A review by readingpicnic
We Could Be Rats by Emily Austin

  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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.
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