Do you ever read a book that is very well written but just didn't quite click with you?

Unfortunately, that was me with We Could Be Rats. The book deals with relationships and mental health and while this typically will captivate me as a reader, i just couldn't click with Sigrid.

Im still giving this 3 stars because it is well written and the message will no doubt captivate the right reader!

This is not a review of We Could Be Rats (out today!) so much as a thank you note to its author, Emily Austin, for writing this book specifically for me.

It’s rare for me to get everything I love about novels in one package, but We Could Be Rats really delivered—a distinct voice, the perfect balance of humour and heaviness, sharp observations, narrative ambition (the structure reminded me a bit of Susan Choi’s Trust Exercise or Trust by Hernan Diaz), and a protagonist I connected deeply with.

I can’t remember the last time a character made me feel as seen as Sigrid did. So seen, in fact, that I had to wonder if the book hadn’t just been written for me, but about me (yes, as it happens, I am aware I’m not a 20-ish lesbian surrounded by small town narrow-mindedness and dealing with family trauma and the impacts of the opioid crisis. Yet somehow the Venn diagram of our brains is practically a circle).

Another thing I particularly loved: The ending. Austin really stuck the landing with that last line. The scope of what it conveys in just a handful of words is breathtaking (but I can’t explain why, not even in vague terms, without lessening its impact. You’ll just have to trust me and read it for yourself).

We Could Be Rats won’t be for everyone—the first half-ish of the novel consists of multiple drafts of a suicide note—but if you’re able to set aside any trepidation you might have around that, you will find a deeply human, empathetic and tender story about leaving childhood behind, sisterhood and finding your place in the world (“It’s hard for me to reconcile being my authentic self with existing comfortably.” Oof. That’s a gut-punch of a line right there).

This is my favourite Austin so far, and reminded me of Miriam Toews, so if you’re a fan of the latter, this one could be for you.

Thank you Atria Books for the gifted digital copy and thank you Simon Audio for the gifted audio copy.

We Could Be Rats
Emily Austin
Publishing Date: January 28, 2025
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

🎧 Narrator: Candace Thaxton 🎧

I keep trying to find words for this one and it’s not coming easy. But in the best kind of way.

This story is essentially about two sisters who each coped with a really challenging childhood in very different ways. I found both sisters so relatable, just in general and then also personally.

Emily Austin was so creative in the way that she structured this book. You do get both sister’s perspectives but not in the typical back and forth of chapters. I didn’t know just how much I appreciated this unique style choice until the book was completely over.

The way the author executes the balance of sincere emotion and levity/humor is *chefs kiss* amazing. I felt like my heart was physically aching at points, then I’d find myself smiling, and then in the end there was hope.

I found the portrayal of mental health to be done respectfully and accurately. The inclusion of LGBTQI+ representation and also the impacts of how one is accepted or not was also well done. The author approached certain topics in such a head on way, which I thought was just really awesome. This book felt so brave, especially in light of current times, Emily Austin has all my respect and adoration after this one.

🎧 I had the privilege of having both the digital and audio copies of this one. The narration was good, but I found myself wanting to hold this book and really absorb it fully by reading with my eyes. I would recommend either tandem or eyeballs only for this one, NOT due to any fault of the narrator, but due to the structure and content.

“One of the benefits of growing up with a sibling is having a witness,” Sigrid writes in one of her twenty-one attempts at a suicide note. Siblings provide corroboration. Having a witness also presents a complication: you will always have competing narratives, competing truths of your shared childhood.

This is the matter at the center of Emily Austin’s third novel We Could Be Rats. The novel follows sisters Sigrid and Margit, who grew up sharing a bunk bed in Drysdale, a town worth visiting only if, according to Sigrid, one “wanted to feel jaded, be hatecrimed, or…had a hankering to try fentanyl in a basement.”

Margit and Sigrid are opposites. Sigrid is a high-school dropout, working part-time at the Dollar Pal, and longing for her childhood days of make-believe and play. Sigrid’s greatest ambition is to be a rat at a county fair, riding the Ferris Wheel and eating discarded fair food. Margit, her older sister by only a year, is the responsible and practical one. She got good grades and moved away for college. Margit never understood why Sigrid couldn’t bite her tongue; Sigrid never understood how Margit could.

Though the opposite sisters are a well-trodden character dynamic in fiction, Austin makes it feel distinct. The text highlights the sisters’ differences not through conflict with each other, but rather the ways they are separately and uniquely in conflict with their past. One of the ways this is accomplished is through descriptions of how they played as children. Sigrid was interested in other-worldly imagination, pretending that the pink insulation in her family’s unfinished basement were clouds over a city she built of her toys. Margit played at being a grown-up, stuffing a pillow under her shirt to feign pregnancy and said a “bad guy” was after her. She would hide under the bed and tell Sigrid to be quiet.

These methods of play characterize the trauma responses both sisters developed to survive the volatile household they grew up in, where their parents’ fights were loud and unpredictable. Sigrid chooses escapism, first in her basement world and then with her best friend Greta as they explored Drysdale. Margit chooses hypervigilance of other people’s emotions in an effort to prevent outbursts from her parents, even if it meant hiding her own emotions. Sigrid instead imagines that her parents are swamp-monsters when they are angry, with scaly green skin and tentacles growing out of their heads. If it’s a fantastical world, maybe it can’t hurt her.

We meet these sisters as they teeter on the crisis points of their coming-of-age, their traumatic childhoods behind them, the vast unknown of adulthood ahead. The novel captures this crisis point in three darkly funny and voice-driven sections from different points of view. In “Sigrid’s Note” she tries to soften the unsoftenable, her attempted suicide. In “The Truth,” Margit, in first-person, must contend with the aftermath of the attempt. And finally, in “Sigrid,” Sigrid, awake from a coma, documents her recovery in a therapy journal. These sections put Margit and Sigrid’s divergent experiences and coping mechanisms in conversation with each other, revealing how they both stem from the same events—for example, the time their dad punched a wall in their bedroom, the death of their grandmother—that they both revisit multiple times.

Their escapism and vigilance aren’t working out as well as they planned. Margit begins to experience the physical and emotional ramifications of constantly dialing into everyone else’s emotions but her own. She lives on edge underneath her upstairs’ neighbors explosive fights that she can’t try to control like she once did with her parents. Sigrid’s penchant for escape has morphed into total detachment and depression at the loss of her best friend Greta to opioid addiction. She avoided growing up as long as she could, dropping out one class shy of her high school degree, and she still longs to play pretend but has no one to play with. Even when she tries to escape through her imagination, the darkness of reality – the loss of her best friend, the disappointment of her parents, the letdown of adulthood – still seeps in.

As both sisters return to the same events over and over again in these pages, they realize that there is only one other person who can corroborate those events, even if the way they tell the stories and dealt with the events are different. We Could Be Rats reveals that part of growing up is accepting that competing narratives can and must co-exist.

We Could Be Rats by Emily Austin ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I’ll read anything Emily Austin writes. 🐀

This read was short and unique. It was filled with quirky characters, and I was impressed with how well I knew them by the end. It was funny and sad. It was breezy and innocent while also being daunting and dark. It was a masterpiece to have done so much in a one-sitting read.

If you’re looking for a truly one-of-a-kind read, check this one out. There are triggers so please take care of yourself before, during, and after reading.

📖 Book Review: We Could Be Rats by Emily Austin

‘I felt like I had to become someone new to grow up. I changed a lot. I became more jaded and serious. I was happier when I was a kid. I was more creative, and I cared less about what other people thought of me. I wish I could go back in time, reconnect with my genuine interests, let go of all social expectations, and feel happy as myself.’

My thoughts 💭

Please check for trigger warnings. ‼️

Thank you NetGalley, Simon & Schuster, and Emily Austin for providing me with an ARC of this book. As always, all thoughts are my own.

This book is truly unlike anything I’ve ever read before. I feel like you truly get to be inside the mind of Sigrid and her sister Margit during a truly devastating part of their lives. Although this book does deal with heavier topics, Emily was able to write the story in a way that keeps you laughing. Unfortunately, this book was very relevant to what the world is dealing with currently. In that way it was a difficult read but also was nice to not feel so alone in this big world. 4/5 ⭐️

Ooof! That hit me in the feels. I am a huge fan of Emily Austin's writing. She has a unique sense of humour and writing style that makes her characters seem like real people, dealing with real life.
Sigrid's sister Margit always wrote her English papers for her, but after graduation they begin to drift apart. We learn about them and their upbringing through a series of notes written by Margit pretending to be Sigrid. She tries so hard to get inside her head, to understand what Sigrid is not only thinking, but what she's going through. One spent their youth sticking up for others, which often created conflict, while the other would do anything to prevent conflict. This leads them to a lack of understanding each other and eventually going their seperate ways. But what if one major event could help them understand each other better, to get things back on track, and be there for each other like when they were little, or is it already too late?

Thank you to Simon and Schuster and NetGalley for the Advanced Reader Copy. This one releases today!! (28 January).

2.5 stars for me. I think this book has so many important messages and at times I found it too relatable. However, I couldn't get past constantly talking about the childhood dolls. Additionally, I sometimes felt so confused as to what was going on (which was a good thing for some of the time), but the whole tone of the book just left me feeling completely desolate and sad. All that aside, I do have to say I love Emily Austin's writing and this cover is perfection!!

[3.5 ★]

told through letter drafts and diary entires, We Could Be Rats follows two sisters as they navigate their lives after living in a house of domestic abuse and conservative ideology. This was very character driven and there are instances where the character goes off on long tangents, a spill-your-guts sort of thought process, and it gets a bit confusing when they backtrack. Nevertheless, Emily Austin excelled at creating characters that are so ... human. They were messy, flawed, and relatable. would recommend if you lean towards character driven works that explore messy family dynamics.

First, this has some TWs so check them out if you have preferences. With that said, this was a beautifully written story, unlike anything I have read. Austin writes so descriptively, allowing the reader to completely picture what is on the page. Parts did ramble a bit which eventually makes sense as you read on. The mental health spiral was handled well and I loved seeing the dynamic between the sisters and how they each viewed the same events.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the advance copy in exchange for my honest review.

I’ve been really interested in Emily Austin’s books since Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead. Interesting Facts About Space was a bit of a miss for me, and this book, We Could Be Rats kinda ebbed and flowed for me.

I like to go in books kinda blindly, so it took me a little bit to kinda figure out what was going on, but once I did, I really started to enjoy it.

These characters were some of my favorite I think, and I really enjoyed getting to learn about the intricacies and dynamics between each of the characters. Relationships can be complicated, and this book really encapsulates that.

I really love Emily’s writing style, and I like how easy it feels to read even though it can also be so complex at times.

I still think her first book for me is my favorite, but I think this has claimed the second position spot.

This is a story about two very different sisters. It is a tender, heartbreaking, and a hopeful exploration of sisterhood, trauma, and imagination. The story felt raw, honest, and so emotional. It’s like a love letter to childhood. It looks at the messiness of being human. I think this is a must-read for anyone who has ever felt out of place or struggled to find their way back to themselves. I loved it!

Thank you so much Atria and Netgalley for the ARC.

I love Emily Austin and was so grateful to get an early copy of WE COULD BE RATS.

As a fickle mood reader, I had trouble with this one for things that have nothing to do with the author's talent. I LOVED Interesting Facts About Space, putting unfair expectations onto RATS, and I struggle with epistolary novels. So despite RATS seeming like a short, quick book at first, I needed to work a little harder to stay engaged. The payoff was worth it, and - as expected with Emily Austin - I teetered between laughing and literally crying at many points in this compact story. Emily Austin just gets it. And she cradles life's truths with care and presents them to you gently, like laughing gas before surgery.

I will continue to read anything she writes - she captures the hollowness and tumult of a traumatic childhood, inert adulthood, and neurodivergence so beautifully and, when needed, sillily. Grateful to Atria for the DRC.

Sigrid and Margit are sisters who grew up in a volatile home but have weathered their challenges very differently. Margit is an over achieving student studying Literature in College. Sigrid believes she is a people pleasing, quiet and smart preferred daughter, but sees herself as intellectual and a disappointment. Sigrid struggles with her own ignorance, and remaining in her hometown after failing to graduate high school. We Could Be Rats is a story of grief, finding one's self and strength in the face of challenging stereotypes and adversity.

We Could be Rats is my first read by Emily Austin, and I can confirm that it will not be my last. Austin writes absolutely beautifully, easily navigating between two different POV's. There are elements of unreliable narration, and deep traumatic subject issues. Trigger warning for attempted suicide and sexual assault on this one! Sigrid and Margit are reliably flawed, fully drawn characters who are so relatable to the reader. They are grappling with major personal issues, and their internal dialogue is believably written and understood. The pacing of this one is relatively slow, with little plot points and a lot of the pacing coming from the girls understanding of what is happening to each of them, but the writing is so beautiful that the reader feels locked in on what they are thinking and experiencing. It is rare for me to feel deeply emotionally connected, and to this one I really did. There were a lot of similar experiences to my own life, and while it could be triggering Austin deals with these issues with grace, honesty and the vulnerability of the characters, that the reader feels seen and understood.

An absolute must read for anyone, who like me, likes darker more descriptive literature!

I PUT OFF READING THIS SINCE I KNEW IT WOULD HURT. like I wanted to read this during winter break I was so excited!!!! BUT I realized I didn't want to be a sobbing mess around my family, so I saved it as my first novel of the year!! and I WAS RIGHT. I CRIED SO MUCH WHILE READING THIS. AHHH I don’t know if I can even properly review this book…

Emily R. Austin is just such a talented writer I wanted to inhale this novel but also savour it as well. I DON’T EVEN KNOW WHERE TO START. Hmmmm I can’t even decide on a rating like, do I give it 5 stars? or a 4.5… I can’t even decide. (edit: I think it’s a 5. like wow) I know I’m being dramatic but THATS HOW GOOD THIS WAS OKAY?!!)

This novel is told epistolary by Sigrid through her suicide note. We are painted a picture of her life beforehand, in this uncomfortably small conservative town, and how her childhood shaped her current worldview. We get the gist—that Sigrid is imaginative through that worldview—thinking of talking dolls and dreaming of pink cotton candy skies. The imagery in this… is stunning. It read so personally like reading someone’s diary, but I guess I suppose it was, it was Sigrid’s.

I really connected to this, it just really hit hard for me. Part coming of age, part family-oriented story. I love these kinds of tales. This story mostly follows childhood trauma, imagination, and what being a sister is like. I identified with both main characters; I could see myself in both of them. This story broke my HEART. I felt this story so deeply, especially when we get to Margit's chapters. like I imagined what I would have felt like if this story had happened to me. That’s how real it felt.

This book was so funny! like yeah, it made me cry, but it also made me laugh so much. God, does this book make you think. And the dysfunction in this book. so realistically written as well. (Question though is the eye movement coping technique even real? I'll have to look into it 😭.) I absolutely want to get my hands on a physical copy eventually. <3 Luckily I have a few backlisted titles to read from Emily R. Austin still. So I won’t have to miss her writing too much.

Thanks so much to the publishers and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this as an e-arc!!

Thank you to Atria Books for an eARC of this book through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

I’m convinced Emily Austin will always deliver the *coolest* title and an ending that perfectly balances raw struggles and the hope that exists in everyday life. This book is broken up into three sections, and in the first one, I was a bit confused on where this book was going. The second section which is Margit’s was my favorite. It was so *real* and full of love, regret, sorrow, and ultimately, hope. The third section, Sigrid’s, made me so angry, emotional, and again, hopeful. There’s little plot to this book, but it made me feel SO much in the best way. This is such a compulsively readable book that leaves you comforted with the knowledge that it’s going to be okay.

WE COULD BE RATS follows Sigrid, a young woman penning her suicide note. Each chapter takes the form of a draft of said note before abandoning it and starting over. I mean, how do you honestly put into words why you’re choosing to end your life when it isn’t as simple as “I’m depressed”?

Over the past few years, Emily Austin has firmly placed herself into my upper echelon of writers. I simply adored both EVERYONE IN THIS ROOM WILL SOMEDAY BE DEAD and INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT SPACE; WE COULD BE RATS is no exception. The way in which she writes about mental health is unlike anything I’ve personally ever experienced. She burrows deep into the minds of her characters, turning them inside out for the world to see – warts and all. You get to know them on an intensely intimate level; she allows their deepest fears and emotions to seamlessly rise to the surface almost like a pot boiling over or an exposed untreated burn. Sigrid’s story is both terribly sad at times but also laugh-out-loud funny with the book featuring a big twist that just about made my jaw hit the floor. Austin is operating on such a creative high right now, I simply cannot get enough of her work.

I was lucky enough to get an advanced copy, but picked up my own physical copy this week. WE COULD BE RATS was one of the best books I had read last year and I can’t wait for others to read it when it hits shelves this week.

After reading Interesting Facts about Space, I knew I wanted to read this book as soon as it was announced. Emily Austin writes books that push me out of my comfort zone in terms of genres, complex characters, and books in general. I went into We Could Be Rats completely blind besides knowing the title and while I knew the book would be unique, I didnt predict just how universal this book could be.

The title of this book is utterly perfect, I love the theme of the rats and their one happy day mixed into a book full of sadness, despair, numbness and overall negative emotions surrounding family and the current state of the world. This book is political, but it does so in a way that will connect with most readers as we've all had these thoughts, Sigrid is not on a singular path, even though her circumstances are unique, what led her to these feelings are not.

I found this book to be beautifully written, I was in tears for some of the book, reminding me that others feel what I feel. I loved the way the book transitioned from suicide letters, to Margit's POV of Sigrid's attempt along with Sigrid's POV outside of the letters. I honestly feel like I could comment on each part of this book individually but I won't but I will say I'll be recommending this book to everyone I know!

After reading my first Emily Austin book, I was a fan. Now after reading my third, I don’t think I could ever go back to a world where her quirky & queer characters didn’t exist.

In We Could Be Rats, sisters Sigrid and Margit have always seen the world differently. While Sigrid continues to resist growing up, Margit feels annoyed by Sigrid’s defiance of societal norms. As the novel progresses the two sisters have to use a little imagination to find their way back to one another.

This book’s perspective is so interesting as you don’t fully trust the narrator and the twists are unexpected as you learn more about Sigrid and Margit’s history. I love going into a book with zero expectations and this one completely blew me away. It’s one of those books you wish to read again for the first time.

I highly recommend this five-star novel to readers who enjoy an unconventional read with memorable characters.

Thank you to NetGalley and Atria Books for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.



I went into this book completely blind and honestly I’m very glad I did! Definitely look up the trigger warnings before jumping in as this book is solely about warnings! It was so raw, emotional, and real I truly felt like I was reading Sigrid’s diary. Emily Austin made these characters feel like people I knew or even past versions of myself in some ways.

Politically this book feels so timely, navigating a family member deep into conspiracy theories, anti-LGBTQ rhetoric, etc. is sadly all too familiar for many people right now. Austin showcased the much more nuanced and layered relationships of individuals in those scenarios showing the good and bad moments.

This book’s framing and overall structure was so unique and will set with me for a long time. About halfway through is the genius turn that Austin perfectly crafted. To find out Margit had edited the notes and drafts of the first half was genius and immediately made me want to re-read the book to try to catch any other clues/hints nodding towards that. And finding out is was Sigrid was the one calling in the bomb threats made me laugh out loud.

This is definitely a book that will stick with me and make me yearn for the sister I never had! Highly recommend, 5/5 stars for me!