All's Well

Gather initial thoughts and broad opinions about the book.

1. All’s Well blends elements of dark academia, surrealism, and horror. How did these shifting genres impact your engagement with Miranda’s story?

2. Mona Awad’s novel Bunny also features a dark academic setting and surreal, supernatural elements. If you’ve read it, how does Miranda’s journey in All’s Well compare to Samantha’s in Bunny? What similarities or differences did you notice in how the two women navigate ambition and power?

3. The novel concludes not with a perfect cure, but with Miranda’s acceptance of a future containing both her chronic pain and her capacity for joy. Did you find this ending satisfying or frustrating? Why?

Encourage readers to connect the book’s themes and characters with their personal experiences.

1. Miranda’s obsession with staging All’s Well That Ends Well is a way for her to reclaim a life stolen by her injury. Have you ever felt a similar drive to recreate or fix a past moment through a project or passion?

2. The novel explores how chronic pain can create a communication breakdown, even between friends like Miranda and Grace. In what ways have you navigated conversations where explaining a personal, subjective experience was difficult?

3. Miranda’s powerful desire is for her pain to be seen and validated by those around her. In what ways do you think people seek validation for their own struggles in everyday life?

4. Can you think of a place in your own life that, like the Canny Man pub, feels as though it operates by a different set of rules, offering an escape or a transformation?

5. Has a fictional character ever felt like a mirror to your own life or struggles in the way Helen, the heroine of Shakespeare’s play, does for Miranda?

Examine the book’s relevance to societal issues, historical events, or cultural themes.

1. One of the novel’s central themes is the invisibility of women’s pain. How does the novel critique the modern medical establishment and its tendency to dismiss or psychologize women’s suffering?

2. In the meeting at the dean’s office, Miranda encourages the male authority figures to dismiss Briana’s accusation as stress. What does this reveal about how powerful institutions handle claims they find inconvenient or unbelievable?

3. Beyond the doctors and therapists, in what other ways does the book show a world that is systematically dismissive of Miranda’s experience as a woman in pain?

Dive into the book’s structure, characters, themes, and symbolism.

1. The novel is filtered entirely through Miranda’s unreliable perspective, which is warped by pain and medication. How did this narrative choice influence your trust in her account of events, particularly the supernatural encounters?

2. What is the significance of the central conflict between staging All’s Well That Ends Well and Macbeth? How do these two Shakespearean plays function as competing narratives for Miranda’s own life story?

3. Who or what do you believe the three men at the Canny Man truly are? Do you interpret them as real supernatural beings, a collective manifestation of Miranda’s psyche, or something else entirely?

4. Ellie’s folk magic, rooted in herbal baths and healing intentions, offers a different path than the demonic pact Miranda makes. How do these two versions of “cures” reflect different ideas of power?

5. The Faustian bargain is a classic literary trope. How does Awad vary and complicate her use of this trope?

6. Throughout the novel, Miranda shifts between performing a role for others and genuinely being herself. When do you think she is most authentic? How does this change after she makes her bargain with the three men?

Encourage imaginative and creative connections to the book.

1. The climax unfolds as a surreal psychodrama in the black box theater. If you were to design a similar scene for another character in the book, like Grace or Briana, what would it look like and what would it reveal?

2. Grace disappears for a significant part of the book after being incapacitated by Miranda. What do you imagine her experience was like during that time, and how might it have changed her perspective?

3. What do you imagine happens to the next woman who is offered the “golden remedy” at the Canny Man?