This collection pays off on the promise of "Cat Person." Every story is unsettling in its own way, from straight up body horror to exposing the source code of toxic masculinity and psychological warfare. The themes of the unknowability of others and the self-delusions of snap judgments of character based on scanty behavioral evidence explored in "Cat Person" get additional color commentary throughout this collection. The centerpiece is the near-novella length "The Good Guy," an especially unnerving look into male psychological development that cuts way too close to home, at least until the point where the central figure crosses some bright but subtle lines of interpersonal engagement and psychological manipulation. Roupenian has a frightening talent for sucker punching the reader with an off-putting opening sentence (NSFW ex. from "The Good Guy": "By the time he was 35, the only way Ted could get hard and remain so for the duration of sexual intercourse was to pretend that his dick was a knife, and the woman he was fucking was stabbing herself with it."), then slowly luring the reader back into the action and in sync with the central characters' perspective before pulling away again. Brilliantly done.