*Thank you to the publicist at -Penguin Random House- for sending me an ARC to review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.*

This can be an exhausting book to read because you can just really feel the pain and weariness of everyone around her from her perspective. But at the same time, I found that it was what made me not want to put the book down.

”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.”

This book is basically about a woman who is the director of this theater/play that is living with chronic pain and some supernatural stuff happens. I love how mona awad’s stories are funny, in that dark humor kind of way.

I also want to point out this quote:

”I don’t know what you see in that girl,”
”Everything.”

…because if you pull it out of context, it sounds romantic. But it’s actually between a teacher and her student and I think that makes it extra beautiful and heart-warming because how often do we get perspectives from teachers loving their students? There’s more to nuance to it within the story but we’re not talking about that now.

Other prevalent topics that consumed me:
* when people assume that they know how other people feel
* when people compare their own pain instead of listening

I think something we can all agree on is that the description of chronic pain was so well-explored, creative, realistic and descriptive that it left the page and entered my body. While trying to not give spoilers, the way mona awad had Miranda approach her own prejudice against someone who has something similar to her condition was kind of ironic that it becomes very “in your face” and I really liked how it was tackled.

”People will get sick and people will get better, and it has nothing to do with us.”

But more than that, I felt oddly attached to Miranda?? I don’t know if it’s just me but I love how there’s some aspect of questioning whether or not we have an unreliable narrator. She personifies the description of her own chronic pain and has a sort of hyperbolic way of describing other aspects of the story that it makes you question some details. Which is an aspect I’m finding is something that I think Mona Awad does really well in her books (which is questioning your sanity as the reader).

Even the descriptions on her relationship with her therapist was similar to how you would think romantic relationships are described… which makes sense because therapists are just like any other kind of inter-personal relationship. Though I really loved that, this was also like the intense horrification of my fears from when I do physical therapy. Go figure.

”It makes him understand that pain is not just a guide, not just simply information, not just a friendly teacher of lessons I need to learn.”

Anyway, this was still so incredibly heartfelt and touching while still being so incredibly real and dark. Even though i barely know anything about shakespeare, there are some lines in the normal dialogue that sounds like it came from shakespearean plays which i found contributed a lot to building the sort of brooding but dreamy atmosphere.

This becomes as dramatic as any kind of musical play or theatre and it was WIDLY entertaining to me. The characters are easy to empathize with no matter their role in the story.

“As if such impossiblity wasn’t the whole point, wasn’t the whole magic of the play himself”

If you like morally questionable and generally questionable characters that are strong-willed… this is it. I think this is one of the most well done morally grey main characters i have read that you have to admit is more on the… not so good side. There’s something intriguing about arguably “evil” and sadistic characters and I hope that doesn’t label me under weird.

Because even though you understand where they’re coming from, you still know it isn’t right.

↣ I’m starting to realized that I think I like absurdist books. For a horror/mystery/thriller novel… this made me laugh and tear up in heartfelt-ness more than I thought it would. It sn’t that scary or creepy in my opinion but it can be disturbing. Highly recommended if you want something of the kind. ↢

Something about the ending was oddly reminiscent, in a way, of the idea in “All’s well that ends well”, like if you think about that saying itself. And this was definitely a satisfying horror novel if I ever read one.

"But not too much pain, am I right? Not too much, never too much. If it was too much, you wouldn't know what to do with me, would you? Too much would make you uncomfortable. Bored. My crying would leave a bad taste. That would just be bad theater, wouldn't it? A bad show. You want a good show. They all do. A few pretty tears on my cheeks that you can brush away. Just a delicate little bit of ouch so you know there's someone in there. So you don't get too scared of me, am I right? So you know I'm still a vulnerable thing. That I can be brought down if need be.”

I just think that this was beautiful and I don’t care if anyone thinks otherwise.

P.S. I think this is better read as an audiobook.

— 4.5 —
⇢ content warnings// Drug (prescription painkiller) and alcohol use, Substance abuse, Suicidal thoughts, Chronic pain/illness, Medical trauma, Medical gaslighting, Mild Violence