Emily R. AustinRecensioni

This was an impulse choice at the library that I initially categorized as "fluff" but as I continued, I appreciated the very real issues it presented and the way that they resolved. It's quite a different book, but one that I now will recommend for a change of pace read..

3.5 Stars

Enid knows that she is not like most people — she listens to true crime podcasts and regurgitates odd facts about outer space to soothe herself — but lately things are spiraling out of control; she’s serial dating, messing up at work, and her phobia of bald men has reached epic proportions. In Interesting Facts About Space by Emily Austin, readers have a front row seat to Enid’s mania, but Austin manages to make all the insanity funny and touching. Austin knows how to craft real characters struggling with life, and readers looking for a quirky story about a young woman working through her anxieties and finding herself again will enjoy getting to know Enid.½

I have very mixed feelings about this book, but I was glad I read it. It was very clever and there was humor and also so much sadness. The protagonist was engaged in a very difficult life in all aspects. She was unhealthy, both mentally and physically, and her interpersonal interactions left much to be desired. However, she was very bright and very involved in taking care of people, whether or not she knew them. All of her personal thoughts are presented, and many are easy to identify with. I was pleased with the ending, but am uncertain how realistic it was. I also wish we lived in a world that valued every member regardless of the issues they are facing.½

bottom line, we love authors named Emily. they are just the best at writing characters who are REAL! i ate this book up and finished it in 2 days. this book was intoxicating and intense and bizarre and at points i felt anxious reading it, but not in a way where i wanted to stop reading. just the way Emily R. Austin wrote about Enid being terrified of being stalked by her bald neighbor and her phobia of bald men thus becoming extremely paranoid in her daily life. i FELT what she was going through because the writing is that good. i enjoyed the commentary on the true crime obsession and how it can be problematic while also being something that many people find comfort in listening to for a many reasons. this book is very strange and very real and very dark and very fun all at once. it really has it all and more: laughs! lesbians! deaf/HoH representation! space! friendship! mommy/daddy issues!

I read this in one day because I could not put it down. Very very few books can make me cry and this one had me sobbing. The main character is funny and relatable. Overall I think this is in my top 3 books I've ever read.

Browsing my library’s recent fiction shelves I pulled this one down because of the catchy title and the fact that one year back at university I lived with Emily Austin. A different one, of course, but for just a second there I did hope… anyway, it deals with two things I’m personally predisposed towards reading about, namely, mental illness and religion. I have both myself. Despite such a focus, it’s actually fairly funny.

The protagonist, Gilda, who early on in the novel takes a job as receptionist at a Catholic Church, only has one, and it’s not religion. Gilda’s got an anxiety/panic disorder, major depression, and severe existential angst. A strong atheist, placing such a character in a religious setting through accidental happenstance might lead the reader to suspect they would “find religion” or at least come closer to a religious stance through personal growth over the novel, but not here. It’s a source of humor:

Eleanor keeps texting me. I don’t feel comfortable responding at work because I’m worried Jeff and the Catholics will be able to sense I am doing something gay.
Hello?
Gilda?
Why aren’t you replying?

The novel is written in the fragmentary style, a la Patricia Lockwood’s [b:No One Is Talking About This|53733106|No One Is Talking About This|Patricia Lockwood|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1601474686l/53733106._SY75_.jpg|84057345] the optimistic review at The Rumpus notes, though that comparison is misleading and quite unfair. Few can write sentences and images as brilliantly as Lockwood and Everyone In This Room… is more popular fiction than literary fiction. The prose here is straightforward and relatively simple and the back half features a murder mystery plot development aimed squarely at the popular reading public. What the two novels might share though is a tender love for one’s fellow humans, despite everything. I do greatly appreciate that in a novel.

And, some real humor. What I’ll remember most from this book I think is the humor. One more example below for posterity’s sake, a fragment near the beginning of the book:

Two Jehovah’s Witnesses came to my door when I was seven. They asked me if I was baptized. I answered no, and they told me that was because my parents were atheists. I remember their voices deepened when they said the word “atheists” as if it were an obscenity. Being seven years old, I was inclined to take notice of swear words - so I committed the word to my memory. I spent the next three years calling people atheists, having no clue what it meant, thinking I was a cutting trash-talker.
My teacher gave me an F on a spelling test, and I muttered, “What a freaking atheist.”
Gemma Igmund started a rumor that I was gay, and I confronted her. “Shut your God damn atheist mouth, Gemma.”
My mom made me go to bed early, and I screeched from the top of the stairs that I was living in a family of cold-blooded atheists.

3.5/5 stars

This was absolutely excellent. I haven't read a character that I've loved as much as Enid in a LONG time.

I should have bailed.

TW/CW: Sex, mental health issues, broken families, homophobia

RATING: 4/5

REVIEW: Interesting Facts About Space is a unique book that follows Enid, a young neurodivergent woman, through a difficult part in her life as she tries to come to terms with herself and her past.

This book is definitely different from other books I’ve read. It’s partially being in a front row seat to Enid’s neurodivergence, which is definitely a different way of thinking. It’s partially because of the writing itself, which jumps back and forth in a series of little vignettes that only partially ever fit together.

It has its funny moments and its sad moments, and while it doesn’t really have a terribly strong plot, it does tell a story that is interesting with a voice that still isn’t terribly common in literature.

I did enjoy this book, although it took me a while to get into it. It was fast moving and an easy and interesting read.

we loooooooooove Emily R. Austin!! she can do no wrong in my eyes and i will read EVERYTHING by her. everything. the main protagonist, Jane is a firecracker, but she's also deeply troubled. this book deals with heavy subject matter - drug abuse, alcohol dependency, self-mutilation, depression, anxiety, childhood trauma, sexual assault and attempted suicide. it's dark but also funny. i weirdly enjoy stories that can make me laugh one minute and make me want to cry the next. this novella is going to stay with me for a long time. i couldn't sleep straight after finishing it because the ending was so intense

4.5 stars - At 22%, the scene where Gilda attended her first Catholic mass, had me laughing so hard I was in tears! This book is just about perfect. It was funny, and I can totally relate to being too tired/depressed to care about anything. Gilda's dry wit is exactly what I LOVE in a character.

The second half of the book was more dark and less-funny, but I love how everything wrapped up at the end and didn't leave me with any pressing questions!

At first I was put-off by the fact that there were no "Chapters", but instead just "Parts", but it works really well. The excellent writing really makes you feel like you're inside Gilda's head.

The last thing I will mention is that the main character's name isn't revealed until 12%, which I feel is a bit late in the story to just be learning the main character's name, and it isn't really mentioned until 78%, where the story is taking place.

I was SO thrilled to find out that Ms. Austin is a Canadian author!! I will definitely be on the lookout for future books by this author!

4.5 stars rounded up.
I love the self-deprecation in this. It’s cynical, funny, enlightening and interesting. I felt like the ending could have been fleshed out a bit more, but I loved the rest of it.

This is a delightful book, innovative, creative, fun, with an interesting protagonist. I loved her flow through life during the few weeks of this book.

This was a wild, wild story. Troubling, but so, so funny in places. Like laugh behind your hand so the gods don’t strike you down funny. And that ending. WOW!

This book was so good! It give the reader a view into depression that I relate to and that was wonderful to feel. Although my thoughts aren't as existential as those expressed in the book, there was still so much to relate to and it was all kept a little lighter by the humor of the main character.

I believe the book is set somewhere in Canada, which is fun. I should read more Canadian authors. The ending is a little cheap.

kinda fell apart after the 60% mark but the ending was good again. i wanna be her friend so bad

What a chaoticly accurate portrait of depression and anxiety. It takes so long to come to terms with what you're experiencing, and even longer for others around you to acknowledge it's not just something you can snap out of. In the mean time, nothing makes any sense, even comically so.

There seem to be a plethora of novels about quirky and/or neurodivergent characters lately and I am drawn to every one of them. Sometimes they are utterly charming and sometimes I just don't connect the way that I expect to (or that everyone else seems to). I don't know if it's a me thing or a book thing. And unfortunately, this book was one that was just an okay read for me.

Gilda is a bundle of anxiety and depression who spends much of her time spiraling in her own brain. She's found a flyer for free therapy at a local Catholic Church but when she goes to the church, Father Jeff mistakes her for someone interested in the church receptionist position. She doesn't correct him and finds herself employed. This is only a problem because she is both an atheist and a lesbian who has to now pretend she is a straight, single Catholic woman. This is the sort of thing that happens to Gilda more often than you might imagine. She's awkward and uncomfortable making others uncomfortable by setting the record straight, spending a lot of time going along to get along. In fact, she starts writing emails to the former, deceased receptionist's old friend because she cannot bring herself to tell Grace's friend that Grace is dead, and she especially can't do it once there's a question of whether Grace was murdered.

It's hard to get a grasp on Gilda as a character despite the book being told in first person and the reader knowing so many facts about her: she is a hypochondriac who is well known at the local hospital; she is so depressed she can't wash her dishes; she worries desperately about her seemingly alcoholic younger brother; she is completely fixated on death and has panic attacks. This should add up to a knowable character and yet it somehow doesn't quite. She herself is an odd combination of caring deeply for and being emotionally disconnected from the people around her. It's almost as if the sense of her own aloneness is transmitted to the reader, keeping her at a distance.

The novel mostly meanders through Gilda's anxiety without much of a plot to it. Even the major question of whether Grace was murdered is rather tangential to Gilda and the inner workings of her unhappiness. The novel follows the church calendar from Advent to Easter, moving through Twelvetide, Ordinary Time, and Lent in between, mirroring Gilda's journey from beginning to rebirth, although the ending is nowhere near as hopeful as Easter would imply. Over all, this was a quick read and while I didn't love it, others sure seem to and to find themselves reflected in it so it quite possibly is just a me thing.

The events may be outrageous but the depiction of life with an anxiety disorder is very honest.

Extremely dark, extremely well written.

I liked this book. It is the story of Gilda, a 27-year-old who suffers from depression and anxiety. Much of the book takes into Gilda's mind and we get a good understanding of how she thinks and feels. The book provides an insightful, powerful look at mental health. It is often heartbreaking. It also, at times, presents very funny situations.

Many things in the book can be read as either funny or sad; perhaps even depending on the mood of the reader. For example, Gilda is unable to correct a Catholic priest who assumes she has come to the church in answer to a job posting. (She was looking for mental health counselling). So our atheist, lesbian heroine finds herself working as the church secretary. Her predecessor, Grace, is recently deceased. When Grace receives emails from her friend, Rosemary, who thinks Grace is still alive, Gilda doesn't have the heart to tell her. So, she impersonates Grace by responding to Rosemary's messages.

Whether you find the book funny or heartbreaking in various sections, you will always find it so real in its examination of living with mental health issues.

Gilda is depressed, anxious, and consumed with death. She is in a car crash and breaks her arm, and gets fired from her job. She looks into therapy, and ends up at a church. When Fr. Jeff mistakenly asks her if she is there for a job, she agrees. She finds that she is taking over for Grace, an elderly woman who was the church secretary. Gilda, however, is an atheist and a lesbian, and doesn't want Fr. Jeff to find out, as she believes this will cause her to lose her job.
When Rosemary emails Grace asking about why she hasn't heard from her, Gilda doesn't have the heart to tell Rose that Grace is dead. So, she replies as if she is Grace. Meanwhile, a nurse is arrested for killing elderly people. All this is tied together. Also, Gilda's brother, Eli, is drinking himself into oblivion. Gilda is just the heroine you want to root for. While her life is a mess - some of this book is laugh out loud funny. Can't wait to read more from Emily Austin.