I loved this book so much. It was funny and sad and weird and uncomfortable. Emily Austin managed to find a perfect balance between making me laugh out loud and then cringe and then laugh again and then tear up. Her depiction of depression and anxiety is spot-on and Gilda is a painfully relatable character with a wicked sense of humor.

Characters that are anxious and depressed speak to me on a personal level. I was drawn to this book for that very reason. It was too much though. There is a lot of pontificating on life and death and fate, and damn if I didn’t get anxious reading it. The author knew what they were doing. There is a great family and relationship drama here that I loved. I hated the thrown in murder mystery and that a queer character is once again used to indict religion. Look I know it happens. I read about that depressing shit on the news almost every day. Give me a queer character that is just that and not used for some commentary. Overall a pretty decent read and one that I can recommend with some hesitancy.

Gilda is a twenty-something, atheist, animal-loving lesbian who has become obsessed with death. Suffering with anxiety disorders and alienated from her family, she follows a flier for free counseling at Catholic Church, and somehow ends up as their secretary instead.

She spends her time getting to know the staff and parishioners, all while lying about who she is and why she’s there. Grace, her predecessor died under mysterious circumstances, and Gilda becomes preoccupied with Grace’s death, even continuing written correspondence with one of her old friends as Grace.

I chose this one based solely on its title, but once I also saw it was a queer, literary fiction novel, I was even more stoked to read it. This book is weird and lovely and relatable, and it’s got a lot of heart. It was recommended for readers who enjoyed Mostly Dead Things, and that is 100% me. I was not disappointed.

Gilda is such a rich character. She’s a mess, but also she’s endearing, and her whole journey is one of growth and spending time with people who wouldn’t give her the time of day if they really knew her. As she spends time with them, she gets to the heart of their issues and forces them to confront the humanity of those they view as just sins incarnate. It’s beautifully written, and I heavily identified with her extreme anxiety.

It’s out now in print and audio, and if you’re looking for something that’s a bit quirky with a lot of heart, definitely check it out.

Thank you Atria for the gifted copy.

Ummm...so this book was weird? but also I loved it? I'm still not quite sure how to process this one, but I can't stop thinking about the realistic look at anxiety and depression it gives the reader. You have Gilda, the main character, that is obsessed with death and dying, but not in a morbidly fascinated way, but more of a anxiety riddled hypochondriac way. She keeps showing up in the ER because she thinks she's having heart attacks, and the doctors brush her off. She stumbles into a job at a Catholic Church when she's looking for a support group - she's not Catholic, in fact she's an atheist lesbian, but instead of telling them this, she just lies and pretends to be Catholic, There, she gets obsessed with the death of the previous secretary, and then pretends to be her as she responds to emails.

So. I repeat. This book is weird. It's DEFINITELY not for everyone. It will make you giggle or snort and then make you think "oh sh*t, is that actually funny? Should I really be laughing at this???"

But - I loved it. Maybe I'm weird too!

This is a very bizarre, quirky book.

Gilda knows she is suffering with a variety of mental health issues, and on the day she finally seeks free counseling, she ends up accepting the job of being a church receptionist- as a gay, depressed woman. However, this is due to the fact that the former, Grace, was supposedly murdered by a dastardly nurse. There were a lot of laugh out loud moments, especially as a Catholic, and there were a lot of emotions across some very deep themes shared across the story.

I found myself getting more disconnected from Gilda’s voice at the end as her emotions spiraled, but I can see many people finding this book interesting. Thank you Netgalley and the publishers for this ARC.

TW: anxiety, depression, thoughts of suicide

This book begins with a bang. Literally. Gilda, sitting at a traffic light with her hot coffee, gets rear-ended by a minivan. Next thing she knows, she's covered in scalding hot coffee, she's punched herself in the face thanks to the airbag, and she's driving herself to the hospital. Again.

Gilda is a regular at the hospital. The janitor even knows her name. She can't stop fixating on death, so she goes to the hospital often for...well...everything. Desperate for...something...Gilda goes to a local Catholic church that offers free therapy. Suddenly, our atheist-lesbian-obsessed-with-death Gilda is hired to replace the receptionist; the beloved and recently deceased Grace.

Now she's stuck in a job she barely knows how to do. She's hiding the fact that she's seeing someone of the same sex, pretending that she knows anything about Catholicism, and ignoring the growing pile of dishes she just can't find the energy to clean. All the while, she can't remember when she washed her hair, worries that her brother is going to wind up dead in a ditch because of his drinking, and imagining a million different ways to die.

I'm not exactly sure what I was expecting going into this book. Somehow I got the impression it would be hilarious? However, as a sufferer of anxiety most of my life, I found very little of it amusing. I tried. I could tell when something was meant to be funny, but I seldom chuckled cause I knew what she was feeling. I spent the whole book feeling sorry for Gilda and screaming at different characters to just DO something for her. It showed me just how hard it can be to get the help we need, tragically, most of the time. I found the book heartbreaking, impossibly relatable, but rarely funny. I did like Gilda very much. As is often the case, I just wanted someone to SEE her, really SEE her. Does it happen? I leave it to you to find out. I found the book to be a worthwhile look at living with crippling anxiety and depression and how to not go about living with it without getting help.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing a free, eARC of this novel, received in exchange for an honest review.

A very unique narrative voice of a young gay woman, Gilda, who suffers from severe depression and anxiety, trying to live in a world that has constantly pushed her to the fringes - bullied as a child, denigrated by teachers, unable to feel acknowledged by her parents. The result is a debilitating fear of death/dying, panic attacks with weekly trips to the hospital, failure to keep a job, an avoidance of religion/spirituality, and profound loneliness.

In responding to an advertisement for therapy, Gilda finds herself being offered a job in a Catholic church, to replace an elderly woman who died unexpectedly. The narrative weaves the people she meets and the experiences she has in this job with the tremendous challenges she has with her sexuality and mental health in both a humorous and heart-wrenching way.

Although the story drags at times and seems to tie up too quickly in the end, it certainly embodies one of the most unique female voices I have read in a long time.

It would be an excellent book for any book club, as there would likely be many different perspectives about the story, the characters, and the impact that one's sexuality and mental health has in how we depict ourselves to others and in how others may inadvertently define us.

Regardless of where you are reading this paragraph, Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead. It’s just a fact of life. Death is enviable. However, most people don’t think about it much—if at all.

Gilda is different. She thinks about death obsessively. Well, whenever she is not worrying about how her discarded plastic water bottle will outlive her by hundreds of years. You see, Gilda has an anxiety disorder. She is also a lesbian atheist. The last two wouldn’t be a problem if she wasn’t working as a receptionist in a Catholic church. Oh, and the police suspect her of murder. Mustn’t forget that...

“How could anyone think I could kill someone? I can’t even kill myself.“

No matter what kind of mental issues you have, reading about Gilda’s interior thoughts will make you feel better, perhaps even superior. If you’re Catholic, you may object to Gilda’s saving on her grocery bill by frequently eating the body of Christ and drinking his blood for dinner.

Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead is an interesting look inside someone else’s mind. While I don’t think it will appeal to a wide swath of readers, people who like the surrealness of say, Murakami, will enjoy it. 4 stars!

Thanks to Atria Books and NetGalley for a copy in exchange for my honest review.

Underdeveloped and frankly boring Gilda is a lesbian and obsessed with death.

That's it. That's the summary of this book to me. I just...didn't care about Gilda and her depression. And maybe that's the point.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the opportunity to read and review.

Someone pitched this story as a quirky mystery from a unique perspective interspersed with a surprisingly insightful critique of humanity. The book's self-description states it's a "delightful blend of warmth, deadpan humor, and pitch-perfect observations about the human condition." And while none of that is wrong — I didn't anticipate just how dark this novel would be.

Gilda is an atheist lesbian in her mid-twenties that's completely preoccupied with her ultimate demise. She cannot stop thinking about how close she is to death and frequently ruminates about the absurdity of her own existence. Obviously, thoughts like these make it hard to get out of bed in the morning and in search of help via free therapy at the local Catholic church, Gilda somehow ends up as the church's new receptionist — hiding both her religious beliefs and sexual preferences. Living a lie takes its toll on Gilda, but she finds a distraction in learning the circumstances surrounding the death of Grace — the previous church receptionist.

WHAT I LIKED: An understanding of our own fragility is an essential component for not taking life for granted. But instead of making Gilda thankful for every breath, this knowledge paralyzes her, making even washing a cup difficult. Hopefully, this book does the opposite for its readers. If you like dark humor, then you will appreciate how Gilda's best intentions just get her into more and more trouble throughout this book. Austin also does a great job of highlighting how difficult it can be for people to get the help they need for mental health services.

WHAT I DIDN'T LIKE: Unfortunately, this book was just too slow and too dark for my preferences. Gilda's complete lack of hope and purpose left me exhausted and like I was climbing uphill through the mud. I was holding out for some sense of redemption and a hopeful future for Gilda but was left wanting. I would have also appreciated Gilda finding some kind of purpose for her existence, but this book seems to perpetuate the idea that life is meaningless all the way to the very end.

Don’t you love a main character that really latches onto your heart? That’s Gilda. She’s a young, atheist, gay woman with severe anxiety who unintentionally gets hired as the receptionist at a Catholic church. When Gilda learns about the mysterious death of the prior receptionist, she fixates on learning what happened.

The book has a mix of dark humor, endearing characters, and even a little bit of “whodunnit” that created a truly memorable story.

I completely adored Gilda. Her story is built through many non-chronological vignettes that slowly help you understand her family, childhood, and thoughts. Many of Gilda’s emotions resonated with me, particularly my own anxiety and medical phobia that matched hers so well.

Emily Austin's writing is original and observant. I’m definitely interested to read more by her.

This book follows a morbidly anxious, twenty-something atheist lesbian named Gilda as she accidentally gets a job as a receptionist at a Catholic Church. In between trying to help her alcoholic brother, memorize catholic prayers to keep up her act as a Christian and manage her chronic anxiety, she finds out that the former receptionist was murdered. This news triggers Gilda to do her own investigation, where no one at the Catholic Church is safe from Gilda’s spiraling accusations. ⁣
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EITRWSBD (acronym for the title) is 100% a #weirdlittlebook … a hashtag that Stephanie over at @that_bookish_life coined. I’ve never read a book like this. Gilda is such an authentic character. Her stream of consciousness thoughts and anxiety are raw throughout the pages. This book has some dark humor (I guess that should be obvious by the title). It allowed me to feel that anxiety-butterfly feeling in my stomach while also laughing out loud as I was reading. ⁣
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I do want to point out that suicide ideation was HEAVY in this story. While the synopsis of the story described Gilda as a panicky, anxiety induced character, I wasn’t expecting as much inner dialogue about suicide as there was in the book (there was a ton). Usually that’s not a trigger for me, but even I felt very uncomfortable reading sections of this story. So if suicide or suicide ideation are triggering for you, I would suggest you avoid this book. ⁣
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Overall, this was a quirky, dark humor debut novel that I don’t feel comfortable blindly recommending due to some of the content of the story. BUT, I think a lot of y’all would enjoy it (triggers aside).

EVERYONE IN THIS ROOM WILL SOMEDAY BE DEAD by Emily Austin

Quirky, sad, and sentimental. If you lined up everyone in a room and made them confess as to whether they liked this book or not, I get the conclusion many will not like it. Many will miss or fly by the depth of this book. Your mood on the day you read this will determine how deep you'll allow the message from this book to go.

I have a feeling I will reread this one and think about the different themes and conversations going on within. It reminded me of ELEANOR OLIPHANT IS COMPLETELY FINE. If reading a book is a two-partner dance, this book is a very flexible and accommodating partner. Unfortunately, many readers will find the plot flighty and insubstantial, reminiscent of MY YEAR OF REST AND RELAXATION.

However, if you understood or liked either of those two mentioned, I"d say give EVERYONE IN THIS ROOM a shot.

Themes and topics of conversation:
death
religion
mental health
health care
What we seek when we are in peril and need rescue and absolution.

Wine recommendation: For 21+ only.
Id say pair this book with a Grenache Rosé to start and make your way to the full red Grenache later.

This book was a delight, and I was so happy to have my copy on pub day already. Thanks to @atriabooks AND #NETGALLEY for this FREE advanced readers copy of EVERYONE IN THIS ROOM WILL SOMEDAY BE DEAD. Not only are #atriabooks always great, but they are also truly one of a kind.

Four Stars

📚Book 30 of 2021: Everyone in this room will someday be dead by Emily Austin

🗣Who is this for: Anyone going through an existential crisis

💬Reader’s Digest Version: Gilda, an atheist, lesbian in her late twenties, finds herself in the middle of an existential crisis. What is the point of life? What happens when we die? She becomes fixated on these questions which cause her to frequently spiral into severe depression and suffer panic attacks. After a minor car accident, Gilda continues to grapple with her feelings about the meaning of life. She finds a flyer advertising free therapy and goes to the address, only to find it is actually a Catholic Church. Inexplicably, Gilda ends up working for the church as a receptionist where she stumbles into a situation that is beyond anything she could have imagined.

🏃🏻‍♀️My Take: Gilda’s internal struggles over the meaning of life and what happens after death mirror much of my own experience grappling with these questions. Gilda’s anxiety and uncertainty cause her to make decisions that most would view as extremely odd. However, I feel differently about some of her reactions to situations and decisions she made throughout this novel. Everyone has different struggles. Everyone reacts to situations in different ways. To say that all human behavior should be linear is laughable. This is why I love Gilda. She has her own reasons for doing the things she does. I don’t think that she always makes the right or rational choice, but I see where she is coming from. In the end, she just wants to be happy and she wants others to feel happy as well. She may go about this quest in ways that make you scratch your head, but that’s why this book is so great. Humor, sadness, important life questions, and a stream of consciousness writing style that radiates honesty and vulnerability. This book hit all my buttons. Love. Love. Love.

4.25 stars / This review will be posted at BookwormishMe.com today.


Gilda feels lost and sad. Therapy might be what she needs. When she receives a flyer for free therapy, she arrives at St. Rigobert’s Church, where she is mistaken for someone applying for the job of church receptionist. Not wanting to correct the kindly priest who greets her, she takes the job.

As a lesbian and atheist, Gilda decides she will simply play the part of a good Catholic girl. She goes to Mass. She dates a nice Catholic boy, while still dating Eleanor, her current flame. Gilda isn’t sure what she is doing is right, but she doesn’t feel she’s hurting anyone. Then she becomes involved in trying to figure out who killed her predecessor Grace. And things get confusing.

It’s kind of a crazy ride for Gilda, but it’s written in a very thoughtful and understanding way. At least if you’ve ever been feeling like Gilda is. Unworthy, unlikeable, sad, confused, depressed. As Gilda pretends to be someone else, she starts unraveling the pieces of her own life with a dysfunctional family.

I really enjoyed this sometimes depressing but honest view of what someone living with depression feels and thinks. How despair can take you to the lowest of lows. Emily Austin clearly conveys the depths of apathy that Gilda is feeling. Like why live another day. It’s also written with a bit of humor and lightheartedness. Even in her depths of despair, Gilda can be humorous. I suppose that is what keeps us going - the ability to laugh.

A bit slow at times, but definitely a good read.

Austin is a Canadian writer and this is her first novel. The plot revolves around Gilda who is in her early thirties, an artiest and gay. She also suffers from profound anxiety, which has caused her to lose her job at the library. When she is offered a job as a receptionist at a Catholic Church, she accepts, but hiding who she really is only makes the anxiety worse. Then she becomes obsessed with solving the potential murder of the previous receptionist. Gilda is a keen observer of the human condition and the book is a good recommendation for readers looking for something a humorous, but with some depth..

I got an ARC of this book.

In the very first pages, I was in love. I was laughing and really excited to be reading a book I just loved so quickly. Then the book kept going.

And going.

And going.

The book stopped being funny around the time of the job interview. I did not enjoy myself after that. It got weird after that. There were too many plot strands, but not enough happening. The characters were all flat and kind of meaningless. There were so many things that could have been explored, but the book very much stayed surface level the entire time. I don’t understand the need for the weird murder mystery or so many of the other little plots.

There isn’t even much to say about this book. It was choppy in time and in structure. I enjoyed that at first, but then it just grew tiresome. I needed a lot more from this book to describe it is hilarious or be a book I would recommend to someone. I am really having a hard time even managing to think of anything to really critique. It read so fast that there was no connection with anything and that it felt like reading a middle grade book. Nothing wrong with middle grade books, but it just was an odd pace to set for an adult book that had some serious themes in it.

When I started this book, I didn't like it much. Gilda and I seem to have absolutely nothing in common and the writing style - jumping around from thought to thought - was irritating. But I kept reading, got used to the rhythm of the writing, and found myself laughing in recognition at some of the things Gilda was thinking. Granted, she's totally over the top compared to my thoughts, but they were similar enough to some of my own that I found a kinship with her. I began to like her, feel sorry for her, worry about her, and root for her to somehow find her way.

There's a lot of humor in this book but also a lot of sadness and serious thoughts. Great ending!

This debut novel was an interesting change of pace from what I've been reading lately. Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead takes you inside the mind of Gilda as she navigates depression and anxiety. She "accidentally" gets a job at a Catholic church, which as a lesbian atheist woman is a little awkward. The mental health descriptions could be triggering for some so keep that in mind, but I found the description of her mind to be very interesting. Gilda had great character description and development.

Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead is a love letter to anyone who suffers from anxiety and depression. At times, I found it difficult to read because Gilda's anxiety was so real that it made me anxious, but I also found myself laughing out loud at the similarities in our anxiousness.

Gilda is an atheist, lesbian who finds herself working at a Catholic Church, pretending to be straight and religious. She overthinks everything from her relationship with the woman she is dating to the meaning of life and humans' inconsequential role in the universe. The woman whose job she has taken over, Grace, appears to have been murdered but Gilda can't bare to tell the woman's friend, Rosemary, so, instead, she continues to correspond with her via email pretending to be Grace.

Gilda's mental health struggles are real and relatable and heartbreaking. From thoughts of taking her own life to realizing she lacks the energy to even do that, she watches as her relationships crumble with the people she cares about the most.

The only flaw for me was towards the final third of the book where the plot takes a weird and, in my opinion, unnecessary turn. Other than that, I found the book heartwarming, heartbreaking, poignant, and, at some points, laugh out loud hysterical.