Thank you Atria Books and Netgalley for the free eARC of this book.

I enjoyed Austin’s first novel, Everyone in this Room Will Someday Be Dead. It came at the right time when I was in the right mood for such a story.

However, her sophomore novel did not hit the same for me. It’s touted as hilarious and fast-paced, and I thought it was the exact opposite. It’s heartbreaking seeing Enid struggle with her mental health, relationships, and phobias. It’s tough to read about her self-sabotaging and I didn’t find the dark humor humorous.

We spend a lot of time in Enid’s head and I found this stressful rather than enlightening. Nothing about the plot was interesting until the last 5%, otherwise this is very character-driven and I didn’t love the characters.

With enjoying Austin’s other work and loving space, I had high hopes for this one.

TW: Homophobia, paranoia, suicidal ideation, partial deafness and ableism,

This book has great themes, like mental illness, dysfunctional family relationships, queer dating, and coming into one's own. This book has heart and a loveable main character. It is laugh out loud funny with a tender and beautifully written prose

I loved the neurodivergent representation but just wish the author would have decided to include that diagnosis at the beginning instead of the character finding out at the end. I felt like it was very easy to see that there was an underlying trait but maybe that’s just because I am a mom to a neurodivergent child and live in that world.

All the self talk and paranoia from the main character got a bit repetitive but I understood why it was done.

Enid is a lesbian who loves space and true crime. She goes on dates with many many people, and this sometimes gets her in trouble. She has a strained familial relationship between her mom, her half sisters, and their mom, and she has one best friend. She's convinced that someone has been breaking into her apartment, and she's terrified of bald men. This book went in so many directions I wasn't expecting but I loved them all. It wasn't a romance, it wasn't a drama, it wasn't a thriller, but had elements of them all. Enid felt like such a real, flawed character and I loved getting to know her and seeing her figure out a bit more about herself through the process.

I loved Emily Austin’s debut Everyone in this Room Will Someday be Dead and it’s one of the books that helped me fall back in love with reading in 2021. It’s not at all surprising that I loved this book just as much.

Enid was such an awkward and relatable main character. I saw a lot of myself in her and more than once I had to stop and think, “Wow, Emily. Get out of my brain.” Whatever weird little thoughts you’ve had that you think there is no way anyone else would think it? Yeah, you get it. In addition to being terrified of bald men and obsessed with murder podcasts, Enid also shares random interesting space facts with her mother as a wellness check and spends her free time watching and reporting the old YouTube videos she made in her teen years.

Please read this if you like:
-Books that are more character than plot
-LGBTQ+ rep
-Mental health rep/neurodivergent MC
-Complicated family dynamics
-Interesting facts about space 😉

Thank you to Atria and NetGalley for a review copy.

I haven’t yet read Emily Austin’s debut, but after reading this one, I definitely am beginning to understand the hype!

This was a wonderful sometimes-funny, sometimes-awkward, always-earnest look into the life of protagonist Enid, who likes true crime podcasts and casual dating, as she deals with difficult family relationships, a phobia of bald men, and her own brain. The voice and writing was wonderful and really vividly brought Enid to life, which I loved; she was a really wonderful character. My major critique is that the ending felt a little rushed and perhaps a little too neatly tied-up, which made the overall pacing feel a little weird.

Overall, a very good read, and I very much look forward to picking up the author’s first book. Thank you so much to Atria Books and Netgalley for the advance copy!

First of all, I think this would make a really great book club book! There’s so much to ponder and discuss.

I think this book was a masterpiece of writing but I didn’t really like it at the same time. 😂 It was such an odd story and the chapters were so long! (I’m a short chapter girl) I think for me it was a 3 star read but I’m giving it 4 because the writing really was so good.

This was a book I had to enjoy a little at a time. It was deep, profound, heavy, and kind of depressing. It was like a fine wine. You can’t chug it or you’ll miss the beauty in it. It was a fascinating look into a different way of thinking. Polly was by far my favorite character. I loved the ending and how Enid was able to grow and heal.

The gradual insight into her past made me itch to pick it up and the slow unraveling of her reasoning behind things was so intriguing. The characters were bold and believable. I think it would make a FANTASTIC movie!

I’m not sure what to compare it to as I’ve never read anything quite like it before. I think if you enjoy the human psyche and are a counselor or therapist I think you may find this book riveting!

Interesting Facts about Space is the first novel I’ve read by Emily Austin. The style of writing is extremely immersive and makes it an easy book to get lost in. Enid’s world is fascinating, blunt but passive, confusing but literal. To me, it was about surreal. Being hyper-aware of the minute details of someone’s life was unsettling but interesting. The romance aspect didn’t work for me, but the oddness and the way they tumbled forward was sweet. The not-quite mystery that carried through in the background stood out the most to me. It’s a memorable story for its uniqueness, but also for the genuine portrayal of neurodivergence and the complicated relationships within families.

Emily Austin is officially an auto-buy author.

'Everyone in this Room Will Someday be Dead' is one of my favorite books of all time, so I could NOT wait to read this. And guess what? 10/10! A million stars. AMAZING

Great mental health rep, engaging writing, realistic and flawed, but lovable characters <3

This was an interesting "sad girl" kind of book. Your main character is space-obsessed, lesbian, bald-man-fearing, half-deaf, true-crime-podcast-listener Enid who is struggling with dating woes and extreme anxiety and paranoia.

She's just live laugh loving and setting up grapes behind her door to catch the bald man who's maybe breaking into her apartment?? And sharing interesting facts about space with her mother when she doesn't know what else to say. She's quirky and extremely relatable and human. There were laugh-out-loud moments, and heartbreaking moments, with a weird almost-twist at the end. I enjoyed spending time with Enid. It had a "can't look away" quality to it even though it didn't have much plot to uncover.

Thank you to the publisher for granting me access to an ARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions remain my own.

If you liked Eleanor Oliphant, then this book is for you. Enid was raw, real, and relatable. Part character study, part healing and addressing mental health, part love story, I read it in a single sitting!

Interesting Facts about Space is the new release by Emily R. Austin, author of Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead. It is funny and entertaining, reminiscent of Graeme Simison's The Rosie Project, but with a queer young female narrator. Enid finds true crime podcasts soothing, is deaf in one ear, has a phobia of bald men, and is an expert on space. Her social interactions are limited to brief hookups from the fourteen dating apps she has installed on her phone, one gay guy from work who gets her, and her depressed mother whom she communicates with largely through relating facts about space. When someone breaks into her apartment, her fears escalate to paranoia. Her way of seeing and interacting with the world will keep you chuckling while you turn the pages.

Interesting Facts About Space is a quirky, lovely book about self-discovery and self-acceptance and self-love, and about just how hard all of those things are to accomplish. Our narrator is Enid, who is obsessed with outer space and true crime podcasts, who has a phobia of bald men and is terrified of commitment, and who usually deals with her emotions by quashing them way, way down. We meet Enid at a pivotal moment in her life, as she is trying to forge a relationship with her half-sisters, dealing with the threat of a stalker, and accidentally stumbles into a new romance.

It's a book where not a lot really happens, it's just a character study focused on a young woman fumbling her way through life -- but it kept me completely engaged, from beginning to end. The narrative has an addictive, compulsively readable quality, at turns laugh-out-loud funny and sweetly touching and insightful. It's a sneakily complex, smart book, wrapped in an entertaining package. Enid is a charming, lovable, and relatable protagonist, and the supporting characters felt so genuine too; I was moved by how much they truly cared about Enid, even when she wasn't being the best daughter/sister/lover/friend.

At its core, Interesting Facts About Space is a book about what it means to be gloriously, imperfectly human, how we are all messy and broken and beautiful -- how important it is to love ourselves despite and because of it all, and to let our people love us too.

Enid is the narrator of this character-driven, deeply emotional, quirky (in the best way) page-turner. As a queer woman living with hearing loss, Enid has enough societal challenges as it is, but she is also beginning to wonder if she is truly losing touch with reality. We follow her while she navigates through complicated relationships, a reckoning with the past, and a journey of self-discovery.

This was a page-turner for me for two main reasons: the chapters are divided into smaller vignettes (my tired brain loves that), and there is a psychological mystery at the center: what is causing Enid’s struggles? She is complex, funny, relatable (to me), and lovable despite her many human flaws.

This novel absolutely blew me away with its psychological depth, understanding of OCD, neurodiversity, as well as other mental challenges. Although Enid is sometimes a prickly character, her lovable qualities were so strong that I was rooting for her the entire time. I wanted to stay in her world and find out what happens! My heart will never be the same. I cannot say enough good things about this incredible novel!

There are some very heavy subjects dealt with so check out CWs.

Enid is lovable, quirky, and refreshingly human. Her story is a 'real person' story with the type of cringe we can all relate to. The neurodivergent and queer representation is fantastic and there are definitely some laugh out loud moments. Still, something about reading this made me feel sad. I wasn't ready for this.

I loved this book. I picked up pretty early on that Enid was likely autistic or at least neurodivergent but I think the way the author went about utilizing this and not disclosing until close to the end was well done. I loved the narrative voice and the fact that at times, we didn't know what was reality and what was Enid's anxiety/paranoia. Well done, I will definitely be checking out the author's debut.

The narrator of Interesting Facts about Space is captivating as readers are immediately drawn into her often anxious and spiraling internal moderator. Even with the sparse language used in her writing style, Austin introduces us to well-rounded, rich characters that have certainly stayed with me long after I finished this book. I am confident readers will love the humor and heart in this book.

I'm a mom to three kids and all three are neurodivergent. One is on the spectrum. And has been obsessed with space for nearly her entire life. She follows the news about Space X on the daily (but don't get her started on its founder). She's also queer. And she loves cats. This book follows the somewhat ordinary life of Enid as she tries to figure out who she is and coming into her own as an adult who is possibly on the spectrum with some mental illness thrown in and has a few dysfunctional family relationships. This book was fantastic and I hope it earns all the praises it deserves.

I was so excited to be approved for "Interesting Facts about Space." The main character was quirky and likable. I thought Enid was relatable and I was rooting for her the entire time. I loved the LGBTQ+ representation as well. I flew through this one and absolutely loved it.

A rather strange but surprisingly touching read!

So I won't lie, I found parts of this book to be really weird and a little cringey, but some of that became wrapped up in our main character, Enid, a well-written neurodivergent soul, who struggles with a variety of phobias and some issues caused by being born deaf in one ear. Enid copes by focusing on space facts and listening to true crime podcasts. She's a serial dater (and is a lesbian, which makes this book wonderfully queer) who has never had a serious relationship.

We find Enid struggling to develop a relationship with her half sisters, whom she's never really known, as her father abandoned her and her mom when she was just a kid. As a result, she grew up dealing with her mom's depression and mood swings. Enid slowly realizes that some of her fears (such as being terrified of bald men) might relate to her difficult childhood. She starts to think someone is breaking into her apartment. This all sounds serious, but much of this book is witty and quirky. It's told in very short snippets from Enid's point of view, with flashbacks going all the way back to her childhood.

Some of these snippets are definitely odd (Enid had a YouTube channel as a kid, for instance, and she recorded some weird stuff). But overall, as we get to know Enid and watch her trying to form bonds with her half sisters, struggle to be a good daughter to her mom, attempt to actually form a real relationship with a woman named Polly (whom she meets in quite an interesting way), and maintain her closest friendship with her co-worker Vin... well, she grows on you! There are some very touching moments, some bizarre ones, some sweet ones. You have to really give this book a chance and truly experience it--it's hard to describe. It's different and character-driven, and I think it's worth a read.