Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead - Emily Austin

I can't really remember why I chose this book, but it likely came up on a list of best books of 2021 and looked interesting. It's also written by a Canadian and is set in Ottawa!

Gilda cannot stop thinking about death. The story starts when she is in what she refers to as a minor car accident. She ends up with a broken arm and drives herself to the hospital. Everyone knows her at the hospital because she goes there a lot...she is on a first name basis with the janitor. Gilda is suffering from panic attacks and goes to the hospital because the chest pains she gets during the panic attacks feels like a heart attack. But despite numerous referrals to a psychiatrist, Gilda never gets an appointment. The doctors and nurses at the hospital think she is a hypochondriac...and she might be, but it looks more like depression that no one is helping her with.

Gilda has recently started seeing someone named Eleanor. Eleanor seems like a kind person who truly cares for Gilda. Often throughout the book she reaches out when Gilda goes quiet to make sure Gilda is okay. Gilda has a hard time acknowledging her feelings for Eleanor, but tries to make her happy.

Gilda's neighbour across the street experiences a house fire and the cat, Mittens, goes missing. Gilda feels such sadness for the family and the cat that she searches for Mittens everywhere she goes, even looking under people's porches and in their hedges. Gilda worries she might cause a fire in her apartment so buys a fire extinguisher and worries about her stove, even though she doesn't cook.

One day, in desperation for a way to make herself be happy, Gilda notices a flyer advertising free therapy at a church. As she enters the church, the priest stops her thinking she is there for a receptionist job. Gilda, never wanting to hurt someone's feelings, or embarass anyone, doesn't correct him. He is not good at interviewing and doesn't even ask her name, but gives her the job. Gilda, the atheist lesbian, is suddenly working at a Catholic church.

Gilda learns that the previous receiptionist has recently died. As she starts reading through the emails that have come through since (no one apparently knew how to turn on the computer), she finds emails from a woman named Rosemary who doesn't know that her friend Grace has died. Gilda doesn't know how to tell her and has a panic attack thinking about it. So she decides to respond to the emails as if she is Grace.

In her family life, her parents are oblivious or unwilling to talk about problems, including her father's past history with mental illness, as well as Gilda's depression and her brother's alcoholism. This exacerbates Gilda's problems because even when she tries to get help for herself or her brother, her parents brush her off.

While working at the church, Gilda meets a parishioner who wants to set her up with her brother. Gilda can't brush her off, why wouldn't a single Catholic woman want to meet and potentially marry a single Catholic man? Giuseppe texts Gilda over and over, eventually taking her out on a date where he talks all about himself and his self-help business. Gilda doesn't feel like she can break up with him, so keeps talking to him and going out with him, hiding it all from Eleanor.

One day the police show up at the church and inform them that Grace's death is suspicious and might be linked to a nurse who was recently arrested for killing her patients. Now Gilda has more to worry about! Once the police rule out the nurse, Gilda starts to wonder who killed Grace and includes the priest and the church accountant on her suspect list. But the police are more interested in Gilda. Gilda's nervousness makes the police even more suspicious, resulting in another panic attack. While in jail, Gilda calls everyone and leaves them thoughtful messages, apologizing to some, asking others to get help for themselves. Eventually, Gilda is cleared when the police find a suicide note Grace wrote (she was recently diagnosed with Alzheimers).

The book was written in a way that you could almost feel Gilda's panic attacks. There were sometimes very short paragraphs that jumped from topic to topic so we could see what Gilda was thinking. It was like we could see the inner workings of her mind.

The concept was funny...an athiest lesbian working at the catholic church trying to keep her identity hidden. There were many stumbles along the way. Giuseppe being the most entertaining. She couldn't break up with him, what if he found out she was a lesbian, and she didn't want to hurt his feelings. But it was pretty great when she finally told him what she thought.

Gilda is a people pleaser. She doesn't want to hurt anyone's feelings, which often resulted in her own feelings being hurt. One example of this is when she allowed a little girl to draw on her cast and she ended up with a drawing that looked like a penis.

I found it really sad that no one took her seriously at the hospital. When she finally got anti-depressants, she got worse, but Gilda didn't tell the doctors she was having suicidal thoughts, instead she said she was fine...a common phrase we all use. I also found it sad that she seemed to slip through the health care system. Multiple referrals were made, but no appointment, so Gilda was left to help herself. As she sank deeper and deeper, I was waiting for someone to help her get out....Eleanor was that person and I was so glad to see them still together at the end of the book.

I enjoyed Gilda's inner monologue, especially as she was deceiving everyone at the church. I know she felt bad about it but it was entertaining to see her bumble through.

We both enjoyed the relationships Gilda had with the people at the church. It was entertaining to read about her trying to figure out if someone at the church killed the old receptionist. She followed Barney home, and even snuck into the priests house, nearly getting caught. She had to hide under the bed when he came home.

One very nice relationship was with Grace's friend Rosemary. Gilda couldn't tell her Grace's had died so she just kept emailing her. When the secret came out, Rosemary laughed and said Grace's would have loved it.

There were so many interesting subplots in Gilda's life, her brother and family, her girlfriend and boyfriend, her work at the church and pretending to be Catholic and straight, trying to figure out who murdered Grace.

We both really enjoyed this book. It was an interesting read, definitely not a happy story but it had wonderful characters and subplots. The best part was the writing style. In some ways it reminded me of Eleanor Oliphant, but a much sadder version. I really hoped for happiness for all the characters (other than maybe Gilda's parents...they weren't great) at the end.

Oh and she found Mittens in the end!

Jenny - 📘📘📘📘

Susan -