You Know What You Did
by K. T. Nguyen
Publication date 4/16/2924
This one was a slow burn for me but once it really started lighting up I could not put it down. Many twists and turns and had me guessing till the end. Great read but a new author for me. Thank you NetGalley for the opportunity to read this one early with the opportunity to leave a fair and honest review! Be on the lookout for this you will not be disappointed !!

This is a must read thriller that will keep you guessing way past your bedtime! It’s a must read and you won’t be able to put it down!

Great story of a mother that will stop at nothing to protect her daughter. Quite a good read, lots of action.

If you want a book that will have you questioning everything, you know this is the book for you. I feel so bad for Annie. To have obsessive compulsive disorder and then have people doing things around you that have you doubt everything you know would be the worst. The fact that people try to tie Annie to three different crimes would just be a nightmare. I don’t blame Annie for any of the thoughts that she dealt with on this crazy ride. I would be doubting myself too if I was in her position. This book is a whirlwind, but one worth reading.
Thank you to Penguin Group Dutton and Netgalley for allowing me to read an advance copy of this book.

Nguyen’s novel is a horror and thriller. It’ twisty.

When Annie’s mother passes away her life goes downhill. Her ocd tendencies return, her daughter doesn’t want to spend time with her. Seeing her OCD in such details is intense. She starts losing bits of her memory leading herself into a murder investigation. Did she does this? With Annie being an unreliable narrator due to the memory loss you learn things throughout the book with her.

I liked this book, but did not love it.

Annie Shaw has turned her life around after growing up in a poor household with a toxic relationship with her mother. However, when her mother suddenly passes, Annie’s OCD (previously thought to be reined in) comes roaring back in full force, and her illusions start blending with reality. She soon finds herself in the middle of several police investigations and no longer knows what to believe.

YOU KNOW WHAT YOU DID by K. T. Nguyen was such a unique book!

This is the first thriller/horror I’ve read that utilizes (contamination) OCD to drive home the body horror and lend itself to an unreliable narrator, and I thought it was really well done!

Nguyen builds on this uneasiness and untrustworthiness to deliver a great twist at the end as well.

There were some moments that I wish were fleshed out a bit more, but overall a really great debut!

Thanks to NetGalley and Dutton for an ARC in exchange for an honest review!

Publication Date: April 16

You Know What You Did by K. T. Nguyen follows Annie “Anh Le” Shaw, a first-generation Vietnamese American artist as she falls into a downward spiral of OCD and compulsive behavior after her mother dies and other deaths follow. It is a recommended mystery/thriller for the right readers.

Annie’s mother, a Vietnam War refugee, made Annie's childhood one of control and emotional abuse that left Annie with lifelong trauma. Annie escaped to college where she met and married Duncan, a wealthy journalist. The two now have a fifteen-year-old daughter, Tabitha (Tabby) and are living a comfortable life. When Annie's mother, now a hoarder who was living in their carriage house, dies suddenly, Annie’s life begins to fall apart and she reverts to some of her previous behavior, including OCD, memory problems, and self-doubt. She begins to distance herself from people, including Duncan and Tabby. When her beloved dog dies quickly after her mother and another death happens. Annie can't tell what is going on around her.

Annie is an incredibly unreliable narrator and the sharing of her thoughts during her downward spiral is a slow-paced nightmarish jumble of confusion, memory loss, paranoia, and compulsion. Annie can't tell what is going on around her. The slow pace continues for a greater portion of the novel and, since it is being seen through the eyes of an untrustworthy and perhaps unstable narrator, staying with the plot does require some conscious effort.

To be honest there was not one character in the novel that I liked, trusted, or connected with. There were also several things that occurred that will be difficult for some readers. Twists happen toward the end but careful readers may predict the direction this one is going.

The quality of the writing is actually very good. Nguyen did an excellent job depicting a fifteen-year-old teen girl, which gives her major writing points. 3.5 rounded down for me but could easily go up for the right reader. Thanks to Dutton for providing me with an advance reader's copy via NetGalley. My review is voluntary and expresses my honest opinion.

The review will be published on Edelweiss, X, Barnes & Noble and Amazon.

Do not start this book late at night, as it will keep you up!
It’s one of those “just another chapter book”!
Great character development and awesome twists and turns.
I will definitely be recommending this book to my customers

Thank you to Netgalley, the publisher and the author, for an ARC of this book, in exchange for an honest review.
The premise of the book drew me in but once I started reading it, I just couldn’t get into it at all.
I wish the author, publisher and all those promoting the book much success and connections with the right readers.

*Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this arc in exchange for my honest review*

A great thriller - I would recommend it!

YOU KNOW WHAT YOU DID
K. T. Nguyen

Do you have ghosts dead or living that haunt you in your waking hours? I have a new thriller for you.

YOU KNOW WHAT YOU DID stars Annie, known to some intimately as Anh. Annie’s mother died recently, and Annie is having trouble moving on. She and her mom had a complicated relationship, and some issues may never be resolved.

Annie suffers from obsessive compulsive disorder and her days are spent managing her condition to varying degrees. Unfortunately, Annie spends a lot of her time trying to control things that are out of her control. Like how other people feel, behave, and respond to her. Sometimes her condition is manageable with medication and therapy and lots of patience and understanding. Some days her condition consumes her entirely.

One day, Annie finds herself in the middle of a murder mystery. We follow along as Annie goes through a difficult time with her condition in her grief and becomes a suspect in a murder case.

Will Annie find the resolve to keep her and her family safe or will everything she’s worked so hard for slip through her fingers?

We find out in K. T. Nguyen’s YOU KNOW WHAT YOU DID.

Nguyen’s portrayal of obsessive-compulsive disorder and grief had a layer of truth running through it. I appreciated Annie as a character and the situation she found herself in. Annie’s condition is devastating and within the context of the book has real devastating consequences.

The writing is sharp and focused. The suspense was balanced, and the intrigue stayed high. YOU KNOW WHAT YOU DID is the first in a lineup of great early summer thrillers. Make sure you grab a copy the next time you’re in the bookstore and request it from your local library.

Thanks to Netgalley, PENGUIN GROUP Dutton, and Dutton for the advanced copy! It was a pleasure!!

YOU KNOW WHAT YOU DID…⭐⭐⭐⭐

arc review

Wow. It's tough to concisely write about You Know What You Did. I will probably type and delete this multiple times trying to figure it out.

This book may be a good fit if you like:
- representation for mental health (OCD) and refugee experiences
- family drama
- not knowing who to trust
- mother-daughter relationships

This book was a major exercise in compassion for me. The main character, Annie, has Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. There were times her thoughts and behaviors felt maddening, but then I had to tell myself to STFU.

While the first part of the book focused on Annie's downward spiral after her mother's death. Her medication doesn't seem to be working any more, and each day Annie's thoughts become more uncontrollable. In the second part, it becomes more traditional thriller. The tension shifts from within Annie's mind to finding out who is responsible for the crimes surrounding Annie and her family.

Overall I found this book to be challenging and entertaining. Being in Annie's head will stay with me for a long time. I had hesitations about starting this one because I heard it was pretty gruesome, but I'm glad I gave it a chance. The short chapters came in clutch here, especially during the slower character-driven parts. I think I will remember this book fondly as time goes on.

Rating: I really liked it! (4)

Note: Annie's OCD shows up as disgust-prone, so her thoughts can be quite graphic. If you are sensitive to body horror, this may be a tough one at times. This book is also is a great reminder that we can come up with other adjectives for our perfectionism than flippantly tossing around the term OCD.

Thank you to Penguin Group, Dutton Books, and Net Galley for the opportunity to read this ebook early in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to Penguin Group, Dutton Books, and Net Galley for the opportunity to read this ebook early in exchange for an honest review.

This thriller ended up being okay for me!

It took me a bit to figure out because the beginning felt so disorienting, and I wasn't sure what this story wanted to be. By the second half of the book, I was following better, but then it felt a bit predictable.

I did like what this story did with discussing generational trauma, and (contamination) OCD rep. I would check out something from this author again in the future.

Thank you to the publisher for granting me access to an ARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions remain my own.

Featured in this reading vlog: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1wA5uNgm2I

This is one of those times when I feel like my rating of this book is going to be highly subjective. I haven't looked at any other ratings or reviews, but it feels like the type of book that a lot of people can really get behind. i'm just not one of them this time.

i love psychological thrillers, but this one really felt all over the place. there were a lot of flashbacks and asides that came out of no where and really happened so abruptly that i would get knocked out of my groove, so to speak. there were a lot of very interesting underlying points (being an immigrant, being forced from your home/culture, mental illness, etc) that were just on the verge of being truly fascinating, but never quite got there because the plot zipped and zapped all over the place.

this book was unhinged and not always in a good way. every character felt like they were filling an archetype and never really took a shape of their own. i never really cared about any of them, one way or another. the writing felt scatterbrained with the shifts in time and shifts in tenses, within the same pages so it felt very disjointed.

Thank you to Penguin Group Dutton for the ARC of You Know What You Did in exchange for an honest review!

You Know What You Did is a slow-burn, twisty debut from K.T. Nguyen. A mystery, a thriller, a commentary on generational trauma, and tribute to the refugee experience, it tackles and confronts shifting perceptions and the battle of mental health head on. YKWYD follows Annie (or Anh Le), who has been spiraling since the recent death of her mother. Her husband has noticed that a lot of her OCD tendencies are resurfacing; her daughter (a typical teenager) wants nothing to do with her. When she’s left alone suddenly, time moves differently, and things begin to happen she cannot fully understand.

This book was a challenge for me. It felt heavy, complex, and personal. The first third builds slow and steady, but it really takes off around the 40% mark when Annie’s husband Duncan takes an assignment and her daughter Tabby heads off to camp. Annie finds herself in the middle of a murder and a mess, and becomes more and more unsure about the part she played as time goes on. We flash back to moments from her childhood and to some of the more difficult periods of her marriage. Ultimately, I was really glad that I stuck with it and finished YKWYD because it got better and better but I wouldn’t say it’s for the faint of heart. A lot of the topics it covers are messy, uncomfortable and occasionally gross. There’s a scene with a dog I haven’t quite recovered from.

Still, it’s a novel with a point of view. It reads like a letter, and remains a special glimpse inside the mind of a layered and challenging narrator, someone not necessarily easy to love, but lovable all the same. Someone worth understanding and sitting beside, amidst a battle that whether won or lost is hard fought and never relinquished.

An artist finds herself slowly descending into madness as she begins to question what is true or not... and whether the monster is her own mind or someone out to get her as those close to her begin to die and it's all pointing to her as the murderer. Annie "Anh Le" Shaw looks like she has it all, a thriving art career, a devoted husband, and a beautiful home and daughter. Yet Annie's struggling, especially with a mother who she has a very difficult relationship with... that ends up worse when her mother dies suddenly. Annie's life begins to unravel and her OCD begins to flare up and things only get worse... from her art patron disappearing and to the man she had an affair with being poisoned... and someone leaving her threatening messages. Annie feels like she's losing her mind, she can't tell if she's the problem or if someone else is after her. Her memory is foggy at best and she can't seem to do anything right... yet something in her knows that she isn't the one doing this... right? If not her... then who? This was an interesting mystery because I loved the portrayal of Annie dealing with her own background and childhood versus that of the cultural differences in her husband and daughter. The portrayal of the refugee experience and the relationship between mother and daughter was really interesting and I enjoyed it. The mystery itself was pretty clear and I guessed who did it early on but enjoyed it overall. I liked how vulnerable Annie felt and how her struggles were realistic. It's an interesting thriller overall and I think it makes a good read!

*Thanks Netgalley and PENGUIN GROUP Dutton | Dutton for sending me an arc in exchange for an honest review*

K.T. Nguyen's "You Know What You Did" is a rollercoaster of a read, devoured in two days, with a mix of intriguing psychological layers and quirky character dynamics.

However, despite its gripping start and engaging narrative style, the story loses momentum towards the end, leaving some loose ends untied and the resolution feeling a tad too tidy for comfort.

While the book's exploration of generational trauma and obsession is commendable, its over-explanation of character emotions and somewhat predictable plot twists detract from the overall experience. Ultimately, I'd give it 3 stars—worth the ride, but not without its bumps and detours.

The way the author was able to layer mother- daughter relationships , the immigrant experience with horror elements was incredibly well done.
The pacing was perfect because I was glued to my kindle.
Thank you for the earc .

3/5

This book was a weird case because the description of the book is actually quite misleading. I was almost going to give up on the book in the first 40% because of it before I realized that and was able to readjust my expectations. This is definitely a domestic thriller with a little bit of crime and not a crime thriller as the description seems to promise. Honestly I’m not sure why it was written that way as it’s actually a decent domestic thriller! Had I know that from the start I would have been way less frustrated at the beginning.

As for the story itself, I both liked and hated Annie. I kept flipping between being annoyed by her to pitying her as she struggled with her condition. It just felt so helpless seeing her make one horrible mistake after another and she was just as powerless as the reader is. I think that feeling was actually really well done as it felt like I was there with her one horrible step at a time. (You can see why without knowing it was a domestic thriller at first this would have been more aggravating than interesting). But I think the author did a good job fleshing her out into a very nuanced and troubled woman.

I was also not a big fan of the ending at all. It felt so different in tone and pace compared to the rest of the book. Everything came to a quick and far too clean end in the last 20% of the book and it didn’t actually feel all that satisfying after so many layers of problems that had been built up until then. There were a lot of ideas in this book and the end really let all of the buildup down.

Overall, the beginning was ruined because of the bad description of the book, the middle was excellent and the ending was disappointing.

K.T. Nguyen's debut novel, YOU KNOW WHAT YOU DID is a thriller/suspense novel that deals with heavy topics, such as death of a family member and coming to America as a refugee. The main character, Annie (Anh Le) Shaw is navigating her life with her devoted husband Duncan and their daughter Tabitha (Tabby). They live a beautiful and financially successful life together, but when her mother, a Vietnam War refugee dies, Annie's life and mental state begins to suffer. Annie suffers from obsessive compulsive disorder and has carefully curated her life from the horrors of her upbringing and generational trauma. Annie begins to see the world around her crumble and she doesn't quite know how to navigate this new reality.

K.T. Nguyen is an incredible storyteller. I was hooked by how she was weaving the story around. This book is at its core a thriller/suspense, but I also think that you could categorize it as a slow-burn horror. The first half of the book really sets the mood for the second half, so you'll need to pick this up when you're ready for a slower read. Not only does this book deal with the effects of being a refugee and fleeing a country in turmoil, this book really dives into mental health.