All Fall Down
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3.6 • 8 Ratings
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- £4.99
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- £4.99
Publisher Description
From the author of Good in Bed, In Her Shoes and the forthcomingWho Do You Lovecomes a novel about a woman with a dark secret ...
Allison Weiss is a typical working mother, trying to balance a business, ageing parents, a demanding daughter and a marriage. But when the website she develops becomes a huge success, she finds herself challenged to the point of being completely overwhelmed.
As she struggles to hold her life together and meet the needs of all the people around her, Allison finds that the painkillers she was prescribed for a back injury help her deal with more than just physical discomfort - they make her feel calm and get her through the increasingly hectic days. Sure, she worries that the bottles seem to empty a bit faster each week, but it's not like she's some Hollywood starlet partying all night. It's not as if she has an actual problem.
Until she ends up in a world she never thought she'd experience outside of a movie theatre: rehab. And as Allison struggles to get her life back on track, she learns a few life lessons along the way.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
The bestselling author of The Next Best Thing and Then Came You crafts a powerful story that illustrates the pernicious nature of addiction—and how it can wreak havoc in the unlikeliest places. Allison Weiss is your average suburban mother, struggling to juggle the multiple demands of work, home and family. With her lively, engaging prose, Jennifer Weiner draws you into her protagonist’s prescription pill–fueled downward spiral and gives you a visceral sense of Allison’s hidden heartaches and denial. All Fall Down is a gripping drama that keeps you breathlessly guessing what will happen next—and rooting for Weiner’s relatable characters to come through the other side.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Bestselling author Weiner (The Next Best Thing) takes us down the slippery slope of prescription drug addiction in this page-turning saga about a working mom, Allison Weiss, who uses pills to deal with recurrent pain, not to mention life's increasing challenges. These include being the family's major breadwinner; raising a difficult five-year-old daughter, Ellie; helping her mother deal with her father's worsening Alzheimer's; and maintaining a relationship with her ever-distant husband, Dave. While Weiner covers no new territory, she makes a good case for how a well-educated, self-aware woman can become dependent on drugs through legal prescriptions. Even her closest friend, Janet, turns to something in her case, alcohol to take the edge off the burden of being the perfect wife and mom. Allison's experience of rehab is what we might expect: a drab place where she "doesn't belong," feels superior to the staff and fellow addicts, and finds the AA philosophy off-putting and outmoded. Although the ultimate explanation for Allison's problems is clich d, Weiner doesn't take Allison's path to redemption lightly, and convincingly shows that addiction can, indeed, be overcome, but only with genuine commitment and hard, hard work.
Customer Reviews
All Fall Down
This novel started off so well yet as soon as Allison entered rehab, it slowed right down and became something of a drag to read.
Given that she entered rehab towards the middle of the book, this meant that the resulting story was hard going. Took me a lot longer to read than I thought it would, and even then, I found I had to force myself to continue, just to get it finished. Which is a shame, because as I said, it started off with such promise.