I love all of Emily Austin's books. This one touched a bit home because of the book banning and the nature of my book often being banned, but I love all of her weird lesbian characters as a weird lesbian myself.

Wow. I loved Is This a Cry for Help. It hit close to home as I'm dealing with grief currently, but covered so much more than grief. Book banning, social norms, acceptance. Well done, Emily Austin, thank you for this book.

I'm very biased because Emily Austin is my favorite author. This book was an automatic win for me before I even opened my Kindle to read it. However, I was very surprised at how different this book felt compared to her other ones. In her other books, the main characters are usually much more isolated and in their own heads. It was refreshing to read about a main character who, like her other books' main characters, had mental health problems but must interact with the public, her coworkers, her wife, and all the people trying to ruin the library. It was very relatable because mental health issues are downplayed by society that will call you lazy or pathetic if you don't work or go outside despite how you are feeling/doing. The humor, as always, is well done and the inner monologues are my favorite parts of her writing and I highly enjoyed them in this book as well. The subject matter is (sadly) very...current...which is also a nice surprise. I usually don't enjoy reading books that have current issues in them because I get very angry about our real world and have to put the book/movie/whatever away. I got angry as I read this book too but I devoured the book anyway. The writing, the characters, and the humor despite all the horrible real-world stuff got me through.

I can't wait to add this book to my shelf when it comes out.

Emily Austin has done it again! I’ve read and loved almost all of her books, and this one might be my favorite. Darcy was such an interesting and lovable character. She was funny, flawed, and quietly courageous as she worked through grief, guilt, and coming to terms with her sexuality. I especially appreciated how this story explored freedom of information and the vital role libraries play in protecting it.

Austin balances tough topics like censorship, mental health, sexuality, and regret with warmth, humor, and so much love for libraries and the people who keep them alive. I read many reviews who called this book a love letter to libraries, and I couldn’t agree more.

Thank you so much to Netgalley and Atria Books for an advanced copy of this lovely book!

IS THIS A CRY FOR HELP is an honest and real representation of what it means to be human. This story takes us into Darcy's mind after finding out her ex-boyfriend unexpectedly passes away. As Darcy reflects on her life with Ben, she understandably feels a variety of emotions, has several questions that she won't have the answer to, and it makes her think about the life she has made for herself now, living with her wife Joy and working as a librarian. I loved how open and truthful Darcy is to let the reader get to know her on a very deep level. There were several lines in the book that would make me stop and think. Greatly enjoyed this well-written book.

Thank you to Atria Books and NetGalley for the arc in exchange for my honest review.

I have a new favorite book! I related to Darcy, and it is such a gift to read a story that feels so personal. The writing style is fantastic and really immerses you into the story. I did not want to put it down! It felt relevant and new. We’re in a time that society has very loud opinions about culture and ethics and its’ role in a library. I loved Darcy’s staunch support of intellectual freedom for all. This is a love story to libraries, and I can’t wait to share it with all of my fellow readers and those that don’t read as much. The mental health representation was handled beautifully and feels very authentic. I felt seen when Darcy explains about wanting to succeed in therapy. Everyone can benefit from this story!

Thank you, NetGalley and Atria Books for the ARC of this book. The opinion in this review is my own.

3.5 stars

I love the premise of this book. It brings up conversations about grief versus joy, book banning and libraries. It is quirky and thought provoking. The writing is accessible and the dialogue is decent. It is a slower book and delves into uncomfortable topics. The ending left a few open threads and I would’ve liked more of a conclusion, it felt really abrupt.

It’s quite heavy handed with driving the point home. It’s written for readers and most of us already appreciate the necessity of a library and understand the pitfalls of book-banning. It also spoke a lot about gender equality and prejudice against homosexuality in a way that the concept was dumbed down a bit too much. But at the same time, these things are currently still happening so maybe the heavy-handedness is needed. It all needs to be said, but it became repetitive.

Overall, I liked the book and I would recommend it if you’ve enjoyed any of Emily Austin’s previous works. The main character feels very similar to her other characters.

Another incredible novel by Emily Austin! As a fan of her previous work (especially We Could Be Rats!!), I was so happy to see Is This a Cry for Help? continue in Austin’s style of blending humor with the everyday struggles of just being a human in the world.

The story follows Darcy, a public librarian returning to work after a mental breakdown, as she navigates a challenging series of events at work. The way Austin puts us inside the character’s head makes it easy to connect with Darcy, who stepped away from work after learning of the death of her ex-boyfriend, Ben. Now married to her wife, Joy, Darcy carries a lot of guilt over how she handled her relationship with Ben, and therefore feels deep grief at the news of his passing. Though she now leads a peaceful life with Joy and their two cats, it’s relatable to watch Darcy grapple with the missteps of her past, even though she seems sure of who she is in the present.

If you enjoy a slice-of-life story with a few satisfying resolutions, you’ll love Is This a Cry for Help?

Thank you so much to Emily Austin and Atria Books, who provided me an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you so much to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with an eARC of this book! ❤️

Personally, I don't think We Could Be Rats will ever be topped because it hits me too fkn hard, but this definitely fills the number two slot when it comes to Austin's other three releases.

This story doesn't feel as deep or dramatic as the others, which actually felt nice in the moment. It was fun to devour something lighter and a but more fun while still dealing with some darker topics. I highlighted quite a few things and remembered why working in a library would never work for me despite loving books. Also, cats. You can rarely go wrong throwing a cat or three in the mix.

I think I need to take a break from this author. I enjoyed her first two books when I read them but then I didn’t love We Could be Rats and this one unfortunately also fell a bit flat for me. The writing style feels overly detached in a way that makes it difficult to connect with the protagonist. We’re kept at arms length which means it’s hard to get emotionally invested.

There’s a lot here that feels like preaching to the choir, explaining things like comphet and the importance of libraries that 99% of the audience will already be on board with. And these explanations feel really clinical and emotionless even when they’re describing really complex and emotional things. There are lines like ‘Heterosexuality is pushed on everyone. It’s assumed that all women are wired to like men, but we aren’t. That preference is socially scripted.’ and ‘when we had sex, I acted the way I understood men wanted women to act.’ Idk. It’s all just quite robotic and direct and I feel like there are better ways to communicate these things that have more emotional weight.

If you are a fan of Austin’s other work I imagine you’ll also like this one, but I fear this writing style isn’t working for me any more.

i'm having a rough time trying to articulate what it is i want to say about this book. i understand and wholeheartedly support the whole plot/main idea of it which to me is about local libraries and the incredible workers who are literal pillars of their communities. and as someone who constantly uses and benefits from my local library i commend this! they deserve to be applauded! my qualm is that this book just wasn't very interesting?

i've only read one other emily austin book and it was also alright - i don't mind her writing style and i see the potential in her character work but something is missing for me. this book specifically just made me feel... dumb? like i felt like i was being treated like i'm dumb. i don't know. i know that it's important to say the things she's saying in this and i understand that we need it to be said now more than ever but sometimes it truly felt like i was being spoken to as if i had never learned the concept of like. equality before. i don't know how else to explain it. and it's weird because no one who doesn't understand these basic concepts she's talking about would be reading this book in the first place? i mean who knows but it's highly unlikely. so making it such a huge part of the main conflict of this book just made it so tiring and i just got annoyed at a certain point honestly. it felt like i was at a first year gender studies lecture and it made the book drag so much for me

anyways. this was fine. i have complicated feelings.

I am a huge Emily Austin fan, she is one of my insta-buy authors and Everyone in This Room is one of my favorite books. And while this installment certainly has the charm and style I’ve come to love in her work, it lacked a certain amount of finesse or feeling. I enjoyed the characters and how real they felt, both Darcy and Joy and each side character were engaging and developed, especially in relation with each other. Darcy’s reflections on grief and growth were compelling.

However, a lot of the dialogue and prose felt overwritten and stilted, just kind of explaining things to the reader in a way that got boring fairly quickly. Especially when Darcy was explaining why libraries matter and wondering why people want to restrict access to books to “protect children,” I was taken out of the flow of character development and plot and felt like I was reading an informative Instagram graphic I would share with a bigoted family member so I didn’t have to yell at them. So while I loved the points this was making, it just felt out of place and dull. Love a library, love a struggling young gay woman making sense of grief and joy, but I can’t say this was the best I’ve read from her.
Thank you to Atria Books for the eARC!

In characteristic Emily Austin fashion, this was a charming little book that puts you right into the world and mind of a quirky, flawed, neurodivergent lesbian. I am always impressed by the way Austin blends humour and explorations of serious topics (in this case: book banning, mental health, grief) in such a balanced and natural way in her books. The writing is unpretentious but distinct and compulsively readable, and once in a while, you come across a sentence that just hits and resonates so deeply.

I said it with "We Could Be Rats" and I'll say it again: Another win for weird lesbians!

I did not particularly care for the Ben storyline. It was quite a stretch for Darcy to have a mental breakdown and require a psychiatric hospitalization because she learned of the death of her first long-term boyfriend (Ben), whom she had not seen in ten years and whom she broke up with after realizing she was gay. Especially since in the interim she has met and married her wife (Joy) and has a job she enjoys.

I would have preferred it if the story had focused predominantly on Joy's job at the library, her relationship with her coworkers and her wife, and the controversies facing the library, instead of alternating between therapy sessions addressing coping with Ben's death and sections dealing with the library and Darcy/Joy. That being said, I am glad that the author used the therapy sessions to help Darcy realize how problematic and unhealthy her relationship with Ben had been given the differences in age, experience and agency.

The portions of the story set in the library and focused on the controversy over what books, programs and resources were available was enjoyable. I liked how the author dealt with the issues of inclusivity and censorship. I also liked how she resolved the question of the strange e-mails Darcy received in her role as reference librarian. The story has some pretty humorous moments.

I’m struggling with how to rate this for a few reasons:
This is the third Emily Austin book that I’ve read, and while I do like her writing style, it also feels like she’s written the exact same main character in all 3 of the books. I get the impression that the author herself is very similar to these characters as well.

Each of her books has had quotes that definitely stuck out to me, but I’m not sure I could even distinguish the 3 books and 3 main characters because they’re so similar; the emotion also feels slightly removed to me. In this book in particular, Darcy is married and there are passages where she’s talking about her wife and how much she loves her, but I really didn’t feel that at all reading their interactions or Darcy’s introspections.

Plot wise, I think the subject matter is extremely prevalent to today’s society (and I have always grown up a library girl/support the defense of libraries to the max), but after seeing the news everyday, reading this just made me feel even more anxious and disheartened about the world. There’s a specific scene about a public town hall meeting where the people protesting the library were saying all of the hateful things that I see on social media, which again was more just exhausting to read. I did highlight my favorite quote during this, though: “We need to see ourselves in stories. We need to see people who aren’t like us too. Diverse books that feature characters of diffeeent races, cultures, gender, sexual orientation, ability, religion, and family structures help us develop understand and empathy. What is the point of reading? What is the point of the library? We want to learn and connect with other people. Our library needs to be a community space that welcomes and values everyone.”

I will probably read her next book, but if it’s much of the same again I think she will unfortunately lose me as a reader.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC.

This was really interesting to me now that I work in a library. I feel like it shows the reality of working in a place where many of the patrons are people who are falling through the cracks of society. I really liked the commentary from the main character about this and censorship/ information privacy. I will say I didn’t totally get the mental breakdown aspect of it and it felt a bit repetitive (especially the therapy sessions). Overall I enjoyed this one and it felt like a quick, worthwhile read. I haven’t read the author’s other books, maybe I will!

Thanks to Atria Books and NetGalley for the ARC!

The word that best describes this book for me is didactic. The main character, Darcy, spends much of the novel lecturing on societal problems, particularly internalized homophobia, while reflecting on her past relationship with a man ten years older. Although I agree with the book’s points about the importance of libraries and the freedom to learn without surveillance, the reading experience often felt more like being lectured than immersed in a story. Plot lines and explanations were repeated often, which weighed down the narrative, and some didn't add anything at all. The reveal involving Sammy was heartbreaking, but it didn’t land with the impact I expected. Overall, I don’t think Emily Austin’s style works for me; it feels too obvious and overwritten.

I was so drawn in by this book that I was surprised when it ended! I was hoping for a little more - what's happening with Sammy, if Kyle was happy in his home - that it just seemed a little abrupt to end the way it did. Overall, a good LGBTQIA+ mental health novel. Thanks to the publishers and NetGalley for the ARC.

This being the third book I’ve read by Emily Austin, I’ve found that a lot happens yet nothing ever feels completed. “Is This a Cry for Help?” would be a good beach read or something that you pick up at the airport for a long flight. Having said that, I don’t know if I liked it? Brain candy, super easy read but I don’t feel satisfied.

True to Emily Austin's style, this book was simple, straightforward, and wonderfully compelling! I always enjoy how Austin tackles human nature and the hardships of marginalization, mental illness, and real world conflict in such a funny, heartfelt way. Darcy's experiences and struggles in grappling with comphet and the expectations she has shouldered about her role as a woman in society and in relationships were very relatable.

I also really enjoyed, as with most Austin books, how there didn't need to be a big happy ending for there to feel like a big happy ending. I appreciate the realism of Austin's resolutions and think that especially in this very tense sociopolitical climate, stories like this are a great reminder of the need for patience and understanding that sometimes there will be people that you harshly disagree with, and maybe even do not respect. Sometimes, that won't change, and there's nothing to do about it but move forward.

This is not necessarily something that I found worthy of critique, but I did wish that we explored a bit more of Darcy's relationship with her mother/family. I recognize that it was kind of a background point that shaped how she perceived herself and her role as a Straight Skinny Woman, but I thought that it was actually one of the more emotionally hard-hitting plot points for me, and I would have loved to see more.

Overall, a great book!