Cat Person by Kristen Roupenian
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

So when I was voluntold to read this so my friend could stop feeling so alone, abused, and ashamed of herself for having finished this story, I did it because I felt like it wasn't that much of an investment. It's just a short story, I said to myself. Published in the New Yorker! This is what modern literature is all about outside of my cloistered cozy little comforter of SF/F/H books.

WHAT COULD GO WRONG? Or is it Wrog. *Wrong.

Sigh.

Well, I'll tell you. Girl meets older boy, both play out weird little dramas in their head as they circle each other through texting, and then after a very uncomfortable date, they do the nasty.

It's just as nasty as you might imagine when it's degrading, full of personal illusions on both sides, including additional characters springing up out of each others' heads while having sex. (BTW, not literally. That might have been a cool post-modern Fantasy.)

It was just a BAD DATE that made everyone feel nasty and horrible even after subjecting themselves to the "expectation".

The aftermath, avoiding the guy, and the ending texts he sent her was just as ugly as everything else in the story.

If I was in the mood for some bad reality and/or I had the patience to swallow this "realism" shite, I might have given this more stars because it DID accomplish what it set out to do.

I feel like I need to chlorinate a few gene pools and go through a very THOROUGH level 4 contamination rig.


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