How do I describe this book without totally giving away everything great about it?
The book follows the cast and crew of a Bachelor-esque reality dating show to a remote island in the Pacific Northwest where they are looking to film. And let's just say that things don't go as planned.
This book managed to be both comedic and gruesome - which is not something I can say is done well very often but damn Samantha pulls it off so well. While the blurb and the cover do give away some of the twists, this book pulls you in at first in one direction, then promptly clotheslines you and drags you away on a different path - in the best possible way.
I've never read any of the authors other works, but I might have to because wow I absolutely loved everything about this writing - the POV switches, the dialogue, EVERYTHING. Hell, I don't think there's a single main character in this I'd actually want to meet in real life, but I LOVED them! They were all awful, terrible people (with a couple exceptions) but they were also so much fun to read and worked perfectly with the story.
My only main complaint is that the ending is a bit rushed and would've loved to see just a tab bit more exploration of some of the side plots, but honestly it still works.

The final four contestants in a Bachelor-style reality show and the (deeply mediocre) “Catch” they’re competing for travel to a remote island in the Pacific Northwest to film the season’s penultimate episode. They fight and squabble and do all of the reality tv things, and then people start disappearing and everything goes insane.

•-•-•-•

This book was bonkers and deeply weird, but then kind of not weird enough? It starts off as a fairly typical satire of reality tv tropes, and then Patricia comes in and everything gets immediately bloody. I was hoping for more of an explanation about Patricia and the women on the island because that felt glossed over, even though it was the whole point of the story. I did fly through this book — it was funny and fast-paced and I like some gore (and that cover is beyond AMAZING) — but the ending felt a bit abrupt, and I needed more answers!

Holy SHIT this book took me for a ride in the best way. So much fun. It's the perfect blend of camp-y horror and reality TV show satire with a little splash of queerness (lesbian cults anyone??) that I absolutely loved.

The writing was so good, and the characters were SO interesting and well-developed. Renee's character in particular was so fascinating to me, specifically in the way that she grapples with her sexuality throughout the book. She simultaneously feels "not queer enough" yet also "not straight enough" to feel like she's "allowed" to categorize herself into either group, which is a perspective I found so relatable and refreshing because it's unlike anything I've read before in queer literature. We need more queer stories in all forms, but I've never felt so seen and represented like that through a character before, so that was really special for me to experience.

Honestly everything about this book sucked me in and I couldn't put it down because I had to know how it was all going to tie up in the end. If you're looking for a fun romp and don't mind a little gore, this book is IT. Available in June 2022!

Thank you so much to Netgalley and Zando Projects for providing me with a digital arc of this book. It will probably become one of my favorites of the year and I'm super grateful to have read it.

This book is absolutely insane.... in such a good way! It really gets set up to be one /type/ of story and then so quickly becomes this completely nutty, gory nightmare horror book that is also just a little bit wholesome (?). My only major critique is I think it suffers from being a little too short - another 50 pages or so would've really added some depth and fleshed out the end of the story, especially where the major mystery is concerned, and I think I would've been just a little more invested if I got that kind of ending. Other than that though I thought this book was really good, unique, and just a super captivating and fast paced time!

3.25 stars
How does one even explain this book?
We’re following this bachelor reality show on Otter’s island. We get perspectives from all the women in this book. This includes love letters from the women who live on the island, the contestants and a crew member.
The women were bitchy w/ one another. This was usually started discreetly by the show-runners. It provides insight onto how fake reality tv is.
I would say Casey is the most interesting out of everyone. This show is very important to her. She watches over the girls and moves things into the right direction. She keeps Jeremy in check and creates drama.
This book was marketed as being very queer and it wasn’t. Yeah we have one contestant who thinks she might be a bisexual and two old wife’s who live on Otter’s island, but that’s it.
It was written in a way that’s easy to consume. I read this quickly in hopes that I would finally come across something that tied everything together in this big reveal. I was throughly disappointed.
Patricia the Sasquatch is just thrown in this book for some gorey scenes. Those were fun but I didn’t get the twist around her. The Sasquatch added nothing but tension for the other when people started disappearing.
This was a weird read but at least it kept my attention.

This was a book I’m sad to say! I struggled with and didn’t get along very well with while reading. I thought it was going to be my cup of tea with it sounding that weird and wild that I love but sadly for me it fell flat

Many thanks to Netgalley and publishers for providing my review copy.
Patricia Wants to Cuddle is fun! but it really doesn't pick up until about 75% so it's a lot of character build up of the contestants and crew on a Bachelor-esque reality show. And then it takes a turn. I sped through it so I was definitely interested and enjoying it, it just felt like the ending was very rushed. I wanted to know more about Patricia.

This book was so fun!!! The moment I read "lesbian sasquatch" in the description, I knew that I would love Patricia Wants to Cuddle. This book, part satire, part lit fic, and part horror is a campy and hilarious ride from start to finish. The story follows four women as they compete to earn the affection of "the Catch" on a reality dating show that takes them to the remote Pacific Northwest. There they find themselves ensnared by something that lurks in the woods as the show begins to fall apart.

While the book itself is funny and smart, it's also surprisingly tender. I loved Renee and Maggie, and I found the letters written between Maggie and her wife to be so touching and lovely. I managed to feel shocked at every twist and turn the plot took, and I thought the setup was done so creatively. Altogether, Patricia Wants to Cuddle is inventive and engaging while remaining light enough to make me laugh. The ending was perfect, and I loved seeing Renee's character development play into it.

If you're looking for something deceptively fun and endearing with just the right amount of gore, pick this one up ASAP!

If it's a sapphic book I'm bound to give it a high rating because let's be honest, there aren't enough of them. So my excitement for this book when I heard it was sapphic and reality tv-show style, was high. And it did not disappoint. It was categorically insane and I loved every single bit of it. This book was genuinely hilarious on every level and just bad shit enough for it to be captivating from cover to cover. READ IT.

Based on the blurb for the book, this turned out to be not at all what I expected, and not in a good way. Our titular character doesn't really come into the story until the last 3rd of this short book, and she really isn't given her due. It read like a very slow burn with unoriginal The Bachelor franchise tropes and then was wrapped up very quickly and in an unsatisfying manner. It left me wanting a lot more.

I didn’t love this as much as I thought I would, but it was good. I actually really liked the ending but kinda wanted more—as usual lol. A fun read though.

What on earth just happened here then?

It started off a cheesy rehash of the bachelor/love island style. We meet 4 equally ridiculous women going after the horrific ‘catch’ all for different reasons but mainly, to get followers on glamstapix that I presume to be Instagram! And then it just gets wild.. the last 20% of the book is just ridiculous and I certainly needed a lay down afterwards. You will not even come near to guessing/predicting what was going on.

PATRICIA WANTS TO CUDDLE is a fantastic, wild ride that was just pure fun. The plot is a bit bonkers, the twists and turns are unexpected and hilarious, and Samantha Allen just cemented herself as an auto-buy author for me! I enjoyed this book so much and only wish it was longer so that I could have lived in this world for a little more. It is a queer, in all senses of the world, romp that takes the idea of elimination with the confines of a reality show to a whole new level.

So what we have here are 4 contestants in the final stages of a Bachelor-esque reality show, and the novel's perspective switches between the women vying for the "The Catch," a producer on the show, and other characters that swirl around them. To save production money, the show takes the cast and crew to a remote island off of the pacific northwest (instead of say, Bali or Croatia) and there the witty parody of reality TV turns quickly to a creepy tale of monsters. I don't want to give away more than that, but all this to say: if you love the Bachelor and/or you love slasher films, you CANNOT miss this book. It is so, so fun.

Patricia Wants to Cuddle was an absurdly amusing story about a realistic TV show called The Catch where a group of women all vie for the attention and corsages of one mediocre dude. They all fly to a remote PNW island for the big finale selection and suddenly encounter female Bigfoot?!

Sound familiar? This one was ridiculous and addicting, but I had a few problems with it...like wtf does "she was "as clingy as a pitbull" mean?! Also, you obviously have to suspend reality a little for this and even though I am pretty sure it's satire that was a little hard at the end.

I don't watch the Bachelor/Bachelorette shows but the promise of a satire/horror take on the shows attracted me to the book, that and the cover. This one was definitely up there in the weirdness.
Starting with The Catch cast and crew as they venture to Otter Island toward the finale of the show. The 4 semi-finalist are given the stereotypical television personalities seen on these type of dating shows but sadly, I felt like they missed the mark. The true cattiness of the girls felt overly forced. The guys were all painted as morons. The girls reasons for coming on the show really poked fun at the reality dating shows but these characters are built up to their very pointed personalities for over 50% of the novel. Then the horror comes into play. The quick change of tone was the thing I liked most. We go from fluff filler to gore horror within the same page. The novel weaved in spoilers/predictions/scoops chats about the show, then it threw in blog post of a woman searching for her sister who went missing on the island, and love letters from residents of the island--I understand the use of them to quickly introduce and further the story but some of them slowed the tone for me.
I will give credit for such well done job on the behind the scenes. Giving realness to the unrealness of these reality shows, where the end goal isn't the true motivation and how staged, forced, and manipulated these things can be.
Sadly, overall, this book was just an 'eh' read for me. I was in it for the satire premise but maybe I would have loved it more if I watched the dating shows.----2.5 stars

Well, that was the weirdest book I’ve read in a while! Not at all what I was expecting. I kept it saying aloud, “what in the world am I reading!?” However, I must say that I couldn’t put it down and I was totally engrossed. I didn’t like most of the characters which turned out helpful to not be attached when it all started to go down. It is definitely a book I would recommend to someone who is looking for a little escapism, and is looking for something a little outside of their typical genre. I would say this book is “Devolution” meets “A Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires”.

I really didn't know what to expect from this book, but I loved how it turned out! I thought it would be a light, fun read, but it ended up having a lot more depth than I expected. (I do feel that I NEED to go live on Otter's Island now, so maybe I'm a biased source on that! I adored the ending.) The characters were lovable -- or at least love-to-hateable -- and the mix of perspectives and styles kept me turning the pages. I also liked the "final girl" vibe of it all; I didn't expect to lose so many characters! (Sorry, Casey. I liked you, even if your profession was vile.) It was funny, thought-provoking, and super appealing to modern readers. I'm looking forward to more from Samantha Allen!

Funny and super gay but also w-t-f. There's a specific audience for this who will absolutely love it.

Four women have made it to the final of a reality television dating show (ala The Bachelor). Their prize? A sleazy bachelor who doesn't seem to want to choose any of the women before him. Their destination for their final? A mysterious island in the Pacific Northwest.

Each contestant represents a classic stereotype and each has their own reason for being on the show (it's no secret really that it's not to hook up with the bachelor).

Living alone in the woods on the remote island is Patricia, who watches as the female contestants primp for the camera and prepare for whatever contests the TV producers come up with for them. But the cast and skeleton crew left on the remote island may need reclusive Patricia's help if they are to survive into the next round.

I requested this book because I was in the mood for something light and fun, and with the television filming as a background I really thought I might get into this. And I did, a little bit.

The characters really are stereotypes, each person representing one quite obvious (to reality tv watchers) character trait. One of these stood out to me - the uber-religious - and I'm not sure why. Perhaps it was just too easy to constantly have this person make a pithy religious quote.

There is a mysterious horror aspect to the book, which I found enjoyable ... until it became more ridiculous than horrific.

Ultimately, this is both the success and failure of this book ... this is heavy satire. But perhaps it is satirizing too much? The satire of the reality show works well, but this strange addition of the dark turn takes it out of satire and then we're no longer enjoying the book we thought we were getting in to.

It tries to come back or maintain the light-hearted satire, but I think it goes over the edge, making the come-back nearly impossible.

Also ... the title? Patricia is not nearly as much a prime character in this book as one might think, given that she is the titular character.

Looking for a good book? Patricia Wants to Cuddle by Samantha Allen is a chick-lit satire of reality television shows until it turns dark and gruesome but tries to hang on to a light-hearted atmosphere anyway.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

“Patricia Wants to Cuddle” is a book that straddles genres. Is it a mystery, a satire, a thriller, a social commentary, a dark comedy? It doesn’t quite know what it wants to be, and so I didn’t know either as I read it. It’s unlike anything I’ve read before, with a truly bizarre premise, as if the author crossed the Isle of Lesbos with Planet of the Apes. I liked it, it’s a quick read and one I won’t soon forget, but it left me wondering why.