Everything's Fine

Written by Cecilia Rabess

Narrated by Denée Benton

“Does love conquer all? Does it now? Did it ever? These are questions Cecilia Rabess asks in her nimble, discerning debut…The ending of Everything’s Fine is one of the best I’ve read in years.” —The New York Times

A painfully funny, painfully real love story for our time that doesn’t just ask will they, but…should they?

Jess is a senior in college, ambitious but aimless, when she meets Josh. He’s a privileged preppy in chinos, ready to inherit the world. She’s not expecting to inherit anything.

A year later, they’re both working at the same investment bank. And when Jess finds herself the sole Black woman on the floor, overlooked and underestimated, Josh shows up for her in surprising—if imperfect—ways. Before long, an unlikely friendship forms, tinged with undeniable chemistry. It gradually, and then suddenly, turns into an electrifying romance that shocks them both.

Despite their differences, the force of their attraction propels the relationship forward. But as the cultural and political landscape shifts underneath them, Jess is forced to consider if their disagreements run deeper than she can bear, what she’s willing to compromise for love, and whether, in fact, everything’s fine.

A stunning debut about “a love affair that turns inferno” (People), that is “extraordinarily brave…funny as hell,” (Zakiya Dalilah Harris) Cecilia Rabess’s Everything’s Fine is an incisive and moving portrait of a young woman who is just beginning to discover who she is and who she has the right to be. It is also a “subtle, ironic, wise, state-of-the-nation novel” (Nick Hornby) that asks big questions about the way we live now and “whether our choices stop and end with us” (The New York Times).

• Language: English
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
• Release date: Jun 6, 2023
• ISBN: 9781797155876

Cecilia Rabess

Cecilia Rabess previously worked as a data scientist at Google and as an associate at Goldman Sachs. Her nonfiction has been featured in McSweeneys, FiveThirtyEight, Fast Company, and FlowingData, among other places. Everything's Fine is her debut novel.

Reviews for Everything's Fine

[Mara Lyons · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Everything's Fine is a compulsively readable, fast-moving novel about Jess, a young analyst at Goldman Sachs. She is a young, progressive black professional who finds herself working with former college classmate, Josh, who she butted heads with in college due to their very different perspectives. He's white, conservative, and strikes Jess initially as very judgmental and shortsighted. He's assigned as her "buddy" at work and they start to bond, despite previous animosity.

They become closer and closer, and I found their relationship compelling even as it could be infuriating. The novel touches on issues of race in a variety of ways, as well as interracial dating, and workplace expectations. Rabess does a wonderful job of illustrating uneasiness in their relationship and making us question how our behavior and beliefs can shift when we're with others. I found it to be a thought-provoking, but highly readable novel.

[Natalie G · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

Problematic main character without explanation. Troubling to read about a racist