Everything's Fine: A Novel

“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).
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Community Reviews
The theme of this story might be to question whether opposites can be together if they do indeed attract in the first place. Josh is preppy, Conservative (with a large C) and white; Jess is from an entirely different background, motivated by morals rather than money, and the only black person in their economics class at their Ivy League college. They have a whirlwind and tempestuous relationship which matures over a length of time (reminiscent of David Nicholls' One Day in that regard) but the cracks appear when Jess is forced to admit to her friends that her boyfriend is a Republican and Josh doesn't understand why she might be upset that he owns a MAGA hat with all its connotations of "racism, hatred and systemic inequality". There's a lot of lecturing as the politics are personal, and Jess tries to ignore the signs - "Everything's fine". She knows her father would be horrified to learn about her boyfriend's ideals, and Josh tells her, "It's better to be happy than right." Is it? Or is it true that "Love conquers all, except geography, and history, and contemporary sociopolitical reality"?
A good.space-filler read. Not necessarily overly exciting and gripping overall, but enjoyed the subtle romance, insertion of vague but interesting take on sociopolotics at a very world changing time in history. Did enjoy the main character and the weaving through her thoughts, on her journey with family and work relationships.
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