All Fall Down: A Novel

I'm a huge Jennifer Weiner fan and I've said that I've read all her books....and I thought I had. Then, I was going through a pile of books on my TBR table (where the overflow that won't fit on my TBR bookshelf lives) and I found this one. I apparently purchased this, probably back when it was released, and then it was buried. Oops! On the upside, it has been a while since Weiner's last adult novel, so this was kind of like a brand new release to me.This book is not Weiner's usual fare. She deals with addiction, which she had only peripherally touched on in other books. The drug of choice in this book are opiods, which was fascinating. You see, I'm one of those people who have never done drugs, but I've heard and read enough to have kind of an idea of what it might feel like. I have had a bit too much alcohol from time to time, so I do know what that is like. But I've never understood painkiller addictions. It's not that I don't believe it is a real thing--but I've had things such as Vicodin and Oxycontin after surgeries and....they have done absolutely nothing for me. So, I just couldn't understand what the appeal was (and I wasn't about to start popping pills to find out). Here, Weiner spins such a compelling tale that I could almost feel the highs and lows as Allison goes through them. I also could understand why Allison would turn to pills when the rest of her life was so out of control.Once I picked this book up, I couldn't put it down (and, since I read most of it on an airplane, that was not an issue!). Weiner's story telling is in top form here. The pacing is perfect to reflect the frenetic life that Allison lives and in speeds up as she begins to spiral. Allison is a character that I'm sure many readers can relate to. While I don't agree with her choices (and I'd like to believe I'd never make them if I were in her shoes), she is still utterly believable.I did have a few nit-picky things--I wish Weiner had fleshed out Allison's husband a bit more. We barely get to know him and I think that if there was more to him, it would only enhance our understanding of Allison. I also felt the last section was a bit bogged down and about twice as long as it could have been.Still, this was a very satisfying read and I would put it towards the top of Weiner's books. I would recommend this book to just about anyone.

How easy is it for an educated, upper-middle-class, successful wife and mother to become an addict? All too easy, and the slope is more than just slippery. It has an elevator!!!Here is the story of likeable, suburban working mom Allison Weiss. She has a difficult but loveable child, her marriage is a bit iffy but not something that can't be fixed, she has the usual worries about her aging parents, and her daily routine is over the top--but not more so than most of today's "I can do it all" mothers. Except Allison can't keep up--not with her impossible expectations of herself, not with the equally impossible demands of the uppity private school her daughter attends; not with the children's birthday parties that are akin to a major wedding; not with the competitive achievements of her wealthy neighbors. So Allison gets help--in the form of prescribed pain pills that she can rationalize away because "after all, they are a prescription!"The scary and very real story of how Allison's "just one pill to get me over this hump" behavior ends up with 60 (SIXTY!) pain pills in two days, is well told, and so very, very real. While falling deeper and deeper into addiction, Allison fools herself (I am NOT like addicts; I am a successful working wife and mother! I am educated! I know the pitfalls! This is under control!), her husband, her mother, and everybody else...until she winds up lying in her own vomit.What is so frightening about this book is that it truly CAN happen to anymore. So, so, easily. And that is the point of this book. It's a warning of sorts, but told with such sympathy and such empathy that any person who has thought longingly of that spare Xanax in the medicine cabinet, or the Percocet left over from a wisdom tooth extraction, or whatever else is hanging around, can react with a twinge of fear.I haven't read Weiner in a very long time, and I'm glad I came back to her with this outstanding book. Well done!

I just finished this wonderful book and I am so impressed with Jennifer Weiner. It almost seems impossible that this is the same person who wrote Good in Bed, a book that I did not care for on any level.This book grabbed me from the first page and didn't let me go. I took each step with Allison and followed along with her "Down the Rabbit Hole" as the first section is called. Allison was a fully fleshed character and I could really see the world from her perspective. Her husband has become distant in his jealousy that she has taken over the role of the main breadwinner in the family. Her daughter is overly sensitive (to put it mildly), her father is slowly leaving the family due to early Alzheimer's and her mother, as usual, is unable to cope.The "solution" that Allison chooses to aid her while she tries to deal with all of this are the painkillers that she was prescribed for a back injury and when she had her wisdom teeth pulled. The back injury is something she can use again and again and she does. When she discovers the anonymous online pharmacy where she can get Oxycontin the downhill slide is accelerated to it's inevitable conclusion.Rehab comes next and after more deception she finally begins to be honest with herself. I don't mean to seem to be glossing over rehab, I just don't want to give anything more away.I know that other reviewers have complained that the ending wasn't really an ending but I don't think that this fantastic book could have ended any other way. This book is about real life not whether the girl gets the guy and they live happily ever after.Thank you Jennifer Weiner for one of the best books I've read in a long time. This book is very highly recommended!