"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." (Lauren Holmes New York Times)

"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." (Harriet Walker The Times)

"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." (Economist)

"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." (Laura Collins-Hughes Boston Globe)

"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." (Sarah Ditum New Statesman)

"[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." (Katie Law Evening Standard)

"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." (Miranda July)

"If you think you know what this collection will be like, you?re wrong. These stories are sharp and perverse, dark and bizarre, unrelenting and utterly bananas. I love them so, so much." (Carmen Maria Machado)

"Roupenian offers an audacious take on human relations in all their awkward and weird glory, putting some of these stories in mind of Curtis Sittenfeld or even, on occasion, Sally Rooney. There's no doubt that Roupenian is a wellspring of original ideas? And if Roupenian can continue to mine the heart of darkness with the same sort of daring, her future as one of our great literary truth-tellers could very well materialise." (Tanya Sweeney Irish Independent)

"[There's] a huge amount of variety in You Know You Want This. Magical realism rubs up against full fantasy, narrative formats chop and change, the first and third person are used with equal and impressive skill? This is a highly accomplished collection." (Holly Baxter Independent)

'If you enjoyed Cat Person, this is for you? Evening Standard

The truth was that if a woman bit a man in an office environment, there would be a strong assumption that the man had done something to deserve it . . .


From the creator of Cat Person ? the first short story to go viral ? comes You Know You Want This, a compulsive collection about sex, dating and modern life. These are stories of women?s lives now. They also happen to be horror stories. In some, women endure the horror. In others, they inflict it.

Here are women at work, at home, on dates, at the doctor?s, with their families and with their friends. Here are women grappling with desire, punishment, guilt and anger. These are stories that make you feel fascinated but repelled, scared but delighted, revolted but aroused.

You Know You Want This shows why Kristen Roupenian is the most audacious new voice in American fiction. Funny, furious, sly and explicit, she takes a long, hard look at the messed-up power dynamic between men and women ? and messes it up some more.

?You know you want to read this collection by the author of the viral short story Cat Person ?One story in particular, The Good Guy, is chillingly accurate.? ELLE

ELLE ONE TO WATCH