Cat Person and Other Stories

Cat Person and Other Stories, by Kristen Roupenian, is a republication of twelve stories previously published as You Know You Want This. It also includes one new story. This collection’s stories are packed with tension. Cat Person is the most famous short story in the collection. I was dismayed to discover the controversy regarding it, as I thought it was extremely well written. The insights in that particular story are unlike others that I’ve read, Roupenian captures something that people (women especially, I think) find very hard to explain in relationships. The first story, Bad Boy, is disturbing. The weirdness of sexual relationships and power/control dynamics is developed in that story. The Good Guy left me a little empty. I wasn’t sure if Roupenian meant for the protagonist to have a skewed vision of himself and the way others perceive him, or not. Sardines has an element of magical realism and some observations about being a preteen. While some of the stories are dark and depressing, they all take a hard look at a piece of the human condition that only a writer of a certain self-consciousness can describe. Roupenian’s insights have real value, but that doesn’t make the collection enjoyable, at least for me. The collection is uneven.. But it is never boring.