We Could Be Rats by Emily Austin
Title: We Could Be Rats
Author: Emily Austin
Publication Date: January 28, 2025
Audience: Adult
Genre: Literary
POV: Single
Series: Standalone
Format: Audiobook
—Narrator(s): Candace Thaxton
5 ⭐ | 0🌶️
Pros:
✨Audiobook Narration
✨Character Development
✨Introspection and Inner Monologue
✨Queer Representation
✨Play on Format
✨Commentary on Suicide
✨Heavy Topics Handled with Care
✨Development of Complex Sibling / Family Relationship
Cons: None
Synopsis
Sigrid hates working at the Dollar Pal but having always resisted the idea of growing up into the trappings of adulthood, she did not graduate high school, preferring to roam the streets of her small town with her best friend, Greta, the only person in the world who ever …
*Blurb taken from The StoryGraph
Review
This review may contain spoilers.
My first 5 star read of the year! It makes perfect sense that it would go to Emily Austin.
A story that follows two sisters—Sigrid and Margit—and their journey from romanticized childhood to pragmatic adulthood. A heartbreaking, touching, raw and humorous exploration of what it means to exist in a world that bites, and the desire to be rats instead.
This novel sucked the life out of me, broke my heart, then gave me new lungs and mended my soul.
We start out in an epistolary format told through drafts of suicide notes from Sigrid. Laced throughout them is her story, expressed in a dry humor that’s both sharp and poignant and filled with grief. In these, we learn that our two POVs are unreliable narrators, prone to lying, unable to share their truth because they’ve been silenced and disregarded in the past. There was no good way to be a daughter, a student, an employee, a friend—there is no escape from being disappointed and, in turn, disappointing others.
I adore the way format gets played with in this book. The POVs, drafted suicide notes, and segments are executed with precision. This could have gone wrong and felt clunky. Instead, I can’t imagine Sigrid and Margit’s story being told in any other way.
I was a bit skeptical of Sigrid’s voice in the notes because, while she admits she struggled in school, she draws multiple literary parallels. So, when it’s revealed the Margit has been drafting the notes to honor Sigrid’s final request before her attempt, I felt as though my heart had been impaled. All that time, we were getting Margit’s voice, Margit’s reflections on their bond and their relationship, Margit’s processing of grief. I was already sunk into the storyline, but that moment is when this became a five star read. When, eventually, we do get Sigrid’s POV, the difference in voice is biting in the best way.
The bonds and trials of sisterhood get explored in depth in this novel, as does loneliness, substance abuse, and more. Austin’s representation of suicide is raw and—for anyone who has had suicidal ideation—cutting. The distinct inclination that the desire here isn’t to die, but rather, to not exist, is as subtle as it is imperative. The romanticization of childhood wonder mixed with adult pragmatism builds Sigrid’s path toward dissonance and numb despair and the desire to simply … disappear. To be a rat, content on greasy carnival food, surround by the lights of the Ferris wheel, here and gone and happy with the time allotted. I felt flayed open.
The political threads and oppressive power dynamics of society clotted my throat and gripped my chest. Austin manages to put into words the rage and despair at being unable to articulate one’s emotions, and how that helplessness leads to outbursts. I broke down when Sigrid slapped the pie in her mother’s face, mourning her inability to express herself in a way that would be understood by others, because that’s exactly the circumstance I find myself in all the time. It’s unbearable, to feel so much and care so much and have no point of release. To be shot down and dismissed as too much or difficult or dramatic while also being loved. It’s a mentally exhausting place to be. And it bottles up until it explodes.
It’s taken me 30 years to accept that I’m allowed to be angry, and Sigrid’s fury was a sigh of relief.
This has got triggers galore, but we do end on a hopeful note that ties back into the relationship between Sigrid and Margit. I also had the pleasure of listening to the audiobook narration by Candace Thaxton, who did a wonderful job with this story and these characters.
What I love about Austin’s novels is that she needles her way into the core of mental health and lets us sit there in an honest, witty, matter-of-fact style that doesn’t pull punches, but that also leaves us optimistic.
Every time I read a book by this author, I finish it and think: I needed this. My soul needed this.
Content Note
Plot deals with heavy topics, including, but not limited to: Suicide, bomb threats, mental abuse, physical abuse, off-screen and past rape, and more.
You can find more content warnings in the Author’s Note at the beginning of the novel, at The StoryGraph, or at the Trigger Warning Database
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