Introduction [excerpt] My manuscript follows two dysfunctional and co-dependent best friends navigating their early twenties. The friends, Phoebe and Nat, are tied together through grief — they have both lost their mothers, and neither is fully willing to admit how the loss unraveled her life. Phoebe's loss occurs a few months before the manuscript's start. Her wounds are new and raw, and she is struggling with depression. Nat's grief is a decade old, and the impact of her loss is seen in obsessive behaviors....

Abstract

Totally Fine is a coming-of-age novel that follows Phoebe, a twenty-two-year-old woman who has lost her mother a few months before the story begins. In the midst of her grief, she graduates college and is launched into adulthood. She struggles to find her own identity, and drama with her closest friends ensues.

Keywords: Novel, Fiction, Coming-of-age, Female narrator, relationships, grief.