Everything Will Be Okay was a book that came into my life at the right moment. I don’t struggle with addiction personally, but the musings about life and mental health perfectly gave words to feelings I have had often during my own mental health struggles.

This story is heavy, but absolutely worth your time. It is a touching story that shows how addiction affects everyone related to the addicted person.

I also appreciated seeing the “acceptable” addiction to alcohol and how dangerous alcoholism can be.

You will not find a happy ending here, but you will find hope.

The one thing I would have liked to see more of is Henry and Nick’s conversations. I thought their relationship would be more of a core part of this book and was surprised that it didn’t go beyond those few conversations.

Overall this was a beautiful, devastating read that I really enjoyed.

After getting into the book this blew my mind,. The writing is so good and keeps the tone true to the plot. I would love to read more from this talented author. Thanks to NetGalley, the publisher and the author for a chance to read this book.

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Genre: Literary Fiction

This is the author’s debut novel, which is a good start for him. Everything Will Be Okay is a story that follows two connected male characters: a doctor and his patient. Nick Wagner is a young man struggling with addiction and the consequences of his past actions, including incarceration. On the other hand, his doctor, Henry Foster, is a disillusioned psychiatrist grappling with his own mental health issues after a painful divorce.

The novel is narrated in the third-person style and follows the lives of these two characters in the present while shedding some light on their pasts and struggles. Towards the end, there is also a focus on Nick’s mother, Marion, a single mother who also has her own problems, including dealing with her addicted son.

This is a literary fiction, and I appreciate how the author realistically depicted the different struggles of addiction and how they affect a person’s physical and psychological health. There is a lot of focus on mental health, too, including the doctor’s mental health after his bitter divorce.

The author did a great job with the characters. They are realistic, compelling, and well-developed. Reading their stories and hardships makes them relatable. You must’ve faced people like them in your life.

I liked the author’s writing and look forward to reading more books by him. His writing is raw and authentic, which makes you engage well with the story. If I have to critique something about the writing, it would be the excessive use of the F word. I understand the need to present Nick Wagner in a certain way for the story, but using the F word 335 times (counted on Kindle) is a little overboard. The other thing that might not go well with some readers is the open ending. I personally liked it, but some readers prefer a resolution for the characters.

Overall, this is a solid, captivating, character-driven novel. It is emotionally intense, thought-provoking, and sensitive, so be sure you can handle it.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with the ARC of this book.

Having spent quite a bit of time with friends and family that struggled with mental health and addiction, this book really hit me square in the chest, emotionally speaking. As upsetting as it was at times, I found it cathartic and comforting to feel as though others have seen/gone through similar things. Because even though we may know that others struggle intellectually, these kinds of issues can be so isolating and make you feel alone, regardless. Thanks to the author for this.

TW: abuse, addiction, trauma and many more explored in this book

The story was so captivating to read. We follow Nick through his journey of therapy. We follow him as he navigates his drug addiction, relationships and therapy. It was a very difficult read for me, but at the same time I loved the topics in this book. Nick was a beautiful character that I felt like I had a connection with. There were minimal mistakes, I just though the formatting was off. (Could have put chapters at the beginning of the page in later revisits. I know that my review doesn't due this book justice! I did really enjoy this book.

Thank you author and publisher for sending me this copy.

With thanks to NetGalley and publishers for the ARC, Everything Will Be OK. As someone who's had his battles similar to those discussed here (mental health, not opioids or drugs) it was a reminder of how fragile and complicated we are as people. A reminder that exercising more understanding and patience toward others is not a bad way to go and remember the adage everyone is going through something we know nothing about. Now, I am no prude and am one to swear more than I should, so I say this with a grain of salt … maybe there was a bit much in this. Not judging. Just an observation. Overall enjoyable.

i am blown away by the in depth writing style of this author. each chapter was written wonderfully and heavily. i never wanted for anything because it was there, being described and explained to me.
i was a little bored (or struggled to get in to the beginning) of this book.

this was a pretty good book. It was a collection of essays, and there were a lot of emotions, and many different ranges of emotions brought up, which was nice to read. I liked the feelings this book evoked from a reader perspective. I liked it overall!!

Thank you to NetGalley, to the author, and to the publisher for this complimentary ARC in exchange for my honest review!!!

Following two men who have to come to terms with their own struggles amidst the opioid crisis of California, Everything Will Be Okay switches back and forth between two narratives which are asking questions we’ve all wondered, without giving us an easy escape or a quick solution. Both characters seem to have the room to make mistakes and live their consequences, and I think this is what made the book so readable. There were some bits that didn’t flow as well as others, either due to excessive swearing that didn’t feel necessary or over-explanation, but for an uncorrected proof this didn’t affect my reading too much and I still raced towards the ending. A therapist/patient narrative that I feel is done quite well without too much overlap. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

While I’m glad that I had a chance of reading this book, it sadly wasn’t for me. The writing style didn’t do it for me unfortunately. The constant cursing felt a bit excessive for me. I did enjoy the interview style of story telling though! It was a quick read because of it. I’m still down to read another book by this author in the future!

I loved the simplistic mini essays and the transcripts it felt like a therapy sessions (those had me in tears tbh) .....they showed that therapy doesn't show immediate results the moment you start it instead it's done repetitive to achieve a silver of change

I hope the author is happier and in a better place mentally/physically🫶🏾

Too full of embellishments that actually mean nothing.
I don’t know the author, but the idea I unconsciously made of them is that the book was written by someone born around the year 2000, somebody who hasn’t got enough experience in writing, which is an art form and like all arts it takes years to master; prodigies exist, but they’re not the norm. I felt it was written in the edgy fanfiction phase of someone’s life and edited only superficially, if at all, shown by both the vernacular expressed in the conversations between the two main characters and the trying-to-be purple prose that neither manages to be actually purple nor to say anything that’s relevant at all. *
I feel like everybody’s had the experience of having had to write a 5000-word essay and, having managed to write and make your point in only 500 of them, you now had to lenghten it by substituting simple and direct language with words that made a text with sense become senseless, and by adding points that are actually pointless.
I never managed to care for any of the characters; no, that’s not the full truth – I couldn’t stand them. They’re angsty for angst’s sake, without an actual reason nor a meaning to it.
Even the ““mature[-r]”” character, or the one that should be at least a little more so, the one who’s responsible of the other… is only another masked edgy teenager. And I’m not saying that by your thirties you should have your life together, nor am I saying that as a psychiatrist you can’t have a mental disorder or any kind of problem that veers on the psychological (as a matter of fact, I’m of the idea that if they have one, they’re bound to care and to make a better job). No, what I’m actually saying is that you should be able to approach things with a certain maturity/responsibility.
[*There’s also the self-pity that seems to be characteristic of our generation.]
And what makes all of this worse is that I actually saw a potential to the story…
My advice would be to publish the book 2+ years from now, and to work on it in the meantime. This batch felt too rushed.

Thank you netgalley and to the publishers for the ARC. I enjoyed the story and plot of the book. It was engaging and the dialogue help drive the story. I enjoyed the ending of the story and would totally read another book by the author.