Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead

This book had me at "Gilda, a twenty-something, atheist, animal-loving lesbian, cannot stop ruminating about death." I was fully prepared from that one-sentence summary to love this novel, but I hadn't anticipated how much I would identify with Gilda's character (and her neuroses); reading her story was sort of like looking at the worst-case scenario version of myself on paper, which could have easily been terrible, but instead was strangely cathartic. Through Gilda's stream of consciousness, Austin captures what it is to be anxious and depressed and flailing in a way that is darkly funny and emotionally honest and leads us to some surprising and dubious places. It's like The Perks of Being a Wallflower, but with actual young adults instead of teens.