We Could be Rats is the newest book by Emily Austin, whose novel Everyone in This Room Will Someday be Dead I read and discussed on a Bookswap! podcast episode with my daughter Emma a few years ago. Everyone in This Room was Emma’s book pick, and fits neatly into the category of books that, around that time, made me ask Emma, “Are all the young people really so sad?” to which she replied “Maybe it’s just the writers.”

While “sad young people” is a broad genre in contemporary literary fiction, some writers carry it off better than others, and Emily Austin is one of the good ones. The Sad Young Person in this novel is Sigrid, who is writing a very, very long and frequently revised suicide note explaining why she is in such despair that she is taking her own life (big content advisory on this one, obviously). The letter is addressed to her sister Margit, the one who seems to always have her act together, unlike Sigrid, who hasn’t finished high school, doesn’t have a good job or a steady relationship, and mostly seems a little lost.

There’s a great twist partway through this novel, which I felt the author could have leaned into even a little more through the narrative voice, though I can’t explain further what I mean by that without giving away the twist, and I’m not going to do that. Despite that one caveat I found this book well-written and moving.