From Emily Austin, the author of Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead, comes Interesting Facts About Space. I read Austin’s first book last year and just fell in love with it so I knew I had to read this book as soon as I heard about it, and it did not disappoint! 

Interesting Facts About Space follows a woman called Enid. End works at a Space Centre and is obsessed with space. She attempts to relate to her mother by telling her all of the interesting facts she knows about space. Enid spends most of her free time listening to true crime podcasts and serially dating women she finds on dating apps. 

She’s also been attempting to forge relationships with her estranged half-sisters after the death of her absent father.

But Enid has one major fear – bald men. And, as she is thrust into her first major serious romantic relationship, she begins to suspect that a bald man is following her. As her paranoia begins to spiral out of control, she begins to suspect that there is something seriously wrong with her.

There is something just so charming about the way Austin writes her main characters. They’re always a little bit odd, a little bit quirky, but entirely loveable. Enid is a lesbian and spends a lot of her time dating, and she’s also deaf in one ear which often causes issues for her as she tends to come across as a little bit rude when she’s unable to hear people.

A large part of Enid’s story is focused on her attempting to figure out the new relationships in her life. After the death of her father, who left when she was a child to start a new family, she begins to connect with her 2 half-sisters. This also includes having to deal with their mother. They do their best to include Enid in all the important moments in their lives, even if Enid is a little unsure about it to start.

Early in the book, a woman shows up at Enid’s door, claiming that Enid has been sleeping with her wife. Instead of ending her away, Enid invites her in, gives her a bath, comforts her, and begins a serious relationship with her. We also often hear from Enid’s mother who has bouts of depression that Enid keeps track of by watching to see if her mother is wearing lipstick or not. 

But the biggest issue in Enid’s life is that she is convinced someone has been stalking her and breaking into her apartment. She often notices her bald neighbor hanging around by her windows and looking in and often senses that someone has been inside her apartment whenever she comes back. Her obsession with true crime definitely doesn’t help with the paranoia she feels every day.

Enid also spends a great deal of time watching her old YouTube videos that she posted when she was a teenager. She’s unable to remember a great deal of what happened to her when she was a teenager so watching these videos helps her to remember what was going on in her life. 

This book is very much character-focused and doesn’t have much plot. It’s very slice-of-life, and the fact that all of the characters are so fantastic and very likable makes this book a very enjoyable read. Enid has spent her life feeling like she is doing wrong, she’s very paranoid and has odd fears, yet there’s something I just loved about her. 

Emily Austin has become one of my auto-buy authors. I adore how she writes stories about people who are struggling and manages to show that life isn’t completely hopeless. There’s something pretty sad about the books that Austin writes but there’s also enough humour to not make it too depressing. She will keep you hooked right from the beginning even though this is a slow, character-driven story. 

Interesting Facts About Space is a 5-star read, and I can’t wait to see whatever Emily Austin does next.