A story about two sisters who internalized their childhoods and family dynamics in very different ways.

I loved the sisterly love that Sigrid and Margit had despite everything. This story was told so interestingly in three parts. The first being a series of suicide notes from Sigrid. In the second part we get Margit’s POV, then end again with Sigrid. Sigrid grapples with the reality of growing up while yearning for the simplicity and innocence of childhood.

4.5 ⭐️ Wow! Thank you NetGalley for this ARC and for allowing me to finally see the brilliance of Emily Austin. This one will break your heart and somehow put it back together as well. A completely unique read I didn’t expect to love as much as I did. My only advice is to of course check your trigger warnings, it’s a heavy one

If you read & enjoyed My Year of Rest and Relaxation, I think you’ll love this book. It’s very reflective, with little to no plot—but not in a bad way. For the first half of the book, every chapter is a suicide note attempt. Sigrid can’t seem to get it quite right… then we switch to her sister Margit’s narration, and ultimately end back with Sigrid. This book does unreliable narration and female rage VERY well.

Two sisters who grew up very different. One who is motivated to be successful do well and move through life achieving all her goals. While Sigrid is happy with her life just being the way it is and has no ambition to grow up and be an adult.

This was my first Emily Austin book and I will definitely be going back and reading her backlog.

This had me enthralled from the first page. Sisters mean a lot to me and I love reading different relationships and how they shape us.

I loved everything about this. Might be my favorite use of an unreliable narrator yet. That switch late in the book was so good.

What wonderful use of Austin's platform to showcase mental illness, queer living in a small town, toxic households and a ton more we should always be talking about.

I'll be thinking about this one for a while!

Thank you NetGalley and Atria for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.

I hate to say this but i think we could be rats will probably be austin's most divisive novel yet, not because of the writing quality (it's introspective and relatable as always), but because of the risk in perspectives austin takes. i just didn't think the emotional release was as strong as her other work because i felt like i couldn't get deeper into the characterization of sigrid in the first 60% and wanted more time with her in the parts of the novel that were left. i did like the idea of how it can be hard to give people the credit to notice when something is wrong and thought it was a mature realization despite my misgivings with the pacing. overall, i just really want to discuss this with someone when it comes out.

(+ this one feels like it's for the giving tree older sisters and the archie comics younger sisters. the discussion on the role of children's imaginations and it's eventual death were great as well.)

Emily Austin stories always have a dream like quality to them. Her writing is witty and beautiful and gut wrenching all in the same sentence. Any fans of her previous books are sure to love this one. Austin formats this book differently than her other works and it betters the story. It allows you to get into the minds of these sisters and how their childhood shaped their lives as adults.

Thank you so so much to Atria Books for the opportunity to read this book in advance of it's release date, January 28 2025!
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5 stars easily and HAPPILY!!!! I more recently read Interesting Facts About Space and was endeared so by it. Emily Austin has this really special ability to write about extremely niche situations and weird people (i say this affectionately) and using it as a way to represent how it feels to be a human in general but especially in this incredibly nebulous time in the world. The format of this book immediately gets you invested and is so easily digestible. I loved how I immediately I had something to grasp onto. Sigrid as a main character is very unique, I found myself really relating to her struggles and turmoil. I also really enjoyed Margit and how she is quite the opposite of Sigrid and how they reacted differently of the traumatic sort of nature of their childhood but we discover in the end the sheer level of care they have for each other. The narrative really pushes you to points where you are like well who is really reacting "correctly", just to realize oh- I can understand the both of them. There is just an undercurrent how truly important and radical love and empathy is, especially in times like these where everything is so awful and heightened. It was just a perfect story with great pacing, constantly had me tearing up with the lines that just hit to the core and an ending where I just open mouth sobbed for a few seconds. Another incredibly human and heart warming story by Austin!!! Consider me a MAJOR FAN!!!

Quite frankly obsessed!! Another win for weird lesbians.

I'm not even sure what to say except that this was really good, and it keeps getting better the more I think about it.

I loved the structure of this book with an unreliable narrator and the twist halfway through. I was enthralled and invested in the characters and the story, quite literally, from the first page. Austin's writing is also just so nice to read. This was my commute book and I was genuinely so excited to get on the train every day so I could read this book. The way Austin writes about growing up, being queer in a small town, mental illness, interpersonal relationships, and just being alive as a young adult in this crazy world is so genuine and raw. She seems to put some of my exact thoughts and emotions into words better than I ever could and it's a little scary but I'm here for it. This book was quite melancholic, but also, in the end, incredibly hopeful.

Thank you to Netgalley for the ARC!

Well I finished this and immediately burst into tears lol. This hit home in so many specific and tiny ways, that it really just hit me in the gut. I think this author and I would be friends, and have a lot to talk about. Wow.

I’d never read anything by this author before but will definitely be picking up future books. This one really stuck with me in a positive way and I know I’ll be thinking about it for a very long time.

I want to live in Emily Austin's head. Her novels always balance dark humor with mental health struggles and a cathartic release. This book has very heavy topics and I can see it being a difficult read for many. We have: the repercussions of growing up in a household of domestic violence; the loss of a childhood friend to opiod addiction; familial homophobia and bigotry; a suicide attempt (not described on page); the agony of growing up and not having the life Child You dreamed of or being the person Child You wanted to be.

Sigrid and her sister Margit are such real and heart wrenching characters. The novel switches between the two sisters and one of them pretending to be the other. I shed many tears. My soul feels raw. This has confirmed that I'll pick up anything and everything that Emily Austin writes.

Also might start following Sigrid/Margit's lead and say "ibs" to leave social situations.

A melancholy, yet achingly beautiful meditation on sisterhood, society, and the passage of time. I fcking love Emily Austin! Thanks so much to Netgalley/Atria for the ARC! I can’t wait for everyone to read this.

If you’ve read any of Emily Austin’s previous novels, you know what you’re in for: darkly comedic contemporary fiction with a mystery element, about a 20-something lesbian struggling with mental illness, for fans of Fleabag. This latest title is also reminiscent of David Foster Wallace's story "Good Old Neon."

I feel a bit conflicted about this one. On the one hand, I feel like there was something missing from this book, though I’m not sure what. A little more resolution, maybe. I don’t need everything to be neatly tied up—life is messy, and these characters’ lives especially so—but the ending here is kind of abrupt and not quite as satisfying as I’d hoped for.

On the other hand, I read this book in a day, so I can’t in good conscience give it less than four stars. Maybe 3.75.

Some parts are too on the nose for my taste (“I prefer the world I built in the basement to reality. I wish real life were happier and more magical”). But some parts are quite funny and offer delightful turns of phrase like “drank myself gay.”

Part of the problem is just that I had really high expectations because I loved Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead. This latest might be my least favorite of Emily Austin’s books, but Emily Austin books are like pizza: even the “bad” ones are still good. I will still 100% read any future books she writes.

Emily Austin crushes my heart again with this one. Her way of writing is so beautiful even with such a hard topic.

I loved Sigrid. She felt so real, like when you catch up with a friend who has made a string of shit decisions and you two just continue to eat your lunch together because you know eventually it will be your turn to be the friend making shit decisions.

OH MY GOD. This is the best book I have read all year. I have been a huge fan of Emily Austin since Everyone in this Room Will Someday Be Dead and my love for her writing grows with each book.
I resonated so much with Sigrid and Margit, especially with how powerless they felt or the need to be the peacekeeper. Emily has a true gift of capturing the realities of struggling with mental health.

If you are into books for the plot, this might not be the book for you though I encourage you to give it a read!!

Thank you to NetGalley and Atria Books for a free digital ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.
I was beyond excited to receive an ARC of this book and let out a “yippee!” of joy! Full of the morbid humor I’ve come to love and expect from Emily Austin, she is a definite auto-read author for me. I’m also obsessed with the continuation of the lesbian main characters of her novels having old woman names, which brings me such unbridled joy. This one’s for the undiagnosed neurodivergent mentally ill sapphics who never quite got along with their family members due to not understanding social cues and were constantly admonished for being too “rude,” “ungrateful,” “impolite,” “abrasive,” “blunt,” and “difficult” and now live in a constant state of anxiety that they are off-putting to everyone around them. I just feel like Emily Austin scooped her main characters out of my brain whenever I read her books–they are far too relatable. Please picture me giggling quietly to myself at my library service desk while reading this. I honestly did not expect the twist ~60% through the book, and it was a pleasant surprise and a great shift in the storytelling, as I was starting to feel that it was getting a bit repetitive for me. I think this book could have easily only included Sigrid's POV and given us her perspective of Margit, but I was really glad that her perspective was shared to, as she is not holding it together like Sigrid thinks she is, and it really showed her complexity as a character--really great way of showing the distance that has grown between the sisters and how they have warped views of each other. The small town politics present through most of the story was also far too relatable, especially the arguments with family members, the pressure to keep quiet and maintain a false sense of peace even while the people around you are spouting hatred, the Facebook comment arguments (which I did partake in with someone from my town about wedding cake makers refusing to serve queer people). I found myself highlighting so many quotes while I was reading and having as good of a time as I could due to the subject matter dealing heavily with mental illness and su*cide. I've come to love how there's always some little mystery that constantly pesters at the main characters of Emily Austin's books: the missing cat in Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead, the people "fucking" upstairs in Interesting Facts About Space, the googly eye thief in this book. There's just a really nice consistency across all of these books and they feel inextricably connected with their main characters working through mental health struggles and questions of what it means to be a good person. I think if you enjoyed her other books, you would enjoy this one as well--just have some patience with the "attempts" chapters and know that they aren't the format of the whole book.

Emily Austin has very quickly become one of my favorite authors. We Could Be Rats is a wonderfully moving coming of age story dealing with mental health issues, family relationships, and sexuality. Sigrid and Margit have such a painfully real relationship with one another. I particularly enjoyed Sigrid talking about the unexpected reality of being your small town's "queer authority figure," so to speak. I could have easily sat with these characters and this story for another few hundred pages, but I appreciate the tact with which Austin has given to the topics in the 250-some pages that this novel contains.

Earlier this month I was given the glorious opportunity to read "Blue Sisters" by Coco Mellors, and I never thought that another book would come close to the feeling I got while reading that book so soon. I WAS SO WRONG.
This book was so great. It tackled the ways in which sisters are attached, and how we want to hold onto our childhood while also how we want to grow up so fast. It was absolutely amazing and I would definitely recommend it to anyone who came into my store.
Thank you so much to Netgalley, Emily Austin, and the publishing team behind this title for giving me the opportunity to read this title early.

Emily Austin does it again with one of my favorite books. I love the way the author writes characters and how raw and real they feel. Finished this book so quickly and kept wanting to pick it up. 4.5/5 stars