So I'm reading this story and feel like it's not good for me to be reading this story but every now and then, I really, truly laughed out loud! Gilda's fixation on death is incorporated seamlessly into the narrative, harshly grounding her story in reality. I also didn’t mind the takedown of the Catholic Church, though it should be said that Austin doesn’t hit below the belt and say anything too barbaric. What’s not helping is that a young male congregant has decided that he’s attracted to Gilda, and although she’s gay and has a girlfriend, she agrees to go out with him, again to maintain appearances.

I almost gave the story 3 stars because it seems weird to give it 4 stars when it made me feel so bad. This book is a snowball of mundane things, everyday misunderstandings, and small cruelties that add and add until it is nearly impossible not to see some sort of reflection of your own life in it. 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.When it appears that foul play may have been a part of Grace’s demise, Grace gets arrested and her troubles intensifies.

There is a lot of stream of consciousness going on, especially towards the end where it was actually kind of anxiety-provoking (as opposed to suspenseful) for me.Emily Austin's narration is so fundamentally kind that you can feel the warmth coming off each page .

There are also sweet side tales involving animals, and interspersed throughout the story are some really warm moments. It's impossible not to root for her as she navigates love, religion, mental health and everything in between .

She is so depressed that she can't even put her dishes in the sink so she just piles them up in her bedroom, a leaning tower of food rot. There were a few funny moments of fish-out-of-water humor as Gilda tries to understand the rules of the Catholic religion. It's not the most obvious job - she's queer and an atheist for starters - and so in between trying to learn mass, hiding her new maybe-girlfriend and conducting an amateur investigation into Grace's death, Gilda must avoid revealing the truth of her mortifying existence. Gilda might be an accidental Catholic, a lapsed lesbian, and an inept receptionist, but she's awfully good at helping us reckon-hilariously, tenderly-with our impending deaths.