned by a physiotherapist before, so I fully understand the discouragement she’s experiencing. I can also relate to the struggle of having to always remind people that you’re in constant pain which makes life a little different.