Amanda learns first hand that being a new mom is no joke. This book really resonated with me as a mom who has been in Amanda's shoes.

"Everything Here is Under Control" by Emily Adrian takes an honest look at the friendships women form and carry throughout their lives. While Amanda and Carrie's friendship started as kids, the bulk of the story is around how the choices they made as teenagers affect their relationship in the present. Amanda, fleeing her life in New York, arrives in Ohio with her new baby in tow, and asks for Carrie's help. This story shows us that we can never truly escape where we came from and the people that made us.

Amanda doesn't know where to turn. She is exhausted as a new mother and feels unsupported by her partner Gabe. In desperation, she straps baby Jack into his car seat and drives from Queens back to her hometown in Ohio. She's hoping to find solace and guidance from her childhood best friend, Carrie. Their lives took very different paths after high school, but Carrie seems to know what do as a mother, as a business owner, and as a woman making her way in the world. Amanda's unexpected arrival will force both women to examine what they truly believe about motherhood and friendship, and what kept them apart for all these years.

Everything Here Is Under Control is a story of contrasts. The story is told from the present and from the past, when Amanda was newly in love and figuring out her life and Carrie was the one with a new baby and spit-up on her shirt. One of my favorite parts was witnessing the two friends realize they had no idea what the other's life was really like--Carrie remembers having no tolerance for hearing about Amanda's carefree life while she was in the trenches of motherhood, and Amanda realizes she was a complete jerk to her friend when she needed her help. There is something simmering under Amanda and Carrie's relationship that readers don't learn until the second half of the book. This new knowledge is jarring and, while it makes their dynamic make more sense, it is strange for the reader to be processing something that the characters have known all along.

Everything Here Is Under Control
By Emily Adrian
Blackstone Publishing July 2020
272 pages
Read via Netgalley

A well-written account of relationships and motherhood.

Carrie and Amanda were the closest of best friends at school, but are now estranged. After a fight with her partner, Amanda packs up her baby son and returns to her home town, winding up unannounced on Carrie’s doorstep. In the ensuing couple of weeks we find out how the women came to where they are today.

This is a realistic exploration of women’s friendship and the effects of new motherhood both on the new mothers and their relationships with others. My kids are teenagers now, but I remember so well what it was like to have a screaming baby and be so tired you’d do almost anything just to be able to sleep. This novel touches on the relationship between Amanda and her baby son, but it’s mainly about the adult relationships. There’s a revelation about half way through which helps to explain a lot - I won’t spoil it for you.

I enjoyed this very adult novel and would happily read the author’s other work.

Thank you Netgalley and Blackstone Publishing for this eARC in exchange for an honest review.

This book started out really strong. The struggles of motherhood presented is so real. I highlighted a lot in the beginning.

But, for me, it just took a long time for the characters to evolve. And the main character got a little annoying.

I do think that a lot of people will love this book. And again I love the rawness with which she shares the struggles of motherhood. There were good aspects to this book it just wasn't AMAZING.

This is a very honest and gritty portrayal of new motherhood and the impact it has on women and subsequently their friendships too. As a relatively new mother myself I could relate to a lot of the new mom feelings described. Parts of the book I really, really enjoyed but others I just felt were a bit slow paced and I felt that it jumped around quite a lot too. I did enjoy this one but the slower sections dropped it down half a star for me. 3.5 stars rounding up to 4 for the purpose of the rating system.

An exploration into motherhood and the friendships between female friends - the second book I’ve read from a similar ilk this year, after Expectation by Anna Hope.

The story felt raw and incredibly perceptive. I don’t think the author chose to hold back any of the graphic details of childbirth and the aftermath (i’m always shocked to hear real accounts of how the American health system works). I liked the relationship between the adults and the children - it was such a complicated yet relatable relationship between Nina and Carrie. Gabe felt a bit generic as a character, ticking a lot of the stereotype boxes, but I think this is done on purpose as it helps the reader hone in on the other relationship. An interesting twist halfway through the book though starts to change your opinions on Gabe, both for better and for worse.

Story wise, it’s very simple. The setting was something I could completely picture - relatable in both the past and present day stories being told. There was a small conversation between Gabe and Amanda via text/messages near the end of the book which nearly killed me in the audiobook with the back and forth with the screen names. Perhaps when the narrator reads audiobook versions of screen messages they should put on different voices rather than reading the screen names - it might help make it sound less repetitive.

I really enjoyed listening to the audiobook version of this whilst I was pottering around cooking, tidying the house or out on my lunchtime walks, and would dip into reading the Kindle version of it alongside the audiobook just before bed. A great story about relationships. Thank you again to NetGalley and Emily Adrian for granting me early access to this book.

I received a free ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

There were parts I liked about this book and parts that I really disliked. I liked the characters a lot and thought that the author really did well showing their friendship. I did think Amanda seemed whiny and entitled at times. The story jumped back and forth a lot, so you have to pay attention to keep track. It could have been smoother in the transitions. I really felt let down at the end. The narrator was okay but she didn't really change her voice or emote much.

Thirty-one-year old Amanda thinks she is ready to have a baby. Her and Gabe had a plan. But know the baby is here and it “changes everything. Amanda kind of felt that because she helped her best friend Carrie at eighteen, give birth she was prepared for what happens in delivery. Not so much.

Amanda quickly finds out control is an illusion. Caring for this little one’s needs is exhausting. Oh, yeah there is the recovery from giving birth and getting used to lack of sleep. There is great joy in doing all this but it is overwhelming at first. This has Amanda running to her friend Carrie, who she has not seen in 10 years.

Relationships are complicated on a good day but the triangle that Carrie, Nina and Amanda find themselves in no one knows how to fix. Friendships, Family and Motherhood are complicated, the author does a good job of showing that in her raw, honest and humorous way. It’s a layered story flipping back and forth from current time and then back to when Carrie and Amanda were in high school.

Amanda tells her mother, “Staying home with a baby is harder than a job. You know it is….…Mom, ”Loving Gabe less won’t solve the problem of this baby needing to be attached to my body at every “f”ing moment.” (parentheses are mine)
“It’s not a problem, Amanda. That’s motherhood.”

This story is a gritty, brutally honest, tale of marriage, motherhood. And caring for an infant baby vomit, sore nipples, and all. With choice cuss words sprinkled throughout and a few “f” bombs thrown in for good measure. Drug, alcohol, body part references, joys and struggles of giving birth this author tells it like it is. This book is thought-provoking book. I’m still pondering it all. I’m not sure how I feel about it all.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising”

Nora St. Laurent
TBCN Where Book Fun Begins!
The Book Club Network blog www.bookfun.org

I loved this book. I plan on selling it in my store and having my book club read it. I can't wait to read her other books.

In ‘Everything Here is Under Control,’ Adrian masterfully depicts the first months of motherhood. I consider this to be quite the feat as it’s incredibly difficult to explain how motherhood changes a person, it’s such a dramatic, jarring change. It’s clear the author has children. Fortunately, it’s been about five years since I had my first child, so I have some distance. I’m not sure I could have read this soon after having my first. Adrian captures the huge range of emotions, exhaustion, and feelings of resentment and helplessness. The narrator, Amanda is in her early thirties, lives in New York, and has a two month old. After a fight with her partner, she drives to her hometown in Ohio, and finds herself at her estranged best friend’s home. Her best friend, Carrie, stayed in Ohio as she had a baby at 18 and the trajectory of her life changed. The story of Amanda and Carrie’s friendship and what caused their rift is slowly teased out and they learn to become close again. Since they are now both mothers, they find new ways to connect and understand each other. The narrator is incredibly developed, but I didn’t get the same sense for Carrie and Gabe. What I found fascinating about this story was how impulsive actions and behavior as a teen can affect our friendships and perhaps the rest of our lives. ‘Everything Here is Under Control’ was such a unique exploration of friendship, betrayal, and how motherhood bonds us.

Thank you NetGalley and Blackstone Publishing for providing this ARC.

“We’re still too cute about all the stuff that happens to our bodies,” says Michelle Wolf in Joke Show, her latest stand up. “We’ve gotta stop being cute. Like, when we have a baby, we say it’s a miracle–stop it!” Having a baby, Wolf asserts, is “a natural disaster,” arguing that women will never get the healthcare and respect we deserve unless we’re brutally honest about our experiences.

Enter Emily Adrian’s latest novel, Everything Here is Under Control. This book should — but won’t be — required reading for the strangers at the grocery store who look at your two-week old baby and ask, “Is she sleeping through the night yet?” Or the endless stream of middle aged men who declare, “You’ve got your hands full!” as you wrangle both of your children to the parking lot.

In Adrian’s hands, the hazy, mostly terrifying early postpartum weeks are anything but cute.

Amanda, a first-time mom living in New York, visits her Ohio hometown and shows up on her friend’s doorstep, partly out of desperation, but also drawn back to this friend, at whose birth she was present years prior, divulging unresolved tensions and revealing tender spots in their relationship.

Adrian’s novel tackles the animal ugliness of facing three in the morning with a screaming infant. It tells of the bittersweet encounters of returning to your hometown. Most significantly, it describes and the agitating conflicts of lifelong friendship, as well as its enduring intimacies.

Recently, I struck up a conversation via text message with a new mother, someone I had not spoken to since high school. My intention was to serve as a beacon of hope in the wilderness of early motherhood. Her baby is a mere two weeks old. Her assessment: “the nights are so long and lonely.” My response: “Those lonely nights are literally the worst.”

The nights are lonely and the emotions are frightening. Why is it that we expose ourselves to the natural disaster of motherhood?

A possible answer from Adrian’s novel: “I don’t remember. All I know is that I cannot un-have him, and I have never, for a single moment, wished I could.”

Everything is Under Control was a great, honest read about the tests a friendship can face in the wake of motherhood and life. As a new mother myself, I related so much to the struggles of Amanda and from the start was invested in each character. This book is a wonderful and interesting look at the way friendships ebb and flow over time.

Amanda and Carrie were BFFs until they weren't. Carrie stayed behind in their small Ohio town with her daughter Nina, now a teen, while Amanda took off for NY. Now, though, Amanda is a new mom who is at sea - things aren't what she thought they would be. SO, of course, she takes off with her son Jack, leaves her partner Gabe, and heads for Carrie. This is the story of how they reconcile with one another and themselves. There are some issues left on the table here, among them Amanda's obvious mental health concerns, but read this as a book about friendship. Think of it as a second chance BFF and focus on the women (although I liked Nina). Thanks to the publisher for the ARC. A good read for fans of literary fiction.

3.5 out of 5 👯‍♀️Female friendship tale

'Everything Here is Under Control' tells a story of two BFFs who's lost track of each other's lives somewhere along their way to adulthood. Carrie's got pregnant and gotten birth to a daughter while still in high school. Amanda has been helping her for the first years but right after graduation she left their small Ohio town and moved to NYC with her boyfriend. Several years later, overwhelmed with being a new mother herself, Amanda ran away from her baby father right to Carrie's house.

Reading about the struggles of a new mother reminded me of the first months (weeks? years!?) of my kid. A perfectly written description of her loneliness and postpartum depression made me feel it all. It was especially interesting from her - a responsible adult perspective while compared to Carrie's teenage pregnancy and how she has coped with it.
Another aspect of the book was their friendship and their screwed up relationship that got more complicated when the story unravels. I loved their rough, sister-like bound, and their slow reconciliation.

Overall, I liked this book and appreciate all the characters and their weird ways to handle life. Although I wish to I've seen more mental health advice. Amanda's mental state wasn't acknowledged at all. And while she tried to ask a question if motherhood is always so dark and scary for everyone, the only answer the book offers was that friendship and love would help with that. That's a quite dismissive approach to depression.
If you ever feel like Amanda, please, ask for health. It means not everything is under control.

Thank you Netgalley and the publisher Blackstone Publishing for the ARC in exchange for an honest review. Opinions and feelings are my own.

"Sometimes love means making yourself scarce. I know that now."

Carrie and Amanda were two inseparable friends until Carrie got pregnant at eighteen and Amanda decided to escape the claustrophobic town with a boy. Little to no communication happened between the once close friends. That is until thirteen years later Amanda became a mother. Overwhelmed and at odds with her partner, Amanda takes a break after an argument and the first person she thinks of is Carrie. She leaves New York and drives to Carrie's house in Deerling, Ohio, with her baby. What happens next is an exploration of motherhood, both old and new, and a reconnaissance of teen angst.

I loved Adrian's sense of reality and adored her sense of humour. I really liked how she weaved her very intimate story of two women with the small-town politics and the larger US politics of the 2016 elections. The unapologetic honesty about motherhood is a key winner in this book.

My concerns though are that there was a bit too much reminiscing through time jumps, a bit too much telling that perhaps led to too much angst. And that big reveal in the middle of the book, I'm not sure it added up. But I went with it anyway, to the end. And I enjoyed it.

This is such an interesting look into motherhood from two very different angles and it also explored friendships that we lose over time even though we know someone is always there for us. It was written in a way that was easy to comprehend and flowed nicely.

The author has a way with words, that is all I can say about this one! Amanda is at a critical point in her life, where she is a new mother that is at the breaking point. Leaving her partner behind, she goes to her old friend, Carrie, that she hasn't spoken to in years. Amanda feels that she needs to revisit her past and understand the relationships there in order to move forward. The author captured the feelings of two people that were close reuniting, but not knowing each other anymore. A lot of women have friendships that they revisit at some point in life, especially now where it is so easy to track down former friends on social media. I really enjoyed the journey of these women.

Everything Here Is Under Control explores the complexities of motherhood, female friendship, and returning to a hometown - and the people there - you left behind. As the story unfolds, Amanda and Carrie's friendship comes into focus: now in their early 30s, their bond was forged in high school, and their adult relationship defined by the different paths they took after Carrie had her daughter, Nina, the summer they graduated from high school.

Amanda's return to their hometown throws into relief the struggles of early motherhood - both single and partnered - and how her relationships to other women often define a woman's own sense of self. Carrie seems to have figured things out so easily on her own, and at such a young age, that it feels like a personal affront to Amanda's postpartum depression and difficulties.

There are some revelations along the way that I did not expect, and I thought helped to usher the story to a satisfying close. At times, the setting of the summer of 2016 in rural Ohio felt forced, as the political moment could have easily been tied directly into some of the obvious components of the story (racial identity, class divisions, reproductive rights) that instead went addressed only in one flash point.

Overall, a quick but satisfying read about the strengthening of connection between two women, as it ebbs and flows over time. I rate it a 3.5/B, and recommend for readers of Tracey Garvis-Graves, Jennifer Weiner, and Kimmery Martin.

Thank you to the publisher for providing me with an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

~Quick Statistics~
Overall: 5/5 Stars
Plot: 5/5 Stars
Setting: 5/5 Stars
Characters: 4/5 Stars
Writing: 5/5 Stars
Memorability: 5/5 Stars

~Quick Review~
I was very skeptical of Everything Here is Under Control at first, but as I read more of the novel I became more and more involved in the story. The novel is a great look into the struggles of motherhood that some might overlook. Overall, the novel is great and I really enjoyed it.

~Other Information~
Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
Page Count: 272 pages
Release Date: July 28, 2020

There is some politics involving the election of 2016 in the novel, so be aware that the characters might not hold the same political views as you.

~Quick Synopsis~
After a fight with her boyfriend, Amanda decides to take her newborn son, Jack, and pay her old friend, Carrie, a visit. Once she arrives unannounced, she feels a mixture of emotion toward her old and new self, and how her life is right now. She is forced to relive her childhood and friendship with Carrie, events she is not proud of, and events that she is proud of. Between balancing motherhood and her ever-receding childhood, Amanda feels overwhelmed and in need of help from the only person she knows can help her, Carrie.

~Characters~
The main characters of Everything Here is Under Control are all such strong characters. I found myself in love with Amanda, Carrie, Jack, Nina, and Gabe and their various struggles.

At first, Amanda came off to me as self-absorbed and immature, especially when she complains about her newborn, Jack, needing attention from her and his father. Granted, her character growth in the novel made me like her a lot more, but I still found Amanda very snobby and selfish. Even Amanda’s mother points out that Amanda seemed to expect the baby to conform to her needs and life, instead of the other way around. However, Amanda eventually learns to grow up and see that not everything is about her and that she should be grateful for Jack.

Carrie, Amanda’s best friend, had a child with Gabe at the age of eighteen. This ends up leading to many of Amanda’s issues during the novel. Amanda feels that since Gabe had a child with Carrie first, that he loves Carrie more (which isn’t the case), which just makes Amanda and Carrie’s friendship strained for the first half of the novel. Anyways, let me say that Carrie is amazing and probably my favorite character from Everything Here is Under Control. She is so strong and independent, she shows the true power of single moms and how difficult it is to be one. I genuinely love this character.

Nina is Carrie and Gabe’s daughter, now thirteen years old and very politically active for her age. Throughout the novel, Nina is seen putting “Hillary for President” (The story takes place during the 2016 election, but more on that later) signs around her hometown, which eventually gets her home vandalized, yet she still takes pride in her political views. Also, Nina decides to take a picture of a funeral procession displaying the Confederate flag so as to raise awareness around her town of the problems and racism the flag represents. (Good for her!)

The character development in the novel is amazing and made it such an awesome read!

~Writing and Setting~
Everything Here is Under Control has a unique writing style that I really enjoyed. Also, as mentioned before, Emily Adrian brings up issues such as the Confederate Flag being used despite representing racism and a dark time in America’s history, which I commend her for.

The novel takes place in Deerling, Ohio during 2016 (hence the election). The setting actually plays a huge role in the story, inducing Nina’s secrecy in placing “Hillary for President” signs around her hometown, which generally supports Trump in the election. As I said before, her enthusiasm for politics ends up with her house being vandalized by her friend’s sister’s boyfriend, the jerk. Anyways, I loved how the setting actually impacted something in the story, unlike other novels where the setting is just a place, time, etc.

~Plot~
Everything Here is Under Control is very well-paced, I never found myself bored or longing for the chapter to end, instead I was so excited to get to keep reading! I felt that the entire novel showed me an insight into motherhood and how it’s not all fairies and rainbows, but there are actual struggles to being a good parent. As I am not a parent myself, I wasn’t at any point in the novel connecting to the characters on a level of parenthood, but I can see how much of an actual job that being a parent truly is.

Anyways, I really enjoyed the ups and downs of this novel and the character’s fights and apologies, it was so, so good.

~Overall Review~
Everything Here is Under Control was a great novel and I really enjoyed it. It’s characters, plot, setting, just everything is perfect and I really recommend that you read this (even if you aren’t a parent, haha).