I WANT IT I NEED IT I WILL COMMIT MINOR CRIMES IF I CAN JUST HAVE A COPY OF THIS BOOK IN MY HANDS PLEASE MAY I HAVE IT70 s6 comments Nilufer Ozmekik2,545 51.9k

Before uploading this digital reviewer copy, I checked the book's Goodreads page and witnessed an avalanche of praise! Readers, without even reading it, were ready to trade internal organs for a copy, lauding Emily Austin's writing. I wondered why I hadn't delved into her work before, especially since the blurb resonated with me—quirky, peculiar, addicted to true crime podcasts, and grappling with a dysfunctional relationship with her mother. It felt the author had written a book about me, and I wanted to ensure she hadn't spilled too many of my secrets.

Diving into the book, I soon realized that all the accolades fell short of capturing the brilliance of this novel. It has swiftly claimed a spot in my top five fictions of the year, and while voting for the Goodreads Choice Awards may be a tad premature, this book might have ruined me for others. It's exceptional, intelligent, mind-blowing, engaging, and takes your emotions on a rollercoaster of highs and lows. It's simultaneously sad and entertaining, unearthing complex emotions I didn't know I was grappling with.

Enter Enid—a 26-year-old, queer, randomly dating via apps, one-of-a-kind individual, probably on the spectrum, dealing with her inner demons in unconventional ways, mostly paranoid, and working in a space center with encyclopedic knowledge about space, which she loves sharing with her mom.

Her list of grievances includes:

Her father.
Gina: the woman her father left her mother for, starting another family.
Kids who were mean to her in elementary school.
All bald men: an unhealthy phobia with no known reason.
Anyone she loaned a pen to who didn't return it.
People who don't cats.
A lady who spoke to her for an hour without telling her there was something in her teeth.
Men on the "women interested in women" side of dating apps.
Her landlord and all landlords, who keep texting her not to have a pet in her apartment, even though she doesn't have one!
Married people who try to date her.
People who get on public transportation before waiting for others to get off first.

Her habits include listening to murder stories, having casual lesbian sex, and telling her mom interesting facts about space. However, her routine takes a turn when her date's wife, Polly, shows up at her door crying. Enid lets her in, giving her a bath and offering a shoulder to cry on. This unconventional meeting sparks an unexpected connection, but Enid also becomes wary of someone breaking into her apartment and stalking her. Is it Polly's ex, her obsessive landlord, or her new bald neighbor? Why is she afraid of bald people, and what deeper fears is she avoiding?

Enid's journey to normalcy involves connecting with her half-sisters amid Gina's sarcastic comments, pushing her further into her shell. She must explore and confront her fears, unlocking the possibility of being loved in return.

Overall, it's a mind-blowing, perfect read that I wholeheartedly recommend. I'm thrilled to have discovered another brilliant, auto-approved author.

A heartfelt thanks to NetGalley and Atria Books for sharing this fantastic book's digital reviewer copy in exchange for my honest opinions.

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This one is for the ones who have to mask in everyday conversations, the ones who have constant paranoia about everything from accidentally saying the wrong thing to being murdered, the ones who continually do things that they know are bad for them and maybe not completely ethical, the ones who spent their middle school through college masking so people would them and are now trying to pick up the pieces of who they are and put them back together. This one was for me and if any of what I said sounds you, this one is for you too.

“I want to be the type of frozen asteroid that is burned up by a star, and never creates crates in the moon or kills of the dinosaurs.”

After feeling relatively lukewarm about Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead (a book I thought I would fall in love with), I went into Interesting Facts About Space cautious yet hopeful. The first page feels a bit of a bold start as I was dropped right into the true crime podcast that Enid was listening to while she ran her errands. Here is where you, my dear friends, learn something about me: I hate true crime. I had a phase when I was a kid way too young to be listening to it (I think that is partially why I’m so paranoid all the time) and I have a lot of issues concerning how true crime is handled in pretty much every form of media – with podcasts being the top offender for me. So yeah, rough start having to read a bunch of true crime stuff. All that to say I can’t exactly say I was hooked by page one, but let me tell you when page two came around so did I. (and if I’m giving a book where I have to read true crime stuff 5 stars, it deserves it).

“I spent a lot of time growing up trying to seem normal. Sometimes I worry I neglected doing the internal work most people do while they’re developing; I was too preoccupied camouflaging. I think I might be stunted because of it. I think I missed a step.”

Enid is a neurodivergent lesbian with rat tattoos, or rattoos (we are three for three for things we have in common so far) who works at the Canadian Space Agency, has a phobia of bald men, and is deaf in one ear, leading to quite a few unpleasant encounters with people yelling at her. All at once a dating app hookup has some serious consequences, she becomes convinced someone is breaking into her apartment, a coworker at work becomes a very big stressor, and her half-sisters and stepmom are making an effort to include her more as a family member. I would almost venture to call this a “slice of life” novel if that life includes a base level of paranoia, anxiety, and phobias of bald men. We follow Enid as she navigates new and old social situations, oftentimes overthinking. Emily Austin is really incredible at eliciting very strong emotions while writing about relatively simple things. In Interesting Facts About Space we don’t see much of a plot, but we see so much depth in these characters and their interactions. Everyone is flawed, but everyone is loveable. There are so many casually devastating insights on the people Enid is close to that my heart was genuinely just hurting too much for them to think negatively of them (well except one person who does suck, but they are homophobic so it’s a bit different). There are misunderstandings and miscommunications but there are happy nights where Enid can truly be relaxed with people she loves. (I am not going into the majority of these people because I think that they are best kept as surprises, but the love interest is one of my favorite characters in general. Despite her flaws, I was so in love with her.)

“I want to linger here in the in-between, half made, in some permanent adolescence, forever. I don’t ever want to become my full self.”
“I managed to overcome aspiring to appear normal but never really figured out what I should aspire to be.”

Reading this book consisted of a lot of me thinking “damn, I’ve never had an original thought in my life” which is honestly quite comforting, especially when it comes to thoughts about how you wish you could shed away your layers of rot and become anyone else. Enid stifles herself continually, preventing any growth, because of this deep-rooted fear that nothing she will output into the world will ever be good. This makes her incredibly avoidant in every single type of relationship imaginable because she is so scared of being too weird or actually being evil and tricking everyone into liking her. She is such a realistic and painful character, and you can really tell that Austin is writing from experience.

There’s one point where Enid reflects; “I wish I could have one nice interaction with everyone and then disappear.” and oh my god I just wanted to scream “Yes! Exactly!” Austin nails writing about how absolutely terrifying interactions are and how somehow they manage to be worse the more you know someone because the stakes seem to get higher if you do the wrong thing. And who is to say what the wrong thing is? Not me nor Enid, but we'll be overthinking about it in a corner somewhere probably. It is such a pleasure to be able to see someone else have similar thoughts to you. One of my favorite parts of the book was seeing how learning about other people’s experiences and seeing how discussing shared experiences can help shift the perspective a bit and lessen the load. Seeing solidarity in someone else can allow someone to gain the courage to take next steps, even if that next step is just accepting that you aren't the weirdest/worst person in the world and that everyone makes similar mistakes as you - we're all only human after all.

“ ‘Are you okay?’ I ask.
‘Yes,’ she says. ‘I’m fine. I just wondered if you have any interesting facts about space?’ ”

Whenever Enid feels she is doing something that would “betray” her mother, she calls her and tells her an interesting fact about space. Through this simple act, a window is opened into the depth of their relationship dynamic that feels bittersweet. While she seems incredibly close to her mom, there is a lot of guilt there that stems from having a suicidal parent and not knowing exactly what could set her off. Every happy moment we see between them is immediately juxtaposed with an incredibly sad moment or realization. There is a tenderness to the relationship that shows a genuine love, but there is also this distance created from Enid’s need to make sure that her mom never feels worried about her or feels her issues impaired Enid’s development. There is one line she says about her and her friend Vin’s mothers that sums up ; “The reality of having mothers ours is that the only possible reprieve from worrying about finding them dead is them dying.” There’s always that fear. If you lash out because of something negative that happened in your childhood or interact with someone they may not , you immediately have to reign in those emotions and go into “take care of mom” because as soon as the door to her room slams you have no idea if what you said was enough to put her in a state that she’d try to do something to herself again. It’s terrifying, but it’s also exhausting. I found this aspect to be handled incredibly well here, allowing me to understand the trauma her mom put her through while still sympathizing and loving her mom.

“I will never understand how my dad could stand in the glow of my mom, as if an inch from a star, and be unmoved by her formidable light. It has been devastating to watch her fade in response to him.”

I love Enid’s mom and I especially love how Austin portrays her. There’s a lot of stuff done really well in this book, but the mother-daughter relationship takes the cake. Austin has a way of writing these incredibly nuanced and flawed characters in a way that really makes you feel for and understand them and their actions. There is a perfect (and very realistic) mix of heartbreaking and heartwarming moments with this relationship. I probably cried the most while reading about the mother-daughter relationship. It was probably my favorite relationship explored. I don’t know how to describe except as raw and real.

“I never want to cut myself open, though. In fact, I would rather be sealed shut. I’d rather be treated a cursed tomb and have every orifice in my body cemented.”

I can’t call this the best book I’ve ever read, and maybe it’s a new favorite solely because of how much I was able to relate to Enid, but this book managed to make me feel anxious and comforted – often at the same time – and is so special in how raw it is. I already want to reread this because of the level of comfort I felt while reading it. This five-star rating feels a lot more personal than my others. The content isn’t necessarily five-star worthy, but the emotions it elicited from me are. Though they aren’t really similar, the two pieces of media I’ve ever really felt this way about are Dead Poets Society and It’s Only Life by the Shins so this automatically gets 5 stars for being the embodiment of a warm, comforting hug for me. Also, this is my Goodreads so I can just rate things however I want. Everything is arbitrary, nothing is real. I love this book so much. Please read it for me (please
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