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A review by micheleamar
You Know You Want This by Kristen Roupenian
3.0
Overall Rating: ✭✭✭½
Something I've seen people say about this collection is that it portrayed sex as something unenjoyable—the sex scenes weren't thrilling, weren't exciting, were almost disgusting—besties, that's kind of the point. This isn't a collection of erotic stories meant to be exciting, it's supposed to show the darker parts of human sexuality and the ways we find ourselves both disgusted and unable to look away. If you're trying to read erotic novels, I can point you in a better direction than this book, because that's not what it's meant to be, and if you're giving it a low rating because you didn't properly read what it was about before diving right in, I can't stop you. This, instead is a short story collection that dissects the power dynamics of sex, gender roles, sexuality, relationships, friendships, and obsession. Some of the stories were hits, some were huge misses, but so it goes for short story collections—I've yet to read one in which I enjoyed every single story it offered.
Bad Boy: ✭✭✭✭½
I loved this one, I think it was such a strong start to this collection. I loved the psychological implications of this story. It relentlessly tore its way under my skin and refused to leave. It both made me excited to continue reading and made me want to stop for the rest of the night because I needed to tear apart every word and find the meaning.
Look At Your Game, Girl: ✭✭✭½
I actually really liked this one?? It wasn't a standout, but it did feel very..."short story-esque". It felt complete in its whole narrative, and it was a pretty average story.
Sardines: ✭✭
Found it a little boring, a little less than "eh".
The Night Runner: ✭✭
This one was a bit pointless to me? I found it rather uninteresting and was kind of just waiting for it to be over.
The Mirror, The Bucket, and The Old Thigh Bone: ✭✭✭✭½
I LOVED this story! I was enamored with the way it turned on its head, truly—when we were first introduced to the princess, I had an image of your stereotypical "beautiful caged princess" in my head. I think the simplicity of the writing is so compellingly jarring against the backdrop of the events that take place, and I loved it.
Cat Person: ✭✭✭✭½
We all know this story—it's probably how the majority of people found their way to this collection and read it in the first place. I'm no exception. I love this story and so do a lot of people, so I'll leave you with this to explain just why I love it: "...she thought, brightly, This is the worst life decision I have ever made! And she marveled at herself for a while, at the mystery of this person who’d just done this bizarre, inexplicable thing."
Good Guy: ✭✭✭
Found it entertaining, but at this point I had already discovered that my favorites of this collection were turning out to be the ones that were the most psychologically intense, the ones where Roupenian dug into the back of my mind and showed me bits of inner monologue that I hadn't realized I myself had thought before. It did do that in a way for the narrator of this story, but it wasn't my inner monologue—it was a man who I didn't relate to, and I didn't find any of the women he was entangled with all that interesting separate from their story to his. So, while it was entertaining, it was also resoundingly average.
The Boy In The Pool: ✭✭✭
This one was also entertaining, and it did bring out that psychosexual sort of intensity that I was beginning to enjoy in these stories, but the meaning of the story itself sort of got lost for me, so this also ended up being rather average for me.
Scarred: ✭✭✭½
I really liked this one! I wish it had gone a bit more in-depth, as I probably would have latched on to this story more than I did, because the concept alone was enough to enthrall me. That being said, it did feel a bit detached from the story itself. The ending, though. The ending!!
The Matchbox Sign: ✭✭✭✭✭
Obsessed, loved it, probably my favorite story from the entire collection. It was originally 4.5 stars, but I bumped it up to 5 when I realized how deep it had gotten under my skin. That's usually how my 5 star reads come about: I read them, I love them, I can't stop thinking about them, I realize that it's a nearly perfect story. At times, the narration felt a bit too on the nose but that didn't take away the enjoyment of the story as a whole. I loved the scene in the doctor's office, a mere moment where the girlfriend is speaking about her symptoms and all it takes is one single comment, almost minuscule, from the boyfriend (our narrator) to nullify what she's said and almost simplify her, in the eyes of the doctor, into a "paranoid woman". I think we all could have seen the ending coming from the way the story was progressing, but that isn't something that takes away my love for a story; in fact, it enhances it.
Death Wish: ✭✭✭
This story exists completely and wholly separate, on its own. I mean that in the sense that this story is told from the point of a view of a man who meets a woman, and something happens during their first and only meeting. Because we are only in the head of our narrator, we never find out what the consequences of this meeting are. I think that I'm not alone in saying that we, as the readers, are more invested in the woman this man meets, so we have a lot of questions at the end, just like he does. Perhaps that's the point. The main focus of this story is someone we never see again because all we get is one story that takes place in one single scene and then it's over. There is no impact that we can see, but we clearly understand from the narrator's own words that he's still filled with questions, as are we. It was good.
Biter: ✭✭✭½
Took me surprise and I liked it a lot! I think we might have spent a bit too much on the buildup and not enough on the actual climax/ending of the story, but it was alright. I was surprised by the turn the story took, so it was above average, and I did love the closing passage.
Something I've seen people say about this collection is that it portrayed sex as something unenjoyable—the sex scenes weren't thrilling, weren't exciting, were almost disgusting—besties, that's kind of the point. This isn't a collection of erotic stories meant to be exciting, it's supposed to show the darker parts of human sexuality and the ways we find ourselves both disgusted and unable to look away. If you're trying to read erotic novels, I can point you in a better direction than this book, because that's not what it's meant to be, and if you're giving it a low rating because you didn't properly read what it was about before diving right in, I can't stop you. This, instead is a short story collection that dissects the power dynamics of sex, gender roles, sexuality, relationships, friendships, and obsession. Some of the stories were hits, some were huge misses, but so it goes for short story collections—I've yet to read one in which I enjoyed every single story it offered.
Bad Boy: ✭✭✭✭½
I loved this one, I think it was such a strong start to this collection. I loved the psychological implications of this story. It relentlessly tore its way under my skin and refused to leave. It both made me excited to continue reading and made me want to stop for the rest of the night because I needed to tear apart every word and find the meaning.
Look At Your Game, Girl: ✭✭✭½
I actually really liked this one?? It wasn't a standout, but it did feel very..."short story-esque". It felt complete in its whole narrative, and it was a pretty average story.
Sardines: ✭✭
Found it a little boring, a little less than "eh".
The Night Runner: ✭✭
This one was a bit pointless to me? I found it rather uninteresting and was kind of just waiting for it to be over.
The Mirror, The Bucket, and The Old Thigh Bone: ✭✭✭✭½
I LOVED this story! I was enamored with the way it turned on its head, truly—when we were first introduced to the princess, I had an image of your stereotypical "beautiful caged princess" in my head.
Spoiler
By the end of the story, I was caught so off guard with her selfishness, with her monstrosity, with her wretchedness.Cat Person: ✭✭✭✭½
We all know this story—it's probably how the majority of people found their way to this collection and read it in the first place. I'm no exception. I love this story and so do a lot of people, so I'll leave you with this to explain just why I love it: "...she thought, brightly, This is the worst life decision I have ever made! And she marveled at herself for a while, at the mystery of this person who’d just done this bizarre, inexplicable thing."
Good Guy: ✭✭✭
Found it entertaining, but at this point I had already discovered that my favorites of this collection were turning out to be the ones that were the most psychologically intense, the ones where Roupenian dug into the back of my mind and showed me bits of inner monologue that I hadn't realized I myself had thought before. It did do that in a way for the narrator of this story, but it wasn't my inner monologue—it was a man who I didn't relate to, and I didn't find any of the women he was entangled with all that interesting separate from their story to his. So, while it was entertaining, it was also resoundingly average.
The Boy In The Pool: ✭✭✭
This one was also entertaining, and it did bring out that psychosexual sort of intensity that I was beginning to enjoy in these stories, but the meaning of the story itself sort of got lost for me, so this also ended up being rather average for me.
Scarred: ✭✭✭½
I really liked this one! I wish it had gone a bit more in-depth, as I probably would have latched on to this story more than I did, because the concept alone was enough to enthrall me. That being said, it did feel a bit detached from the story itself. The ending, though. The ending!!
The Matchbox Sign: ✭✭✭✭✭
Obsessed, loved it, probably my favorite story from the entire collection. It was originally 4.5 stars, but I bumped it up to 5 when I realized how deep it had gotten under my skin. That's usually how my 5 star reads come about: I read them, I love them, I can't stop thinking about them, I realize that it's a nearly perfect story. At times, the narration felt a bit too on the nose but that didn't take away the enjoyment of the story as a whole. I loved the scene in the doctor's office, a mere moment where the girlfriend is speaking about her symptoms and all it takes is one single comment, almost minuscule, from the boyfriend (our narrator) to nullify what she's said and almost simplify her, in the eyes of the doctor, into a "paranoid woman". I think we all could have seen the ending coming from the way the story was progressing, but that isn't something that takes away my love for a story; in fact, it enhances it.
Death Wish: ✭✭✭
This story exists completely and wholly separate, on its own. I mean that in the sense that this story is told from the point of a view of a man who meets a woman, and something happens during their first and only meeting. Because we are only in the head of our narrator, we never find out what the consequences of this meeting are. I think that I'm not alone in saying that we, as the readers, are more invested in the woman this man meets, so we have a lot of questions at the end, just like he does. Perhaps that's the point. The main focus of this story is someone we never see again because all we get is one story that takes place in one single scene and then it's over. There is no impact that we can see, but we clearly understand from the narrator's own words that he's still filled with questions, as are we. It was good.
Biter: ✭✭✭½
Took me surprise and I liked it a lot! I think we might have spent a bit too much on the buildup and not enough on the actual climax/ending of the story, but it was alright. I was surprised by the turn the story took, so it was above average, and I did love the closing passage.