Kristen Roupenian is an American author known for her insightful short stories. She gained popularity with her viral piece Cat Person, later featured in her engaging debut collection, You Know You Want This.
If you enjoy reading books by Kristen Roupenian then you might also like the following authors:
If you enjoy Kristen Roupenian's sharp, unsettling approach to relationships and inner struggles, you'll likely appreciate Ottessa Moshfegh.
Her writing is bold and unapologetic, with characters who often experience loneliness or internal conflict in surprising, sometimes disturbing ways.
In her novel My Year of Rest and Relaxation, Moshfegh creates an alienated narrator who attempts to escape her troubles by sleeping for an entire year. It's biting, darkly funny, and refreshingly blunt.
Fans of Roupenian's exploration of gender dynamics, power, and unsettling atmospheres might find a lot to appreciate in Carmen Maria Machado's work. Machado blends realism with horror and fantasy to explore women's experiences, bodies, and relationships.
Her short story collection Her Body and Other Parties offers stories that confront readers with fascinating and surreal imagery, strange characters, and narratives that explore vulnerability and power in unexpected ways.
If you're interested in Roupenian's honest take on complicated emotions, sexual tension, and misunderstood desires, Mary Gaitskill could be right up your alley. Her writing tackles emotional conflicts and troubled inner lives with honesty, depth, and intelligence.
Her short story collection Bad Behavior explores complicated themes of attraction, power struggles, and feelings of isolation, capturing human connection at its most raw and unsettling.
If you're intrigued by Roupenian's ability to create tense, ambiguous atmospheres, consider diving into Samantha Schweblin. Her narratives carefully balance realism and surrealism, building suspense through subtle, unsettling layers.
Her novella Fever Dream takes readers through a haunting exchange between two characters, touching on anxiety, parental fears, memory, and environmental dread, all with Schweblin's quietly creepy style.
Melissa Broder should appeal to readers who enjoy Roupenian's frank portrayal of anxiety, desire, and relationships gone wrong. Broder's writing is funny, sharp, absurd at times, and unafraid to confront messy human feelings directly.
In her novel The Pisces, she tells the story of a woman hitting rock-bottom who enters into an intense and unexpected romance—filled with strange twists, biting humor, and honest self-reflection.
If you liked Kristen Roupenian's sharp insight into modern relationships, Sally Rooney might be a great fit. Rooney explores complicated friendships and romantic entanglements among people in their twenties and thirties.
Her book Normal People captures the emotional push-and-pull between two young adults, with honest writing that balances tenderness and clarity.
Roxane Gay writes with fierce honesty and a powerful voice, often tackling gender, identity, and trauma. Like Roupenian, Gay isn't afraid to confront uncomfortable truths in relationships and society.
In her short story collection Difficult Women, Gay portrays women who are complex, vulnerable, and defiant.
If the blend of unsettling imagery and subtle emotion in Roupenian's writing draws you in, Julia Armfield's style might resonate. She mixes elements of the weird, eerie, and supernatural with human desires and anxieties.
Her story collection Salt Slow features absorbing tales exploring themes of love, bodies, identity, and transformation.
Kelly Link writes imaginative, surreal stories filled with unusual settings and rich language. Like Roupenian, she blends ordinary concerns—relationships, growing up, conflicts—with strange and sometimes surprising twists.
Link's collection Get in Trouble pairs realism and fantasy in clever, nuanced ways.
Amelia Gray creates stories that are unsettling yet subtly humorous, often highlighting the bizarre and disturbing aspects of modern life. Fans of Roupenian's sharp commentary might appreciate Gray's fearless exploration of discomfort.
Her collection Gutshot pushes boundaries with vivid, unflinching, and imaginative storytelling.
If you appreciated Kristen Roupenian's sharp sense of humor and examination of awkward, uncomfortable interactions, Halle Butler could become a favorite. Her writing often explores dissatisfaction and the daily frustrations of young adulthood.
In The New Me, Butler offers a brutally honest yet very funny portrayal of millennial boredom, office-life dread, and the search for meaning.
Megan Nolan captures relationship anxieties and personal vulnerabilities with raw honesty that resonates for fans of Roupenian. Her novel Acts of Desperation examines the intense, sometimes unhealthy dynamics of romantic attraction and self-worth.
Nolan's direct yet introspective style highlights the complexity beneath emotional and physical desire.
If what draws you to Roupenian is her sharply observed interactions and precise attention to ordinary details, Lydia Davis might intrigue you as well. Famous for extremely brief stories with powerful emotional punches, Davis looks closely at the strangeness of daily life.
Her collection Can't and Won't is full of compact, insightful glimpses into ordinary moments that reveal deeper truths.
Similar to Roupenian, Diane Williams excels in revealing tensions beneath the surface of seemingly ordinary interactions. Her stories are incredibly short, packing an entire story or character moment into a handful of sentences.
Fine, Fine, Fine, Fine, Fine showcases Williams's concise yet suggestive storytelling, offering unsettling, witty glimpses into relationships, misunderstandings, and internal unease.
You might enjoy Caroline O'Donoghue if you're drawn to Roupenian's insightful portrayal of modern women's experiences and complex relationships.
Her novel Promising Young Women mixes dark humor and thoughtful examination of workplace dynamics, ambition, power imbalance, and personal identity, creating an engaging, often unsettling read.