I truly enjoyed this audiobook and enjoyed the story for its refreshingly honest portrayal of new motherhood and the interesting themes of racism and friendship. My favorite quote was, "love him less." !! I hope all young people thinking of having kids give it a listen and truly discuss with their partner the roles they both will play and how they will help one another without becoming resentful. I was happy that the characters overcame such personally hurtful scenarios within their friendships and were somehow able to rise above. Its not always that easy in real life but I appreciated the way this book showed a path towards forgiveness and understanding and love. Highly recommend to all new parents or couples (or singles) thinking of becoming parents, and people who enjoy contemporary coming of age stories with strong friendships.

I went into this book completely blind (shocker) and it was the cover that drew me in. Coming from someone who is not a mother, I think that this book depicts new motherhood well. It does a good job at showing the complexities of balancing all of lifes relationships between partners, friends, and children. The writing flowed together beautifully and I loved the way that Adrian intertwined the scenes from the past and the present. The reason this was so “meh” for me was that I couldn’t feel the chemistry between the two women – even when they were teenagers.

Thank you so much for this ARC!

I loved the description of this book! Honestly, I really did not like the narration at all. I thought it was so flat with no emotion or just anything.

I also felt like the story had no point. I was continuously waiting for something to happen and sadly it just didn't,

Amanda is a first-time mum and she's struggling. Feeling like she has no support from her boyfriend, she gets into the car one night and turns up on the doorstep of her estranged friend Carrie. As teens, the two women were inseparable. But after Carrie had a child while in school, the relationship between her and Amanda fizzled into the awkwardness that is now an unspoken thing between them.

I enjoyed this book, I did, but I felt like the main selling point and focus of the story is the almost brutal way that Emily Adrian wrote about having a newborn. As someone who has no children, I don't feel comfortable recommending it for that aspect as I have no way of knowing whether it was well done or not. I don't feel like I've ever read about motherhood in such a raw sense before, but again, I'm not able to guarantee that this is what it's like.

What I liked about this book was the writing. It flowed beautifully and I think the author did a great job at intertwining scenes from the past and present day without it ever feeling clunky. The cover is also beautiful. My main issue with it was that I never fully bought Carrie and Amanda as close, and I think that's partly why this book was just 'okay' for me. Even when we read about them as teenagers, I grew frustrated at the lack of chemistry. There's also a 'twist' near the end of the book that I felt was unnecessary. It seemed like a very convenient way of explaining why the two lost touch. To summarize, this book was just okay. It was a decent enough reading experience, but I will very likely forget I even read this come 2021. I would read more by the author as I had no problems with the writing, pacing, and overall feel of the book. The story just lacked for me because of the characters.

I wanted to like this book more. For some reason I just kept waiting for there to be a point to this story and it never came. It just felt like some girl blabbing on about nothingness. There was really no point to the story, no climax, nothing exciting. I found Amanda to be a real blah character which made it that much harder to listen to.

Filled with the complexities of motherhood, trauma, friendship, and womanhood, I was totally swept into this beautifully written novel. The narration by Madeleine Lamber was wonderful and the character-driven plot made for the perfect fiction audiobook listen because it was engrossing without being too complicated to follow along with. There is nothing like finding a new author to love and follow along with and I can’t wait to see what Emily Adrian writes next.

It is a Beautiful story covering so many topics such as relationship, motherhood, friendship, love, family, trauma, postpartum depression, forgiveness, and regret.
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It is a story of two friends Amanda and Carrie who were childhood best friends. Carrie's got pregnant when she was in high school and gave birth to Nina. Amanda was with Carrie initially but right after graduation she left the town with her boyfriend and moved to NYC leaving Amanda and her daughter behind.
Several years later, Amanda is a mother herself suffering from postpartum depression, and facing struggles of new motherhood went back to Carrie leaving her boyfriend and father of her child behind. It is a story filled with the complexities of relationships and friendship.
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I am looking forward to reading more from Emily Adrian in the future.
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The audiobook is narrated by Madeliene Lambert and she has done an excellent job. She has given life to the characters by narrating it with realism. I loved the narration and I think I have enjoyed the story more because of the narration.
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Thank you NetGalley and Blackstone Publishing for giving me this book in exchange for an honest review.
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I liked this quite a bit. The writing was excellent. Lots of details about new motherhood and high school relationships and the Midwest rang true. I’d happily read more by this author.

'Sometimes, love means making yourself scarce. I know that now.'

I really enjoyed Everything Here Is Under Control! I honestly did not know a lot about it going in, as I had just glanced at the synopsis. But this book was much more than I was expecting! It was such an honest story of a lifelong friendship, family, discovery, regret, and forgiveness.

I am a mother of two younger kids, and found Amanda's struggles with the early days of motherhood to be 100% relatable... the exhaustion, the fears, and the resentment of your spouse that both of those lead you to. I am also the same age as Carrie and Amanda are in the book, so that was another commonality that enhanced the story for me. I was totally surprised by that plot twist just over half way through the book. I did not see it coming, and it made everything click in to place!

I found the story of the estranged friendship between Amanda and Carrie to be so compelling and complex. There was so much history there, good and bad. You could feel the tension and underlying love that was still there between them.

Other aspects/parts of the book that I liked and felt added a little something extra to the story were the small town reactions to the 2016 Presidential Election, and also how she touched on the sexual assault of Amanda back in middle school.

I also thought the narration was great! Madeline Lambert expressed the feelings between the main characters perfectly for me.. You could feel Amanda's desperation and exhaustion! I did increase the speed since I am an avid Audiobook listener and prefer a faster pace.

Thank you so much to Blackstone Publishing my copy of this Audiobook in exchange for an honest review.

Amanda is a new mother and is feeling lonely and overwhelmed. In a moment of desperation she heads from New York City to her small hometown in Ohio and shows up unexpectedly on her best friend Carrie's doorstep. Carrie, who became a mother at 18, hasn't seen or heard from Amanda in years. The two attempt to heal their damaged relationship and Amanda sorts through her changing feelings about her boyfriend and father of her child.

I thought this was an enjoyable read. I could relate to the struggles Amanda faced as a new mom. I could also relate to the challenges Carrie had with parenting a teen and feeling like she lost friendships when she became a parent. My main issue with this book was Amanda's lack of backbone and the way she looked to both her boyfriend and former best friend for her identity and worth. I do think facing some of this was the point of the book but it just frustrated me as people similar frustrate me in real life. That being said I liked the book and the friendship of the two women and the surprise hidden in the middle was in fact, a surprise and really made me want to keep reading. Would make for a good book discussion.

I listened to this on audio and I thought the actors were well fitting and it was easy to listen to, which makes you want to keep reading.

This book is available now. Thank you to NetGalley and Blackstone Publishing for the audiobook in exchange for my honest review.

Everything Here Is Under Control // by Emily Adrian

A note from the publisher: "Emily Adrian is the author of two critically acclaimed young adult novels, Like It Never Happened and The Foreseeable Future. Everything Here is under Control is her first adult novel. She lives in New Haven, CT, with her husband, her son, and their dog, Hank."

Everything Here Is Under Control is a fictional novel by Emily Adrian about a new mother that grew up in rural Ohio but moved to New York with her partner. After a fight with him, she packs her baby into the car and drives back to Ohio with the plan of staying with her mother but at the last minute decides to show up unannounced at her childhood best friend's place. Over the following days, she remembers the ups and lows of her life related to her partner and her best friend, and slowly comes to terms with things that she has struggled with for years.

I had mixed feelings when I first started this book. It felt very slow and I was not so sure about the narrator either. But as it went on, I realized I started getting very invested in the characters and that the narrator was actually perfect for this story after all. The way she relayed the emotions - or sometimes lack of emotions - for the different characters enhanced the story and made it feel so realistic and relatable. You could feel the desperation and the triumph, the love and the loss, the understanding and growth of the characters. This is a well-done story focused on characters, rather than specific events, and I hope to see more like it from this author soon.

Thank you to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for providing me with a free copy in exchange for an honest review.

Everything Here Is Under Control is a book about so many things. Motherhood. Friendships. Daughterhood. Womanhood. Relationships. Forgiveness. All of which are examined in all their messy complications in a raw and honest way through the lens of the zeitgeist of the 2016 US election campaign.

Trump, or Trump-like figures, have appeared in so many books over the last few years, but they often feel like shoehorned-in metaphors or plot devices (even when effective). That's not the case at all here, it really does just feel like a book that happens to be set in Ohio in 2016.

The story managed to touch on so many topics in poignant and sensitive ways, including race issues in 21st century America. One of the main characters is black with a mixed race daughter, and while living in a Republican, white-majority area, this does come up during the story. It's not the key driving force behind the story at all though (and there is no overt racism featured – other than the Confederate flag making a couple of appearances), instead it's mentioned in passing as a way of creating a more believable background for the story to take place.

There is a reveal around halfway through the story that changes so much in terms of the reader's perspective. The way its delivered is perfect – it's matter-of-fact, and something that all of the characters have known, rather than being a shock discovery. At the same time, it doesn't feel like something that's been deliberately held from the reader in a frustrating way to create shock. At the time of its delivery, I wasn't paying full attention to the audio narration, and had to rewind to confirm that a reveal had happened that changed everything. The kind of reveal that makes you want to cover old ground from earlier in the book to see what you've missed.

This edition was narrated by Madeleine Lambert. I really liked her delivery of dialogue in particular – Amanda, Carrie, and Nina's voices were very distinguishable. The narration of the rest was a little flat and bored-sounding at times, but that's only a minor critique.

Overall, a very human, female-orientated story.

Everything Here is Under Control
By Emily Adrian
Audiobook narrated by Madeleine Lambert

This novel about a threesome with an intermingled past and present. Topics of motherhood, relationships, and role expectations are explored.


This work of fiction reads in several parts like a new mother’s memoir. Those parts of the book were raw, detailed, and very relatable. There were chapters that absolutely crushed me with their honesty. But the overall story didn’t flow as cohesively as it could have, leaving me questioning.

The audiobook narration was good overall. At times, I wished she was more emotive and less flat. I preferred the pacing when I adjusted the rate to 1.25, which had the unfortunate consequence of making the narrator’s voice sound computerized. Although too slow for me, she sounds completely human at the default 1.00 rate.

I continue to be grateful to NetGalley for the chance to listen to this and other audiobooks. It was my pleasure to return the favor with this honest review.

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#NetGalley #EverythingHereIsUnderControl

Thank you to Netgalley for an advanced audio copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.
Stories about two best friends that go separate ways and collide in some way is always appealing to me and many readers. The plot is definitely an ode to the difficulties of motherhood and postpartum depression. I appreciate postpartum being an aspect of this book, the reality of this is not represented enough in fiction. However one of the characters has definite mental health issues that are not addressed enough. Encouraged for readers that enjoy well-done character development and the woes of motherhood. This is a story that lends itself well to audio.

3 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.

I have mixed feelings about Madeline Lambert as a narrator. While her narration with normal speed was monotonous and bland, with 1.5x speed it gave that nonchalant irony which matched perfectly with my character of Amanda. I wish I've heard more tone changing and modulating.
Overall, I subtracted 0.5 points of my original score for the audio version.

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.

Review of Audiobook version:

"Everything Here Is Under Control" is the story of estranged, childhood friends, Amanda and Carrie, reunited when Amanda, unravelling from sleep deprivation, appears on Carrie's doorstep with her 3-month-old baby. Carrie, who had her own daughter when the two were still teenagers, is not exactly thrilled to see Amanda, but lets her in anyway. As the friends fall back into old habits of codependence, bickering, and mutual support, unspoken betrayal lurk just beneath the surface. Gradually, the reader learns that what tore the friends apart may have more to do with any serious infractions than with Amanda's attachment to her teenage grudges and to the childhood version of a friendship that grow up and evolve if it is to survive.

This slow-moving, character-driven novel benefits from the audiobook treatment, which helps keep the minute dramas between the friends engaging. Narrated with wonderful realism by Madeliene Lambert, the characters' attitudes and moods are conveyed through distinct and recognizable voices. Even self-absorbed, childish Amanda becomes more sympathetic when embodied by Lambert.

Emily Adrien's lucid prose lends itself well to audio adaptation. Much of the story is told through dialogue--conversations between Amanda and Carrie, Amanda and Carrie's daughter, Nina, and Amanda and her partner, Gabe--which makes the audiobook flow as smoothly as a play. Even so, the first half of the novel is sometimes painfully slow, as Adrien seems to be working hard to withhold information from the reader. While I appreciated the power of learning late why Amanda is so uncomfortable with Carrie, I would have preferred to watch her wrestle more openly with the factors that are clearly on her mind from page one.

Between the audiobook narration and the writing, all the characters feel like real people talking in the next room. While I found Amanda's stubbornness and self-pity pretty annoying (at times unbearable), Carrie's and Nina's richer and more dynamic personalities kept me engaged until the end. Even if I was wishing the whole time that I got to be in Carrie's head instead of Amanda's.

This is not a plot driven book AT ALL, but it does have twists and turns, nonetheless. This book does address gender roles, new parenthood, romantic and friendship relationships. Overall, good but not great. The twists felt gratuitous and the resolutions too pat. The narration, likewise, was good but not great. The narrator feels a bit droning at times. The stretches of dialogue were the best bits of the novel and the narration.

Even though my baby is nearly 19 my eldest 29, this book took me right back to those early endless, sleepless days & nights, when the thought of taking a shower seemed a luxury and all I did was fantasize about the different ways I could kill my husband.

Amanda and Carrie were childhood besties who like most childhood besties, have a falling out. Now 15 years later, when motherhood has Amanda beaten, she flees her NY city life with baby Jack in tow and heads to her childhood home in Ohio and Carrie. Carrie, whom at 18 had become a teen mom is now a successful tattoo artist, dedicated single mom and a full functioning adult. Carrie who was once fearless & a hell-raiser is now a conservative which both surprises & amuses Amanda. While Amanda has fled her Republican Middle America upbringing, Carrie has never left. Now Amanda is back, a mother herself and she’s overcome by the right-wing tone that is prevalent in suburban Ohio.

I really enjoyed the distinct voices of Amanda, Carrie and her teen daughter, Nina. My one small criticism, while this book wasn’t very long, parts felt redundant. This book is set in current times, right before the 2016 election and focuses on motherhood, friendship, perceptions, and Trump’s Make America Great Again.

Thanks to NetGalley and Blackstone Publishing for providing me with an Audio ARC. The narration by Madeleine Lambert was wonderful and added to my overall enjoyment of Everything Here is Under Control. I highly recommend the audio.

Not an overly eventful story, but well written and easy listening. This book is one of the best descriptions of new motherhood. The characters were likable but not overly so. I really enjoyed everything about this audiobook!

Everything Here is Under Control is one of the best books I’ve read in a long time. It is a story of friendship, family and regret. After having a baby Amanda drives from New York to a small town in Ohio where she grew up to visit her childhood best friend Carrie. They haven’t talked since they graduated from high school and Carrie had a baby. They have a difficult friendship but this book is about if they can fit each other in their current lives. This is a story where a friendship means more than anything else.

The narration was great. I loved Madeline Lambert did a great job and I loved hearing the story in her voice.

The story goes back and forth between present day and flashbacks so you get a deep look into Carrie and Amanda’s lives and friendship. My only complaint was it was hard to determine when the flashbacks were happening in the beginning. I think this was probably because I listened to the audiobook. This is a common problem I have with audiobooks but did not take away from how much I enjoyed this book.

I highly recommend this book to anyone that likes character based stories and fiction in general.

Thank you NetGalley and Blackstone Publishing for this audiobook in exchange for an honest review.