All-Night Pharmacy

A Novel

De: Ruth Madievsky

Narrado por: Moniqua Plante

On the night of her high school graduation, a young woman follows her older sister Debbie to Salvation, a Los Angeles bar patronized by energy healers, aspiring actors, and all-around misfits. After the two share a bag of unidentified pills, the evening turns into a haze of sensual and risky interactions—nothing unusual for two sisters bound in an incredibly toxic relationship. Our unnamed narrator has always been under the spell of the alluring and rebellious Debbie and, despite her own hesitations, she has always said yes to nights like these. That is, until Debbie disappears.

Falling deeper into the life she cultivated with her sister, our narrator gets a job as an emergency room secretary where she steals pills to sell on the side. Cue Sasha, a Jewish refugee from the former Soviet Union who arrives at the hospital claiming to be a psychic tasked with acting as the narrator's spiritual guide. The nature of this relationship evolves and blurs, a kaleidoscope of friendship, sex, mysticism, and ambiguous power dynamics.

With prose pulsing like a neon sign, All-Night Pharmacy is an intoxicating portrait of a young woman consumed with unease over how a person should be. As she attempts sobriety and sexual embodiment, she must decide whether to search for her estranged sister, or allow her to remain a relic of the past.

©2023 Ruth Madievsky (P)2023 HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books

The Details

I could so relate to this story. The details and the story are superb. The reader was perfect for the role

Not much happens

There are some wonderful moments in this book, but it’s a lot of exposition and tangents. It probably could have been 50% shorter

Well written

Not that much happens beyond the dysfunction and all sorts of addiction, yet I couldn’t wait to get back to it. I attribute that to the writing and the well-matched reader. These characters may be familiar to many of us, for better or worse. The story does not bog down in Debbie’s chaos or the narrator’s self-absorption and, all told, is optimistic.

Well done in all aspects

Beautifully written and narration, elevates the story, making it all too real. An interesting blend of matter of fact, exciting and emotive. Makes you believe in surviving.

Odd yet wonderful

This is one of the most brilliantly written books I’ve read. The metaphors and descriptions and prose is beyond excellent. Each word is expertly chosen to craft a lushly fleshed out story. And while interesting, it is painful from start to finish. The characters are written with such clarity that they are both believable and palpably cringeworthy. It’s not a comfortable story. It’s so melancholy that you feel it, and yet there is a strong underlying message of hope and reconciliation. I would read it again just for linguistic artistry.

Great writing, read well

A dark psychological study, in the tradition of Dostoyevsky but set in our day, about a young woman in LA. The reading is a great performance that makes the excellent writing even more vivid.

Compelling characters, strange relationships

I devoured this book in one day. It completely held my attention with interesting characters and the challenge that is addiction. I couldn't tell where the narrator would end up, or how the relationships would change. There are definitely some difficult parts, but they passed quickly enough.

A slow motion train wreck while you're already stuck in traffic.

Two sisters. Both with personal and family trauma, on a fast train on the wrong track. A sad and pretty predictable story but hard to tear away from. Gets more interesting and then sort of just fizzles out into an end that feels more real-life than a written story. Like when someone at a party is telling a true story and they just haven't quite stuck the landing. The solid performance keeps you on the hook. Worth the listen.

a mixed bag

An honest and frequently brutal look at addiction and co-dependency that avoids sensationalizing the subject matter. But beyond its authenticity, there isn't much in the way of narrative or message. In terms of resolution, clearly the author wanted to stay away from a happy ending and fair play. Yet the story kind of peters out and we're left with a heavy handed metaphor for lost salvation. She gives us the tiniest breadcrumbs of hope that you really have to squint to see. All in all somewhat unsatisfying but a lot to like nevertheless

Good enough listen but not quite there

I kept waiting for the story to tie back to some grander truth or universality. There are plenty of tropes that are presented, and I kept thinking they would develop in to something bigger than the narrator, but I was always disappointed. At the end, it was just the story of a girl from LA with a kind of shitty childhood and adolescence. It was hard for me to resonate with the “coming of age story” without a broader tie in or a plot/through line.
Nice prose though, and some really nice imagery. It was kind of like a Jonathan Foer or Nicole Krauss pastiche that was missing the big reveal