You Know You Want This

Reviews

I kept getting lured into another and another [of the stories]… [Kristen Roupenian has] one of those brains that feel out-of-this-world brilliant and also completely askew… What’s special about Cat Person, and the rest of the stories in You Know You Want This is the author’s expert control of language, character, story — her ability to write stories that feel told, and yet so unpretentious and accessible that we think they must be true. You Know You Want This at once enchants and horrifies… [Roupenian’s] writing recalls the gloomy feminist fairy-tales of Angela Carter. This collection cements her reputation as one of the most startling new voices in fiction. Roupenian is in possession of [a] formidable talent… the inner worlds of her narrators are always lifelike. She allows us to embody these characters wholly which is always an unsettling journey… [You Know You Want This] will leave you gasping. It’s only a matter of time before you find yourself thumping someone’s dinner table vigorously as you discuss [You Know You Want This]… Roupenian’s latest tales are sexy, chilling and disturbingly gruesome in finest fairytale tradition… Think Delta of Venus meets Angela Carter meets Bridesmaids. Wholly engrossing. Looking at modern gender and power dynamics, these uncomfortable tales are frequently (understandably) dark – and sometimes horrific – but equally often there is sheer relief at hearing someone brilliantly articulate those itchy-scratchy ‘Is it just me?’ irritations and neuroses… [You Know You Want This] may not be an easy read, but it’s an original one. A scintillating new debut collection, with a glorious revenge comedy at its center… [Roupenian] proves astonishingly deft at depicting the warped psychology of romantic entanglement, and finding the black humor in it. Roupenian is a horror writer, bone-deep and red-blooded. Her horrors, like the horrors of Shirley Jackson or Janet Frame, are grounded in sharp emotional veracity... Roupenian bites unsparingly into the darkest chambers of the human heart. [Roupenian's] writing here is sharp and pitiless, and... makes Cat Person look tame... toe-curlingly nasty at times, [You Know You Want This owes] more to writers such as Shirley Jackson and Joyce Carol Oates than to the new wave of post#MeToo fem-lit. Kristen Roupenian isn’t just an uncannily great writer, she also knows things about the human psyche—things that I always supposed I would learn at some point, but never did. Some of these things are about men’s minds in particular and I’m pretty sure she’s right. The world has made a lot more sense since reading this book. Expand reviews