Everything Here Is under Control by Emily Adrian, Narrated by Madeleine Lambert

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 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.

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