‘You Know You Want This’ is a very good collection of short stories from the acclaimed author of Cat Person’. Like everyone else on the planet, I read ‘Cat Person’ not long after it came out. It was daring and provocative, and I was eager to read more by Roupenian.

This collection doesn’t disappoint. Not all of the stories are at the same level as ‘Cat Person’, but there is a lot here to love. The stories are weird, gritty, creepy and thought-provoking. There were some real standouts, like ‘The Good Guy’ and ‘Biter’.

This is certainly an author to watch, and I look forward to reading whatever she writes next.

This collection hits its stride with the straightforward stories of relationships and snippets of life, and fails when straying beyond that formula. The stories "Look at Your Game, Girl," "Cat Person" (which I had encountered already), "The Good Guy," "Death Wish," and "Biter" were what made finishing this book worthwhile for me. However, the arrangement of this collection places several stories which are more speculative in nature ("Bad Boy," "Sardines," "The Mirror, the Bucket, and the Old Thigh Bone") at the beginning, which led to me almost abandoning reading; throughout the collection, the stories involving fantastical premises or events were my least favorite by far (despite this being a genre I typically enjoy). I found these forays into more supernatural territory to be somewhat strained, grasping toward shocking revelations about human nature, the meanness and pathos of which felt unearned.

Like many short story collections, some stories are stronger than others. Throughout, you can feel the writer pushing against the moral judgments you're making about her characters, changing dynamics and circumstances to alter your perspective. Would make a fantastic book club selection!

This book by Kristen Roupenian is far and away the best collection of short stories I have ever read. I have never not been able to put down a short story collection, I usually go very slowly because there is nothing to keep my attention. Roupenian is in a completely different league though. Each story is so different, some mystical and horrific, some completely grounded in reality and focusing on details about love, relationships, and gender that I have never seen any author get as well as she does. After every story, I was eager to keep going to see what the next one would be about, what crazy journey Roupenian would take me on and how it would affect me. I laughed, I was scared, I related the women dealing with the terrible men in her stories. I simultaneously want to buy a copy for everyone I know but not let on how much I love the disturbing twists and turns each story contains. I cannot wait to read everything by Roupenian after this, and so glad I was able to devour this ahead of publication. It feels like a secret that everyone will be talking about come January.

Thank you NetGalley and Gallery Books for this ARC.

I did not finish this book of short stories. The content did not appeal to me. It is not a book I would readily recommend. I would give it one star rating.

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Thank you To Net Galley for the ARC of this fierce short story collection I was given in exchange for a fair and honest review.

The thing about short story collections—and I’m pretty sure I’ve said this before—is that the experience of reading one is similar to buying a new cd was in the 90s. There was at least one track you knew that had compelled you to buy the album (in this case “Cat Person” is the story equivalent of that track. After you experienced the whole, you’d find some tracks that were amazing, som that were okay, and usually several that you could skip forever. Kristen Roupenian’s You Know You Want This is no exception. Some stories—“Biter,” for example, really stood out as impressive, while others, like the much acclaimed “Cat Person,” actually, were less stellar.

Let’s talk about “Cat Person.” It’s basically out a college girl who dates a guy that she doesn’t really like, then does kind of like, then doesn’t like again. She is incredibly dishonest about her feelings and has horribly ugly thoughts about his age, body, etcetera and then, after he does nothing wrong and treats her pretty well, she ghosts him. Then, in the end, he is turned into a “nice guy syndrome” type who lashed out when he’s rejected. Let me say this: huge feminist over here, so I’m not trying to justify his abusive, slut shaming texts at the end of the story (at this point I’m not protecting against spoilers as this story was totally viral last year), but she is pretty awful to him. She just disappears when he hasn’t done anything wrong instead of talking to him about her feelings. It’s hard to root for this shallow girl. At the same time, you can’t conpletely rule out “Cat Person” because even though the tone towards overweight people is pretty gross, the voice is authentic and the interaction at the end—a guy online suddenly lashing out after facing rejection—is incredibly relatable.

It’s kind of a shame because Roupenian handles the idea of the “nice guy” beautifully in other stories: “The Good Guy,” which tells the story of a classic nice guy who demeans women horribly while convinced he’s actually the ideal kind of guy, reads as so authentic it was almost painful. As a reader, watching Ted become more and more mysoginistic while still protesting that he was a decent, authentic man provided a lot of insight into the dangers of our toxically masculine culture. Poor Ted.

“Biter,” too, stood out as a really great story. It was the shortest in the collection, but despite its short length, it really packed a punched. The story of mild mannered and forgettable Ellie, “Biter” was a perfect display of the way people crave. I’m not going to lie, I was really rooting for her to give in to her desires far before she did.

All in all, this was a really great collection. Again, there were a few weak stories—I didn’t like “The Night Runner” at all—but I received my copy last night and have already finished it. The fact that I couldn’t stop feasting, binging, gorging on these stories says all that needs to be said.

3.5-4/5: Read This.