Praise for Books
“Coupled with several NBA eye winks, The Second Season weaves an intriguing tale of ambition and family…I found the novel to be immensely readable, keenly accurate in its depiction of life inside the show-business beast, and a frankly welcomed look at this world from a non-male-centered perspective.” —The Athletic
“I quite liked this novel of a friendship and how it endured a pregnancy and a shared love and the past.” —Roxane Gay
“Women with ambition, especially in sports, are often told: ‘Be quiet. Shrink. Don’t dream too big.’ Emily Adrian’s The Second Season squashes any notion of that. It shines in its portrayal of a woman protagonist who will not dim her light. This book is brilliant, engrossing and should be read by every person, basketball fan or not. My only wish is that Adrian had written this when I was a young girl, because it would have made me feel seen, encouraged, and understood.” —Mirin Fader, staff writer for The Ringer and author of Giannis: The Improbable Rise of an NBA MVP
“Emily Adrian is such a uniquely perceptive writer, possessing a kind of X-ray vision that finds the hidden truths inside of us, no matter how painful they might be. Everything Here Is under Control skillfully lays out a story that converges on motherhood, friendship, and our responsibilities to the world around us, the lives that touch us. A beautiful, bracing novel by an amazing, open-hearted writer.” —Kevin Wilson, New York Times bestselling author of Nothing to See Here
“To borrow a sports idiom, Emily Adrian really stuffs the stat sheet here. She writes as engagingly and insightfully about basketball and broadcasting as she does about work, love, friendship, ambition, motherhood, aging, and the power and frailty of the body. Smart, tough, passionate Ruth Devon is a winning protagonist, and her poignant story is both suspenseful and meditative. The Second Season is a terrific sports novel, yes, but it’s also just a terrific novel.” —Chris Bachelder, author of The Throwback Special
“Emily Adrian writes with deft assurance and penetrating insight about the intensities of motherhood, marriage, and female friendship.” —Heather Harpham, author of Happiness: The Crooked Little Road to Semi–Ever After
“An ironically funny, high-stakes novel about a woman trying to become the first-ever female announcer in the NBA…With wit and verve, Adrian traces a dilemma familiar to many women: work or parenthood?…Absolutely irresistible, The Second Season is a fast-paced, fascinating character study. Readers of Emily Henry or Taylor Jenkins Reid are sure to love Emily Adrian.” —Shelf Awareness
“I could not put down this brilliant, beautiful book. It’s about the elastic, resilient love of our earliest friendships. It’s about the challenges of motherhood at any age. It’s about how the lands of our childhood define and complicate us—and how we can never leave them completely. Everything Here Is under Control is everything I want a novel to be: suspenseful, emotional, intellectual, and populated with characters so true and dimensional that their shocks and pains and happiness merge into my own. Emily Adrian is a force. Now, go read her book.” —Jeannie Vanasco, author of Things We Didn’t Talk about When I Was a Girl
“Four years ago, in an essay published right here at The Millions, I asked why there hasn’t been a Great American Basketball Novel yet. Well, there is now: The Second Season…Adrian writes with a knowledge and passion for the game, but fandom is not a prerequisite for falling in love with this brilliant, warm, and funny book.” —The Millions
“The women fall into steady, if wary, rhythm with each other, their reunion setting the stage for the unfurling of a long-kept secret that’s made all the more dramatic by the intense and often thrilling complexity of this relationship…Filled with compelling characters…Full of texture and authentic human ambivalence.” —New York Times Book Review
“Adrian captures the experience of working women with impeccable nuance, touching on topics like imposter syndrome, sexist double standards, and the pressure to be a perfect mother and a successful working woman. Adrian’s latest isn’t just for basketball lovers; fans of the sport will enjoy the view of an eventful NBA season from the locker rooms and the sidelines, while non-sporty readers will enjoy the complex characters managing very public and sometimes messy lives.” —Library Journal
“A tender novel about early motherhood, small-town life, and the various ways people make their families.” —The Millions
“In Emily Adrian’s hands, the most exciting story during the NBA Finals is not on the court, but on the sidelines. This book will draw you in right away and you won’t put it down until you’ve read the final sentence.” —Tom McAllister, author of How to Be Safe
“How Emily Adrian could write a book so honest and raw about the first weeks of motherhood and yet so appealing and unputdownable and—dare I say, heartwarming—is a mystery of novelistic alchemy. Nonetheless, there it levitates: light as a feather and heavy as a stone, a romantic comedy that redefines the terms of traditional romance and takes happily ever after far beyond the loss of maidenhood. Magic, addictive, brilliant fun.” —Rufi Thorpe, author of The Knockout Queen
“The spare, bold latest from Adrian follows a sportswriter as she reckons with middle age…Even the sports-averse will be caught up in the drama.” —Publishers Weekly
“A sharp, thoughtful, poignant look at early motherhood, a small town, and the complex, challenging, and beautiful relationships that make up our families both biological and chosen.” —Lydia Kiesling, author of The Golden State
“Those who have been waiting for a sports book with heart will devour the novel. The fresh story is enhanced by Adrian’s smooth, absorbing writing. A perfect pick for book clubs.” —Booklist
“Brutally tender, ferociously intimate, astonishingly surefooted, and deeply satisfying. Emily Adrian has crafted a multilayered story whose people—I hesitate to call them mere ‘characters’—became so real and vivid to me that I’ve thought about them long since finishing the book. An immersive, irresistible pleasure.” —Chelsey Johnson, author of Stray City
“Sometimes it is scary reading Emily Adrian because she is honest in a way that hurts. She is brave and she is brutal. You don’t have to love basketball or care about motherhood to love this book, but this book will make you fall in love with both. I’m a goner; I will read anything she writes.” —Rufi Thorpe, author of The Knockout Queen
“Quirky, resonant…With keen wit and affecting emotion, Everything Here Is under Control is a novel about love, family, and motherhood that balances compromises with possibilities.” —Foreword Reviews
“Sport and bodies and ambition, motherhood and womanhood and obsession: Emily Adrian’s The Second Season masterfully gets you inside the particular thrill of sport whether it was ever capable of thrilling you before, and, deftly and warmly, pulls off the extraordinary feat of forcing you to root for a complicated, unapologetically ambitious fortysomething woman who also happens to be a mom. I loved this novel for its alacrity and its humanity and its humor, its attention to the body, and its willingness to let its characters pursue impossible-seeming dreams.” —Lynn Steger Strong, author of Want
“[A] wonderful new novel…[A] precise, poignant, and thrilling story of friendship, motherhood, and the one-way road to adulthood…It’s Amanda’s emotional journey, urgent and searching, that drives the book, moving it with the pulse and pace of a thriller.” —Los Angeles Review of Books
“There is so much to examine here, from the harrowing experience of new motherhood to the role of a father in an infant’s first days. Amanda’s complex relationship with Deerling, which includes her own mother, is worth noting, too, and a twist midway through the book adds great intensity to the story. But the heart of the novel is Carrie and Amanda’s friendship, with all its sorrow and joy. A perfect selection for book groups.” —Booklist (starred review)
“Warm, compassionate, funny, and filled with surprises, Everything Here Is under Control is an accomplished novel by a writer to watch.” —Brian Morton, author of Starting Out in the Evening and Florence Gordon
“I tore through Everything Here Is under Control in just a couple of days, compelled by its refreshingly honest portrayals of not only early motherhood but the kind of childhood friendship that shapes the rest of your life. Emily Adrian writes with such a keen and sensitive eye, and she’s funny, and she is an astute observer of human behavior. I cheered when I got to the plot twist midway through, and, even now, I can’t get this novel’s characters out of my mind.” —Edan Lepucki, New York Times bestselling author of California
“Adrian’s meticulous, wry adult debut follows thirty-one-year-old new mother Amanda through her insecurities and anxieties…Adrian’s portrayal of the ups and downs of motherhood will resonate with readers.” —Publishers Weekly
“A delight to read. The author seems to really understand the true sense of what it is like to be a new mother, with all the self-doubt, worry, and pure love that come along with that role…The book is easy to read, because you want to know and understand the characters better. In the end, you do understand them, and maybe understand yourself a bit better as well.” —Manhattan Book Review
