Book Stop Corner

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


“When you can stop you don't want to, and when you want to stop, you can't...”



Jennifer Weiner, the #1 New York Times bestselling author, pens her new novel, called All Fall Down which is about a woman's fight over addiction.




Synopsis:

Allison Weiss got her happy ending: a handsome husband, an adorable daughter, a job she loves, and the big house in the suburbs. But while waiting in the pediatrician's office, she opens a magazine to a quiz about addiction and starts to wonder: Is a Percocet at the end of the day really different from a glass of wine? Is it such a bad thing to pop a Vicodin after a brutal Jump & Pump class, or if your husband ignores you? She tells herself that the pills help her make it through her days; but what if her increasing drug use, a habit that's becoming expensive and hard to hide, is turning into her biggest problem of all?


Allison Weiss, a regular sub-urban woman, who happens to be the sole breadwinner of her household with her high-pressure-dream-job-as-a-writer, has a distant husband who is who on the brink of losing his job, a super-sensitive daughter and an Alzheimer-stricken father who is losing tiny bit of himself everyday. Now did I make it sound all too sad and pathetic? Maybe, a bit! Okay, so you can vouch for Allison and say that it's okay to end a stressfully-pathetic day with a dose of prescription pills just to take the edge off it. Yeah, of course!

Allison didn't see that coming when one visit to her daughter's doctor changes her perspective on her lifestyle and her steady dose of prescription pills. Pills started coming in when Allison tried to be a perfect mother. Sometimes her day began by popping one or two Vicodin sometimes even four, to get through the morning. She falls deeper when she started borrowing cash from work to order pills from the world wide web. She has several doctors to write her off a teeny-tiny dosage of prescribed pills. She lies, she falls, she is high all the freaking-time, she crushes yet she believes everything is very sober, normal and mild, and doesn't seem too loud or wild, until the pills become her necessity.


This is the author who wrote Good in Bed and In Her Shoes which became a major Holly flick, starring Cameron Diaz. Eleven novels later, Weiner is still the best with her brilliant writing style and by portraying a chick-lit novel into something thoroughly enlightening. And like always, this time too I was struck be her writing style which lets me escape to her imperfect worlds. The narrative is not that catchy, but the one thing that keeps us stick to the book like a drug is Allison and her addiction and how she convinces herself that she is not one among them since whatever she buys or takes are legal.

Yes, Allison is like the apple in the pie in this story. From the very first page itself, we get addicted to the book just like Allison gets addicted to her pills. Her evolution from a super-perfect-mom to a pills addict is fantastically featured by the author. With her every fall, we fell with her too.

Did you know that in USA over 6 million children live with at least one drug/substance addict parent/guardian? Moreover, ratings show that prescription painkillers fall right behind the highest takers of alcohol-addiction and drugs like heroin/marijuana and other illegal substance addiction. What we didn't know and that Weiner tried to convey us through her novel, is that too much of anything is actually a kind of addiction that we choose not to believe, in fact water/hamburger/cookies/exercise etc, everything counts. And if you believe those prescribed pills kept behind your bathroom closet are okay and legal, then you're wrong and you really need to check your dose per day/hour. It can be a serious addiction that needs to be controlled.

Through Allison's story we see her rise and fall yet with no luck and how an addict first goes through the first stage of denial, and coming out of that denial phase is not an easy journey. This story is not going to make you smile instead it will provoke your every brain cells to think about it. Other than Allison, every other character from her daughter to her mother to her husband to her friends, every one is given room to grow and evolve, since when an addict falls deep into the illusive worlds of addiction and perfection, they take down everyone around them into their own hellhole.

Along with the developing characters, the emotions are poured at the right moments which are deep and compassionate enough to make us feel the sharp sting of it. Not only it's all blue and sad, the author have layered her plot with humor and funny moments that are surely going to crack you up a few times. Well, the ending was not too perfect like the story, since it kind of was predictable with less intensity.

Verdict: A must-read book for every parent in this universe which is heart-breaking yet entertaining.

Courtesy: Thanks to the author, Jennifer Weiner's publicist, for giving me an opportunity to read and review this novel. 
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Author Info:
Jennifer Weiner is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of eleven books, including Good in Bed, In Her Shoes, which was made into a major motion picture, and The Next Best Thing. A graduate of Princeton University, she lives with her family in Philadelphia. 
Visit her here 


Book Purchase Links:

• Amazon US 
• Amazon India