Quirky, heartfelt, and heartwarming - Gilda is a delight. A recommended purchase for all general fiction collections.

Not funny, just sad & depressing. Character needs mental health help. ARC provided by NetGalley in exchange for a fair review.

A bit different than anything I usually read but I enjoyed it all the same. The main character has a rough road and struggles with her mental health and a family that lives in denial of all that is wrong.

I was really hoping I'd enjoy this novel more than I did. The premise sounds charming and the writing feels accomplished. However, the main character of Gilda did not engage me. She evokes pity, to be sure, but pity isn't enough to carry the narrative. I found myself cringing constantly as I flipped the pages.

As other reviewers have noted, the novel isn't really all that funny. It's just sad and depressing.

Ultimately, EVERYONE IN THIS ROOM WILL SOMEDAY BE DEAD seems to be aiming for readers who liked ELEANOR OLI{PHANT IS COMPLETELY FINE and A MAN CALLED OVE. However, it lacks the nuance and layered sophistication of those novels.

Oh Gilda. I empathized with Gilda on so many different levels. She's severely anxious and tends to be macabre, thinking of how many different ways a person can die. She ends up taking a job in a Catholic church, not because she particularly wants it, but because of her inability to make people sad by saying no. Sometimes the book is hilariously funny, sometimes it's not. The author did a phenomenal job of writing about anxiety and depression, and one of the biggest take aways from this book is that you should never ignore a person who clearly needs help. Fantastic book.

So this was a little depressing book to read. I don't know what I was expecting but it wasn't this.
I guess this book was an ok read. The character was really wasn't all there. The writing was ok.

I read the majority of this in one sitting. It was honestly pretty depressing, largely because a lot of this just reminded me of one of my sisters. I think that's part of why I couldn't put it down, because I was wondering how much like Gilda she may have been inside. I have seen a few reviews saying it's funny, but I didn't get that vibe at all. I don't know how to rate this one. I'm glad I read it, but at the same time I don't know if I would recommend it. If that makes any sense at all. While I sort of related to how it was written, which seemed like unorganized rambling, which is how I often feel I write, it was a little hard to read. That might be why I read it so fast though, I felt like there were no good stopping points. Thank you though to NetGalley for the ARC.

I wish I could give this book 1000 stars. I loved it. The character was so quirky but somewhat relatable. I loved the blunt and choppy storyline. It’s basically one long stream of consciousness of a super anxious girl just trying to please everyone and not rock the boat, which eventually has her caught in the middle of a murder investigation. It’s funny, dry witted humor.

I went into reading Everyone In This Room will Someday Be Dead thinking it would be a funny, disturbing story about a dysfunctional family. For some reason I really enjoy those. I was expecting a quick, easy read. I did not get what I expected.

Gilda is a depressed, mentally unstable, gay, atheist woman who finds herself getting hired as a receptionist for a Catholic Church. Growing up in a house with a depressed father, with a family who doesn’t believe in depression, leaves her dealing with things alone. They don’t talk about feelings in their house.

It took me a while to get into the book. Once I did, I felt so many emotions rolling through me. I felt pity for Gilda. She was clearly depressed and nobody was doing anything. I felt anger at the stigma that comes with mental health and the lack of care from the hospital, which she visited quite frequently throughout the book. It touches upon physician assisted suicide. A subject that I have frequently thought about. Why is it that we can put an animal down when they are clearly in pain and suffering, yet we are forced to watch our loved ones suffer through terminally ill diseases. I was angry at her girlfriend for not seeing what was clear as day. I did laugh a few times. I also felt that Emily Austin wrapped the story up nicely.

Thank you Netgalley and publishers for allowing me to read an ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

In theory this book is perfect for me. A book about a twenty-something, atheist, animal-loving lesbian who's flirting with the idea of dying? It's almost like the book gods were calling my name. However, the result was a little more disappointing. The book had a great start but the energy (and the story) petered out around the middle and continued to get worse. I would have stopped reading if I wasn't such a completist.

I'm still trying to determine my thoughts on this book. I was really excited to have been granted an arc via NetGalley, but the book just didn't sit with me right. I thought is was going to be more of a light hearted comedy so to speak but it wasn't. Throughout the book, I felt like the story couldn't find its jive. May be jut be me though. This story just didn't do it for me.

Absolutely loved this book. A delightful mix of quirky, funny, and poignant, with an endearing main character and helpful insight into the world of mental illness, friendship, and love.

I'm familiar with author, Emily Austin. I very much enjoyed her kooky novella, "Oh Honey". I was so excited to read her upcoming debut novel, "Everyone in this Room Will Someday Be Dead" - and boy it did not disappoint! Also, the cover is adorable.

Emily Austin's writing style is quirky, hilarious, and surprisingly touching. Our protagonist, Gilda is in her late twenties whom suffers from crippling anxiety and depression. She's also a hypochondriac lesbian and doesn't believe in God. And yet she accidentally applies for a job working as a receptionist at a Catholic church all because of a misleading flyer, supposedly offering free therapy. It took me a while to warm up to Gilda, she is a bit MUCH in the beginning of this novel, but I ended really liking and relating to her.

I've always devoured novels like these that perfectly balance humor and heart. The characters are always so endearing, messed-up, chaotic, morbid, but overall well-fleshed out. I loved reading about Gilda's dysfunctional family, especially her alcoholic brother. I also liked all the secondary characters, Father Jeff, Eleanor, and Giuseppe. I can't wait to read more from Emily Austin in the future. She's the real deal.

Thank you, Netgalley and Atria for the digital ARC.

Release date: July 6, 2021

Book Review for Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead by Emily Austin
Full review for this title can be found at: @fyebooks on Instagram!

This book just didn't do it for me. It felt a little forced. I suffer from anxiety and depression, and I still couldn't get into it. In a way, maybe it was TOO much-- I read to escape and to not feel so alone, but this book made me feel even more isolated than I had when I started, if that makes sense. We never get to know any characters well enough to actually like them. I also noticed a lot of typos.

This debut is a hoot. I laughed out loud so many times. Most of those times it was because I identified with this anxiety-ridden, death-and-doom-obsessed, neurotic, lovable main character of Gilda.

Gilda is an atheist, and a lesbian. Neither of these things stops her from inadvertently accepting a position as a receptionist at a Catholic church. Whoops!

Gilda is constantly concerned she'll be found for the imposter that she is--and not just on the work front, but in all walks of her life. Like many twenty-somethings, Gilda has come to that point in her life where she really does not have a clue what she is doing. Personally, after reading so many books where our plucky young narrators pull themselves up by their bootstraps and just get after it, it's refreshing to read about a character who just wants to wallow for while and see how tall they can stack their dirty dishes in a crazy Jenga-meets-Tetris manner.

I am looking forward to more from this bright, spunky young author. From what I understand, this is an own-voices novel.

This was an interesting read in the understanding of how the brain works of someone with mental health. The story is told very choppy and was difficult to follow until the end at times. The conclusion was a bit confusing.

Everyone In This Room Will Someday Be Dead is the refreshingly original and darkly funny story of atheist and closeted-lesbian Gilda, who answers a flyer for free therapy and ends up working as a secretary at a Catholic parish. Before she knows it, she's fully enmeshed in daily parish life and obsessed with her predecessor's death. You can't help but root for this protagonist who is riddled with anxiety and obsessively preoccupied with the meaning (or meaningless?) of life and the certainty of death. Perfect for fans of Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine.

Gilda accidentally ends up with a job as a Catholic church receptionist while she was actually looking to join a therapy group. There are many reasons she doesn't belong there, chief among them being she's not Catholic but she is gay. At first I though poor Gilda was just a pathetic character and I worried I'd get tired of her schtick before long, but as the book went on I found out she's dealing with some serious mental health challenges. When she discovers the reason the receptionist job was available, she does a deep dive into that. Along the way she befriends an older woman via email, "accidentally" dates a man, and worries about her brother who is quickly becoming an alcoholic. From the description of this book, I was expecting it to be funnier, but there were a lot of story lines to follow, and I found myself skimming the more philosophical passages (which made it a quick read). There were a number of punctuation errors throughout the book, but I imagine those will be corrected before publication. Thank-you to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I kept waiting for this to become more enjoyable but I mostly pitied the main character.

Kindly received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.