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You Know You Want This
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A compulsively readable collection of short stories that explore the complex—and often darkly funny—connections between gender, sex, and power across genres.
You Know You Want This brilliantly explores the ways in which women are horrifying as much as it captures the horrors that are done to them. Among its pages are a couple who becomes obsessed with their friend hearing t ...more
You Know You Want This brilliantly explores the ways in which women are horrifying as much as it captures the horrors that are done to them. Among its pages are a couple who becomes obsessed with their friend hearing t ...more
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Hardcover, 225 pages
Published
January 15th 2019
by Gallery/Scout Press
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Well. The stories are well written. They are. But I didn’t like this book. It’s so bleak. There is no joy, no air in these stories. There is nothing wrong with that but it didn’t make for a great reading experience. So many of the stories were flat. Garish without heart or soul. Violent and grotesque without purpose. There isn’t a character or story I will remember with fondness. The characters were often flat, caricatures. I can’t say I will remember much of this book at all. I really tried to
...more
Wow, what a crazy collection of short stories this was!!
Kristen Roupenian's debut collection, You Know You Want This , is at turns frank, brutal, disturbing, kinky, poignant, emotional, and eye-opening. Her stories are about relationships of all kinds—parental, romantic, sexual, those between friends and lovers, and even those between relative strangers. The relationships are rarely equal, in that most often, someone has the upper hand, although it might not always last for long.
This collecti ...more
Kristen Roupenian's debut collection, You Know You Want This , is at turns frank, brutal, disturbing, kinky, poignant, emotional, and eye-opening. Her stories are about relationships of all kinds—parental, romantic, sexual, those between friends and lovers, and even those between relative strangers. The relationships are rarely equal, in that most often, someone has the upper hand, although it might not always last for long.
This collecti ...more
This is an ARC review - re-release date was 14 Apr 2020
Cat person is a re-released group of short stories previously published as “You know you want this “. I find it difficult to rate a collection of short stories because I tend to like some and not others. I’ve broken it down by each story giving my first gut reactions to the story then tallied them all up to give the overall star rating. Below is my take on each story.
Bad Boy - awful hated this story
Look at your game girl - intriguing
Sardin ...more
Cat person is a re-released group of short stories previously published as “You know you want this “. I find it difficult to rate a collection of short stories because I tend to like some and not others. I’ve broken it down by each story giving my first gut reactions to the story then tallied them all up to give the overall star rating. Below is my take on each story.
Bad Boy - awful hated this story
Look at your game girl - intriguing
Sardin ...more
It’s true.... I knew I wanted
“You Know You Want This”, the instant I learned about it.
I love the feel of the physical book… I find the book cover and color delicious... simply wanting to touch it. I don’t own it, ( accepting gifts)... :),
but I spent a bit of time reading the stories while in the bookstore... shhhh,
I knew I wanted to ‘listen’ to the large talented cast of readers by both men and women.
I almost bought this with my Audible monthly credit. ....that’s how much I wanted to read it, ...more
“You Know You Want This”, the instant I learned about it.
I love the feel of the physical book… I find the book cover and color delicious... simply wanting to touch it. I don’t own it, ( accepting gifts)... :),
but I spent a bit of time reading the stories while in the bookstore... shhhh,
I knew I wanted to ‘listen’ to the large talented cast of readers by both men and women.
I almost bought this with my Audible monthly credit. ....that’s how much I wanted to read it, ...more
I went into this equally curious and suspicious: I applaud a writer who gets the internet talking about a short story (https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/20...), but the hype around Roupenian's debut collection has gained proportions that invite some kind of backlash. Looking at the actual material, the book as a whole is a little uneven and in parts feels underdeveloped, but hell, this is an exciting writer who has the potential to go places. Roupenian ventures into the darker recesses of the h
...more
I think it's safe to say that the majority of people reading this book have done so simply because we read 'Cat Person' last year and were curious what else the author of it might come up with. I know that's why I picked it up.
Cat Person was an interesting story in many ways. For one, it was all too familiar to a lot of women, myself included. It wasn't particularly well-written (in that the writing style was nothing extra special; it just described what it needed to and got the job done), and t ...more
Cat Person was an interesting story in many ways. For one, it was all too familiar to a lot of women, myself included. It wasn't particularly well-written (in that the writing style was nothing extra special; it just described what it needed to and got the job done), and t ...more
I went into these stories braced not to like them. I quite enjoyed Cat Person and the surrounding controversy, but heard these stories were full of unlikeable characters and disturbing situations. And they are, but Kristen Roupenian has an uncanny sense of the inner lives of people - their messy, uncomfortable, inner lives. There is one story in here that feels like it doesn't fit unless you think of the characters as cat people. And really, it does fit in the way that the male character is a wh
...more
5 Star
ABSOLUTELY BRILLIANT! I am in love with Kristen Roupenian, I will read whatever this woman writes. You Know You Want This, is a collection of short stories that examines relationships, sex and gender dynamics. From the mind that created 'Cat Person' (a short story that still haunts my dreams) you get 12 unique tales ranging from an exploration of what makes someone the nice guy, to a perverse menage a trois that has deadly consequences to a woman who uses her kink of biting to her adva ...more
ABSOLUTELY BRILLIANT! I am in love with Kristen Roupenian, I will read whatever this woman writes. You Know You Want This, is a collection of short stories that examines relationships, sex and gender dynamics. From the mind that created 'Cat Person' (a short story that still haunts my dreams) you get 12 unique tales ranging from an exploration of what makes someone the nice guy, to a perverse menage a trois that has deadly consequences to a woman who uses her kink of biting to her adva ...more
If you were alive and online in 2018, you probably read and talked about Kristen Roupenian’s short story, “Cat Person.” Well, get ready for her debut collection, because it’s here and ready to punch you in the gut—or, perhaps more aptly, bite your face off.
Drawing comparisons to Carmen Maria Machado and Ottessa Moshfegh, this dark, perverse, macabre collection explores relationships with a distinct focus on power dynamics. The subjects are mostly women, and they are at times the victims and the ...more
Drawing comparisons to Carmen Maria Machado and Ottessa Moshfegh, this dark, perverse, macabre collection explores relationships with a distinct focus on power dynamics. The subjects are mostly women, and they are at times the victims and the ...more
I came to You Know You Want This with mixed, muted expectations. Although I liked ‘Cat Person’, I’ve found most of the debate around it tiresome, and my interest was only properly piqued when I heard this collection contained horror stories. I have also read a number of very negative reviews, the kind of negativity you don't often see in the mainstream media these days – at least not without controversy being stirred up on social media. I’m especially thinking of this review in the New York Time
...more
3.5 stars
I don't blame anyone for wanting to immediately capitalize on the massive success of "Cat Person" by getting a collection of stories out as soon as possible, but I can still wish they'd waited a bit until the collection was more solid and cohesive.
I do not mind so much that the stories here can vary quite widely in theme, style, and genre. But there are two or three particular buckets you can sort them into rather than a mosaic of a wide variety of styles, leaving it feeling like a few ...more
I don't blame anyone for wanting to immediately capitalize on the massive success of "Cat Person" by getting a collection of stories out as soon as possible, but I can still wish they'd waited a bit until the collection was more solid and cohesive.
I do not mind so much that the stories here can vary quite widely in theme, style, and genre. But there are two or three particular buckets you can sort them into rather than a mosaic of a wide variety of styles, leaving it feeling like a few ...more
The adjectives that kept coming to mind while I was reading this one are fresh and fun. Of course, Roupenian doesn’t hit them all out of the park, but her voice and style are vibrant even in the couple of stories that don’t quite land. My favorite is the delightfully eerie “Sardines,” but there were several other standouts too. I’m here for whatever she does next.
Mar 30, 2020
Nenia ⚔️ Queen of Villainy ⚔️ Campbell
marked it as to-read
·
review of another edition
This sounds really good and for obvious reasons I love the title
My cat:
...more
My cat:
...more
There are three stories in this that are terribly clunky and out of place. I cannot bring myself to give it five stars. But the remainder of these are fantastically disgusting. This collection takes the absurd and wince-worthy all the way — sometimes for ambiguous, sometimes sociopolitical reasons — and I am here for it.
4.5, rounded down.
Standard disclaimer: short story collections are SO not my forte, and I usually only succumb when there is a really compelling reason to do so; typically, as with this one, media hype. I'd read 'Cat Person' and enjoyed both the writing and the story itself, but had read largely negative reviews on the collection and her other work, so was wary and kept shoving this further down in the TBR pile.
I am delighted that my reservations were largely unfounded - and aside from 2 or 3 st ...more
Standard disclaimer: short story collections are SO not my forte, and I usually only succumb when there is a really compelling reason to do so; typically, as with this one, media hype. I'd read 'Cat Person' and enjoyed both the writing and the story itself, but had read largely negative reviews on the collection and her other work, so was wary and kept shoving this further down in the TBR pile.
I am delighted that my reservations were largely unfounded - and aside from 2 or 3 st ...more
Genre: General Fiction – Short Story Collection
Publisher: Gallery Publishing Group
Pub. Date: January 15, 2019
Mini Review
From the author of “Cat Person”—“the short story that launched a thousand theories” (The Guardian)—comes Kristen Roupenian's highly anticipated debut, a compulsively readable collection of short stories… that explore the complex—and often darkly funny—connections between gender, sex, and power across genres.” (Goodreads blurb).
There seems to be two types of storytelling in t ...more
Publisher: Gallery Publishing Group
Pub. Date: January 15, 2019
Mini Review
From the author of “Cat Person”—“the short story that launched a thousand theories” (The Guardian)—comes Kristen Roupenian's highly anticipated debut, a compulsively readable collection of short stories… that explore the complex—and often darkly funny—connections between gender, sex, and power across genres.” (Goodreads blurb).
There seems to be two types of storytelling in t ...more
These stories were a mixed bag and my suspicion is, that the publisher asked Roupenian, after the phenomenal success of Cat Person, if she had any other stories to publish. A lot of them feel quite unpolished and young, relying on shock value and overstretching the point.
Cat Person, with its razor sharp observations and truthfulness, still surpasses the other stories by miles. Some stories were intriguing, but most of them lacked the mature style of her famous story.
I'm very much looking forwar ...more
Cat Person, with its razor sharp observations and truthfulness, still surpasses the other stories by miles. Some stories were intriguing, but most of them lacked the mature style of her famous story.
I'm very much looking forwar ...more
I knew the world was more interesting than it was pretending to be.
Goodness, this is a dark story collection. I like morbid things so I was all about it, but this definitely isn’t a book I would just blindly recommend to anyone. The fact that the rating isn’t super high is unsurprising. The writing is compelling and brutal, and from the first insane story, Kristen just barrels through, leaving bodies in her wake. (She certainly isn’t afraid of violence and death.) The messages of some of the sto ...more
Goodness, this is a dark story collection. I like morbid things so I was all about it, but this definitely isn’t a book I would just blindly recommend to anyone. The fact that the rating isn’t super high is unsurprising. The writing is compelling and brutal, and from the first insane story, Kristen just barrels through, leaving bodies in her wake. (She certainly isn’t afraid of violence and death.) The messages of some of the sto ...more
The stories in You Know You Want This excellently fit the #metoo era, but the heart is less touched in this debut collection
Kristen Roupenian became famous with the viral story Cat Person (https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/20...), the most read story of the New Yorker.
You Know You Want This as a collection shows her talent for writing, but in my opinion she was in some cases more successful conceptually then in the actual crafting of a fully fledged stand alone stories. Albeit I must say, shor ...more
Kristen Roupenian became famous with the viral story Cat Person (https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/20...), the most read story of the New Yorker.
You Know You Want This as a collection shows her talent for writing, but in my opinion she was in some cases more successful conceptually then in the actual crafting of a fully fledged stand alone stories. Albeit I must say, shor ...more
Interesting. Edgy. Interesting. Definitely not a book for people who like trigger warnings.
While Roupenian isn't Saunders (yet), I really, really enjoyed reading her short story collection. Published on the strength of "Cat Person" which was published in the New Yorker and went viral, Roupenian's other stories push the boundaries, but in almost all of them, I could relate on some level to the interior dialogue of her characters. What I loved the most about her work is that she is fearless. She ...more
While Roupenian isn't Saunders (yet), I really, really enjoyed reading her short story collection. Published on the strength of "Cat Person" which was published in the New Yorker and went viral, Roupenian's other stories push the boundaries, but in almost all of them, I could relate on some level to the interior dialogue of her characters. What I loved the most about her work is that she is fearless. She ...more
A collection of mediocre short stories, nothing more, nothing less.
WHAT THE FU*K DID I JUST READ AND WHY DID I LOVE EACH AND EVERY GORGEOUSLY WRITTEN STORY SOOOO MUCH?!?!?!?!
Now that I have that out of my system I honestly don't know where to start...this collection of short stories has skyrocketed to one of my favorite collection that fast...yes I know I sound like a crazy person with all my rambling but I honestly loved each and every story in this collection. EACH and EVERY STORY...I can't put into words how they made me feel because my feelings are still al ...more
Now that I have that out of my system I honestly don't know where to start...this collection of short stories has skyrocketed to one of my favorite collection that fast...yes I know I sound like a crazy person with all my rambling but I honestly loved each and every story in this collection. EACH and EVERY STORY...I can't put into words how they made me feel because my feelings are still al ...more
As a adult who spends most of her life trying to avoid pain rather than pursuing pleasure, this collection of shorts is what I needed to read right now. This book encapsulates both the quiet and the loud rage of being female in 2019.
Be aware that the first story is "wow, what the hell?" horrifying. It sets A tone for the collection - we're going to look ugliness right in the face with Roupenian - but not THE tone. If you are ready to pack it in after reading "Bad Boy," just keep going.
Be aware that the first story is "wow, what the hell?" horrifying. It sets A tone for the collection - we're going to look ugliness right in the face with Roupenian - but not THE tone. If you are ready to pack it in after reading "Bad Boy," just keep going.
Kristen Roupenian got a book deal on the strength of Cat Person, the New Yorker short story that buzzed across the Internet in late 2018, stoked by the still red-hot embers of the #metoo movement.
Last year, I read and loved the story Cat Person.
This year, I read the collection You Know You Want This and loved the story Cat Person.
And that's the unfortunate truth: this collection is wildly uneven, a hodgepodge of ideas that needed a bit more germination or different execution. The lightning in ...more
Last year, I read and loved the story Cat Person.
This year, I read the collection You Know You Want This and loved the story Cat Person.
And that's the unfortunate truth: this collection is wildly uneven, a hodgepodge of ideas that needed a bit more germination or different execution. The lightning in ...more
Thank you so much Gallery Books for my free copy of YOU KNOW YOU WANT THIS: “Cat Person and Other Stories” -
This collection is illustrious, unsettling, provocative, compulsive, and at times, villainous. I loved all twelve stories in very different ways but they all have the same cohesive, sharply written voice.
In the opening story, “Bad Boy”, a couple takes in a friend who has just been through a breakup and begins to use him in ruthless ways. In the story “Sardines”, an off putting 11-year-old ...more
This collection is illustrious, unsettling, provocative, compulsive, and at times, villainous. I loved all twelve stories in very different ways but they all have the same cohesive, sharply written voice.
In the opening story, “Bad Boy”, a couple takes in a friend who has just been through a breakup and begins to use him in ruthless ways. In the story “Sardines”, an off putting 11-year-old ...more
Look. I did the work. I got the degrees in literary analysis and gender studies. I tried to like this book, and I couldn’t. The stories were shallow and ugly and overall pointless. I can’t believe I’m calling a short story pointless, but here we are. “Women can be bad people too” is not a revolutionary concept, and this collection was boring, bleak, and tedious. It’s like someone took “Her Body and Other Parties” and ripped out all of the complexity and emotional depth.
Feb 26, 2019
ns510
rated it
really liked it
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
short-stories-essays-anthologies
“He would remember her for the rest of his life; they would be joined by the glistening strands of his fear.”
When the short story Cat Person was first published, it generated a lot of hype. I suppose readers identified with it in some way, and enjoyed debating individual interpretation of events. It sparked a lot of talk, that’s for sure! It read kind of like what a gritty Sally Rooney story might read like, and with Kristen Roupenian’s debut short story collection, I was expecting more of the s ...more
When the short story Cat Person was first published, it generated a lot of hype. I suppose readers identified with it in some way, and enjoyed debating individual interpretation of events. It sparked a lot of talk, that’s for sure! It read kind of like what a gritty Sally Rooney story might read like, and with Kristen Roupenian’s debut short story collection, I was expecting more of the s ...more
such a solid debut collection of short stories; visceral, compelling, often deeply unsettling. If Difficult Women by Roxane Gay and Her Body and Other Parties had a love child
What a weird yet thought-provoking bunch of stories! It was my first time reading the viral sensation that was Cat Person through this colection, and while it truly is a piece of engaging reading as part of the current #MeToo movement, there are definitely much stronger stories in this book. That said, there are also some very awkward pieces that didn't resonate as strongly, and made You Know You Want This an uneven read, even if the discrete short stories were meant for individual consumption.
I read this last month but forgot to add it to my shelves. An uneven collection of short stories with echoes of Joyce Carol Oates (contrast Roupenian's 'Look at Your Game, Girl' with Oates' 'Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?'), Angela Carter, and Ottessa Moshfegh. I'd take Moshfegh's signature weirdness over Roupenian's shock tactics any day.
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| Play Book Tag: You Know You Want This/Roupenian - 4 stars | 4 | 24 | Mar 13, 2019 07:40PM |
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Diverse voices and sparkling debuts dominate today's contemporary short story collections. For this roundup, we took a look at the ...
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“I wish I could change everything about myself but it's just—it's too late to do anything, that's the problem. It's all so fucked up, and I just don't who I am anymore, you know? Like, who is this person who made all these choices that I just have to live with? I look back at that person and I hate her, I hate her so much for what she did to me, that person is like my nemesis, my worst enemy, but the problem is, that person is me.”
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“But I guess that was the whole problem, at that point, my inability to deal with normal human interaction.”
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