Bad Boy by Kristen Roupenian, 2019
The magic trick:
Thrilling you with what will soon make you feel guilty
Welcome to a weekend double from the author who brought you the famed “Cat Person” not so many years ago.
So what other kinds of stories does she write? Strange kinds. Interesting kinds.
Here we go.
“Bad Boy” toys with sex at the outset. It will catch you up in its “Will they? Won’t they? Will they really?” drama.
And then when things get bad and especially when they then get really bad, you will feel culpable for enjoying the thrills of the opening pages.
And that’s quite a trick on Roupenian’s part.
The selection:
That night, we lay in bed together, talking about our friend. We complained about how small our apartment was, about how we couldn’t have sex without him hearing us. Maybe we should do it anyway, we said – it’ll be the closest to getting laid he’s come in months. (Withholding sex had been one of the manipulative strategies of the terrible girlfriend.) Maybe he’d like it.
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