Book Review | All Fall Down by Jennifer Weiner

I feel I should preface this review by saying I am a Jennifer Weiner fan. I have read everything she has written, I follow her on Twitter and I appreciate that she is an advocate for women writers. So needless to say when I got my hands on this book, I was excited.

The premise is Alison Weiss is a typical hardworking woman. She is trying to balance her hard to handle child, aging parents, work and her marriage. She is struggling with her life and balancing everything within it. She begins to take pain pills that were prescribed for a back injury more and more frequently to help her handle all of her stressors. She begins to notice the pill bottles emptying faster and faster, but convinces herself it's not a problem because she is still functioning, in fact the pills are helping her function better. Eventually, as things do, she gets found out and ends up in a rehab facility. Still convinced she is not one of "them", Alison struggles to get her life back on track.

Now, this is not a completely accurate depiction of addiction. But this is fiction, so I suppose it doesn't need to be an accurate portrayal. Weiner does a good job of depicting how it can spiral out of control without you even realizing it (from 5 pills to 10 pills to 15 pills...a day), along with the complete and utter denial addicts often have about their addiction. It is a heavy subject matter, but Weiner is able to weave a story filled with humor and sadness. Some of the rehab storylines are just utterly unbelievable, but then again...this is fiction. I felt like the character development was lacking, I didn't really care about any of the main characters and I felt like I wasn't even rooting for Alison to get better, which I hate. I don't like disliking the main character in a book about addiction. I want to be able to root for them, cheer them on. But I just wasn't feeling it.

It's an interesting take on addiction, but not my favorite. I gave this book 3 stars on Goodreads.