Error loading page.
Try refreshing the page. If that doesn't work, there may be a network issue, and you can use our self test page to see what's preventing the page from loading.
Learn more about possible network issues or contact support for more help.

Interesting Facts about Space

A Novel

Audiobook
1 of 3 copies available
1 of 3 copies available
A fast-paced, hilarious, and ultimately hopeful novel for anyone who has ever worried they might be a terrible person—from the bestselling author of Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead.
Enid is obsessed with space. She can tell you all about black holes and their ability to spaghettify you without batting an eye in fear. Her one major phobia? Bald men. But she tries to keep that one under wraps. When she's not listening to her favorite true crime podcasts on a loop, she's serially dating a rotation of women from dating apps. At the same time, she's trying to forge a new relationship with her estranged half-sisters after the death of her absent father. When she unwittingly plunges into her first serious romantic entanglement, Enid starts to believe that someone is following her.

As her paranoia spirals out of control, Enid must contend with her mounting suspicion that something is seriously wrong with her. Because at the end of the day there's only one person she can't outrun—herself.

Brimming with quirky humor, charm, and heart, Interesting Facts about Space effortlessly shows us the power of revealing our secret shames, the most beautifully human parts of us all.
  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

  • Formats

  • Languages

  • Reviews

    • Publisher's Weekly

      November 6, 2023
      The offbeat and delightful latest from Austin (Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead) plunges readers into the quirky and turbulent inner life of Enid, an employee at a NASA-like agency. The episodic narrative follows Enid, who is gay, through her daily routine as she reckons with her painful past. She bakes a gender reveal cake for her pregnant half-sister Edna, despite finding the practice “profoundly offensive”; obsessively streams true crime podcasts; worries a mysterious bald man is stalking her (she also has an unexplained fear of bald men); and dates a poly couple. Eventually, she cautiously enters her first serious relationship with Polly, the ex-wife of another woman she’d briefly dated, and begins to confront agonizing memories of her late father, who left her mother for another woman. Enid’s preoccupation with random facts about space frequently appears in interactions with her mother (“Did you know astronomers found a planet without a star?” she asks her mother at the beginning of a phone call). Eventually, realizing she ought to deal with her phobia of bald men and her troubling memories, Enid begins seeing a therapist. The adventure inside her mind is engrossing, funny, and full of depth. Readers will fall for this unusual and lovable protagonist.

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Listeners will learn some interesting facts about space in this production, but it's not a scientific treatise. The audiobook is a psychological novel about a troubled young woman, Enid, who is involved in a multitude of dysfunctional relationships. Natalie Naudus captures Enid's offbeat personality in such a way that one feels her tortured thoughts and her phobias, such as her anxiety over bald men. Naudus gives a loving but muddled voice to Enid's mother, who has her own inner demons but who cares about Enid and listens to her recitations of space facts. Enid enjoys her job at the space agency but cringes when a bald employee is scheduled to work with her. Enid is a neurodivergent lesbian who begins to process her neuroses with the help of a therapist and a brash new female lover. D.L.G. © AudioFile 2024, Portland, Maine
    • Library Journal

      August 1, 2024

      When her phobias threaten to derail her life, 26-year-old Enid, an information architect at the NASA-like Space Agency, cautiously reassesses her traumatic past. Enid, who is neurodivergent and partially deaf, lives a life marked by denial and avoidance. After her father's death, she awkwardly connects with her bubbly half-sisters, hooks up with women but steers clear of long-term relationship commitments, and shares interesting facts about space with her mother instead of addressing her mother's deep-seated depression. When her fear of bald men leads to trouble at work and in her personal life, Enid finally seeks help. Narrator Natalie Naudus crafts a compassionate, deeply affecting portrayal of Enid, tenderly capturing her abiding concern for her mother and the arc of her anxiety, which grows from a dull itch to a fever pitch. Naudus also offers sensitive depictions of secondary characters, including Enid's refreshingly straightforward new lover Polly and her mother, who radiates warmth even when she is overwhelmed by depression. VERDICT Austin's (Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead) layered novel reveals resilience in the face of trauma and the possibility of connecting with others while coming to terms with one's own differences.--Sarah Hashimoto

      Copyright 2024 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

Languages

  • English

Loading