What makes Austin’s novel stand out is the authenticity and care which she employs when depicting Gilda’s struggles. As funny as the novel is, it’s equally dark and intensely harrowing. This debut is profound for its honest portrayal of mental health in a chaotic modern world, giving space for humour and tenderness while reckoning with the absurdity of the human condition.
... while Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead contains humor and discussions of death aplenty, it would be off the mark entirely to say the takeaway of Emily Austin’s debut novel is that death is funny. Morbid humor exists for a reason: to poke fun at our inevitable ends and lighten its emotional load. But the humor in the novel can’t quite be called 'morbid,' either. Austin has done something remarkable—she’s written an utterly irreverent story with a narrator who’s fixated on death, but death is never the punchline and someone’s passing (or the thought of their passing) is never treated with anything but the utmost tenderness. And it’s really, really funny ... Austin approaches the subject of death in a wry, humorous way that doesn’t diminish the endless anxiety it provokes in all of us. It’s not that death itself is funny, but the strings of panicked thoughts and overreactions are so relatable that it’s hard not to see our own anxieties here on the page, and there’s humor in that recognition.
Filled with dark humor, Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead is a beguiling read. Gilda is wholly unique, yet at the same time, exceedingly relatable. The world through her eyes is often a terrifying one, but it is one that anyone who has dealt with anxiety will no doubt recognize. Through it all, Gilda’s endlessly good heart shines through, making her impossible not to root for.
The book seamlessly flips between past and present, taking readers to Gilda’s childhood and youth, and a portrait of a quirky, highly intelligent, introspective young woman emerges, one who is clearly an outlier in her nuclear family. Austin succeeds in keeping the reader highly engaged, to discover who killed Grace and also how things will end up with Gilda. Her debut blends mystery and in-depth character examination, and just as it starts to feel a bit too intense, when we are thrust into the psyche of the neurotic central character, she defuses it with just the right amount of wit and black humor. The combination makes the book a page turner and marks Austin as a stellar storyteller.
... spellbinding and unforgettable ... Gilda's anxiety and social ineptitude could hardly be overstated, and she bumbles through life with such painful clumsiness that her story should be hard to read. But somehow, Austin's remarkable narrative is engaging and snappily paced even when its first-person narrator is lying in a dry, empty bathtub without the will to move. Gilda's voice is frequently extremely funny, with gut-laugh punchlines made more effective because they are so surprising ... disarmingly sweet even in its grimness. Gilda is a singularly memorable character.
Austin uses seasons in the church calendar to identify stages in Gilda’s journey, moving from Advent to Easter as she captures the essence of Gilda’s angst and redemption. Along the way, her characters are hilarious, relatable, exasperating, and endearing. For all readers of fiction.
The story unfolds through Gilda’s macabre, yet darkly humorous interior monologue ... Austin skillfully writes in short bursts with restrained, mordant prose to produce a breathless quality analogous to the character’s frequent panic attacks ... Austin’s limited descriptions also allow Gilda’s story to be an accessible, though exceptional, scenario for the novel’s audience ... Ultimately, Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead is about the fragility of being human and surviving in a world that can sometimes feel overwhelmingly sad and troubled. The close of the novel may leave readers on a hopeful note.
Gilda's internal monologue is weighed down with meditations on death and crippling imposter syndrome. Some readers will find it hilariously relatable while others might find it superfluous and aggravating. Gilda’s ignorance when it comes to the rituals of the Catholic Church and her bumbling attempts to blend in at work are some of the funniest passages in this dark but funny novel ... The secondary characters add lightness to the story despite Gilda's constant thoughts of death, offering a reprieve from her internal monologue ... Readers will find themselves rooting for the lovable but traumatized heroine.
Runaway humor sustains an otherwise grim story in Austin’s exuberant debut ... What starts out as genuinely bleak affair, with a depressed Gilda considering suicide, becomes a brisk story underpinned by a vibrant cast.
