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booksandbujos's review
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
This was a solid, standard thriller. The middle dragged a little at times, but the ending felt like a decently-paced climax. The reveal felt a little out of nowhere. I also don’t know if we really got closure on the sort of main mystery/ initial incident of the death of her mother. Was it actually natural? Was it supposed to be something more like the other deaths? Not entirely sure.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Death of parent, Murder, and Gaslighting
Moderate: Infidelity, Toxic relationship, and Violence
Minor: Car accident and War
magyklyxdelish's review
dark
emotional
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Grief, and Car accident
Moderate: Animal death, Infidelity, Violence, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, and Gaslighting
Minor: Racism, Sexual assault, Police brutality, War, and Classism
minimicropup's review against another edition
dark
emotional
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
It’s not bad, but it felt unfinished?
Energy: Visceral. Conciliatory. Woeful.
Scene: 🇺🇸 Mount Pleasant, Virginia.
Perspective: We follow an artist with a spouse and 13 yr old daughter in dual timelines (1980s-1990s to current day). Their mother lived in their guesthouse and has recently passed, and they are grappling with grief along with personal stressors. We also get a side story of a character at a hotel.
🐺 Growls: Too many dream/vision sequences. Unnecessary shock-value dog stuff. Awkward villain monologue in the middle of high-stakes ending.
🐕 Howls: Referring to incidents withheld from the reader for far too long. Insufferable characters over-musing. Feeling like we never get to know Annie.
🐩 Tail Wags: The overall idea of the story.
🤔 Random Thoughts:
An “inferring” style read. There’s vagueness and we can infer to create suspense, but it relies so much on that approach that I felt disconnected from the story.
Everyone is insufferable. The only character I was rooting for was the dog (don’t recommend).
Annia being annoying isn’t a hit against the book, because I think there was meaning for why. She’d obsess over non-important tiny details, then her mind wandered at a key point, and she’d miss the obvious. Given her condition, I think that was the point – she isn’t always rational or justified in her approach to crises. But she felt so one-dimensional.
This relied way too much on dream sequences to create spooks and suspense.
I prefer third person, but wish this wasn’t. It felt like it was originally first person, then someone went back and changed it. The narrator was like an annoying middleperson between the story and the character. It was lagging on page.
It’s almost Chapter 25 before ‘something happens’.
The ‘big bad’ describes everything In The Middle of A High Stakes Scene…Why?! And in this case they are screaming the evil plan into the air!
This entire plot felt like it was dipping a toe in multiple genres on a shallow level. Like the same tale told as a contemporary fiction, then literary horror, then popcorn thriller, then magical realism suspense. It felt disjointed, never really went deep (if there was depth or meaningful symbolism, I missed it), but was written like it was trying to be deep. It’s not a bad story, it’s just told in a way that felt like the same story through the same lens with slightly different filters on.
----
🤓 Reader Role: Middleman narrator. Interpreting first and conveying second, so it’s like they’re inserting meaning in the story without context.
🗺️ World-Building: Vapid. Both for the actual settings/atmosphere and for being in the main character’s mind.
🔥 Fuel: What do Annie’s dreams/flashbacks mean? What will happen with her marriage and relationship with her daughter? Driven by withholding, revelatory backstories, and dream sequences of cathartic release and philosophical insights.
📖 Cred: Plausible-ish suspended disbelief-ish
Mood Reading Match-Up:
- Dog barking. Door knocking. Dark bedrooms. Dust. Rice cooker. Bugs. Porch discussions.
- Generational trauma and second-generation immigrant experiences
- Contemporary fiction with flashbacks
- Musing, reflecting, overanalyzing character study at a distance.
Content Heads-Up: Loss of parent (in adulthood). Verbal abuse (from child). Controlling parent. Generational trauma. War (refugee; PTSD; brief mention/recall). Car accident. Alcoholism. Dementia. Racism (bullying, verbal abuse, tokenism, stereotypical assumptions by characters). Intrusive thoughts, losing track of time, rituals, contamination anxiety. Mysophobia. OCD. Loss of pet (dog, misadventure). Grief. Infidelity. Spiders. Toxic femininity/unhealthy gender roles. Hoarding. Alcohol use. Blackmail. Potential false accusation. Domestic abuse (attempted rape, physical assault).
Rep: Vietnamese. African. American. Second-generation American. Heterosexual. Bisexual. Cisgender.
📚 Format: Audible
My musings 💖 powered by puppy snuggles 🐶
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death, Mental illness, and Grief
Moderate: Alcoholism, Infidelity, Racism, Dementia, and Car accident
Minor: Domestic abuse and War
mysterymom40's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Emotional abuse, Gore, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Sexual content, Blood, Car accident, Murder, and Gaslighting
Moderate: Bullying, Infidelity, Racism, Sexual assault, Alcohol, and War
bitesizedbeet's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
4.25
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death, Body horror, Death, Infidelity, Mental illness, Blood, Grief, Car accident, Death of parent, Murder, and Alcohol
Moderate: Alcohol and War
Minor: Child abuse, Child death, Racism, Blood, Pregnancy, and Fire/Fire injury
camilleisreading24's review
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Good for fans of:
Jennifer Hillier
Lisa Jewell
Gillian Flynn
This is excellent, especially for a debut. This book follows Annie, whose OCD re-emerges after the sudden death of her mother, a Vietnam War refugee with whom she had a tortured relationship. There were multiple threads in this story: in the present, we see how Annie’s delusions and rituals take over her life and make her doubt her reality; through flashbacks, we see Annie’s difficult and abusive childhood, as well as her mother’s heartbreaking experiences fleeing Vietnam; and then there is the mysterious hotel where Annie wakes up next to a body.
In the hands of less skilled writer, this story would quickly get unwieldy and too difficult to follow. But Nguyen deftly weaves a tapestry from all of these threads and the result is a thriller that pulls you in and doesn’t let go until the final page. While reading, I felt Annie’s stress and discomfort viscerally. To me, that’s a hallmark of a great writer. I also enjoyed reading a story set in the northern Virginia suburbs of DC. That added a fun extra layer to my reading experience.
There is dark subject matter here and I recommend looking up content warnings - especially if child death and/or animal death are your triggers.
Jennifer Hillier
Lisa Jewell
Gillian Flynn
This is excellent, especially for a debut. This book follows Annie, whose OCD re-emerges after the sudden death of her mother, a Vietnam War refugee with whom she had a tortured relationship. There were multiple threads in this story: in the present, we see how Annie’s delusions and rituals take over her life and make her doubt her reality; through flashbacks, we see Annie’s difficult and abusive childhood, as well as her mother’s heartbreaking experiences fleeing Vietnam; and then there is the mysterious hotel where Annie wakes up next to a body.
In the hands of less skilled writer, this story would quickly get unwieldy and too difficult to follow. But Nguyen deftly weaves a tapestry from all of these threads and the result is a thriller that pulls you in and doesn’t let go until the final page. While reading, I felt Annie’s stress and discomfort viscerally. To me, that’s a hallmark of a great writer. I also enjoyed reading a story set in the northern Virginia suburbs of DC. That added a fun extra layer to my reading experience.
There is dark subject matter here and I recommend looking up content warnings - especially if child death and/or animal death are your triggers.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Mental illness
Moderate: Animal death, Child death, Death of parent, and War
newcritter's review against another edition
2.5
This was a good read but not a fun one. The immigrant experience, generational trauma, and insect-driven gore were difficult to read at times but not as difficult as reading through the intrusive thoughts the FMC had that were almost triggering. The end felt almost anti-climactic, and the plot dragged in the last 1/3 of the book, but overall, an interesting read that made me viscerally uncomfortable. Please pay attention to the trigger warnings.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death, Body horror, Gore, Infidelity, Mental illness, Grief, Car accident, Death of parent, Gaslighting, and War
marissas_reads's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.25
A great, thought-provoking, psychological thriller! Even though I guessed the twist 20% of the way in, I had a lot of fun reading this book. The plot was unique and twisty, and the writing was so good I was even starting to question my own theory about who the bad guy was.
I love a thriller that has some depth to it, and KT Nguyen certainly delivered. Mental health, particularly OCD and PTSD, are major focuses of YOU KNOW WHAT YOU DID, as well as white supremacy/patriarchal issues (immigration, war, race, etc).
This isn’t exactly a book I would recommend as a weekend binge (which is definitely also a type of thriller I enjoy!), but is a bit of a slow burn that moves in fits and starts and benefits from savoring it over several sittings. Highly recommend!
I love a thriller that has some depth to it, and KT Nguyen certainly delivered. Mental health, particularly OCD and PTSD, are major focuses of YOU KNOW WHAT YOU DID, as well as white supremacy/patriarchal issues (immigration, war, race, etc).
This isn’t exactly a book I would recommend as a weekend binge (which is definitely also a type of thriller I enjoy!), but is a bit of a slow burn that moves in fits and starts and benefits from savoring it over several sittings. Highly recommend!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Mental illness and Death of parent
Moderate: Racism
Minor: Rape, Police brutality, and War
julessssss's review against another edition
challenging
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
this book is complex in the best ways, it is everything I could have asked for. I have been itching for a good horror (or horror-adjacent) book and this was it.
Annie is an unreliable narrator and I found myself both caring deeply for her but also disliking her (which was a perfect balance). I was compelled to know what was going to happen next and what information was being withheld, I was on the edge of my seat the whole time.
I did feel like the resolution was a little lackluster though, and if I would tweak anything about this novel, it would be that.I did like, however, that the ending gave her a secret to keep (in the most vague terms possible lol)
I will be back for more of what this author does in the future.
I cannot say I would recommend this to just anyone (if you are interested, consider looking at a list of trigger/content warnings), however, if you are a horror or thriller fan, this might be a great fit.
Thank you to Netgalley and the publishing team for granting me a free and advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Annie is an unreliable narrator and I found myself both caring deeply for her but also disliking her (which was a perfect balance). I was compelled to know what was going to happen next and what information was being withheld, I was on the edge of my seat the whole time.
I did feel like the resolution was a little lackluster though, and if I would tweak anything about this novel, it would be that.
I will be back for more of what this author does in the future.
I cannot say I would recommend this to just anyone (if you are interested, consider looking at a list of trigger/content warnings), however, if you are a horror or thriller fan, this might be a great fit.
Thank you to Netgalley and the publishing team for granting me a free and advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death, Body horror, Body shaming, Death, Gore, Infidelity, Racism, Self harm, Sexual assault, Violence, Police brutality, Grief, Stalking, Car accident, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism
Moderate: War