This was a deliciously terrifying read -- the inexorable slow-building tension, the raw emotionality of Annie's struggles as she struggles with so many external and internal factors, the introspective and hauntingly crisp prose. I felt like I knew Annie on a deeply personal level and felt all her pain and her fear right along with her. Usually I prefer fast-paced thrillers but it's impossible to argue with how expertly Nguyen has paced this particular tale -- it's the perfect blend of urgent and meandering that makes it impossible to look away or stop turning pages. A fantastic read!

You Know What You Did
K.T. Nguyen
April 16, 2024
Dutton
* thriller
Thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley for the ARC of this novel in exchange for my honest opinion.
The story was a good mixture of suspense and drama. The primary focus is on Annie. I typically gravitate to faster paced thrillers but this one is worth the wait. It kept me questioning until the end. Annie faces grief, mental health concerns, trauma and relationship struggles as her world is unraveling.
4 stars

Clever and all-encompassing. Brilliant twists, turns, and white-knuckled suspense. Abstract flashbacks add a layer to the plot that I have rarely seen pulled off so effortlessly. The mental health representation of OCD and PTSD is refreshingly accurate. I appreciate the depth of research the author took to represent OCD in such raw and emotional ways.

The homestretch of the last pages were a disappointment—mainly because I imagined another character being responsible for everything that transpired. Another outcome would have been better in my opinion given foreshadowing clues.

Overall, an excellent piece of work—engaging and also a great representation of mental health and the difficulties of the refugee experience.

The cover design didn't particularly appeal to me, but the story itself made a favorable impact. I did notice that the teenagers' dialogue occasionally leaned towards being overly informal, with an abundance of expressions like 'bruh,' which didn't quite match my personal taste. However, what truly captured my attention were the interactions between Amir and Marcel and the beautiful journey of rekindling their friendship. It's a remarkable narrative that underscores the enduring strength of camaraderie.

DNF Because of content. I knew this book contained OCD but not trypophobia or mysophobia, and I have both disorders.

K. T. Nguyen is a fabulous writer though! She made me experience the fears just by reading her descriptions. I wish I was brave enough to finish the story. It’s riveting!

Many thanks to Penguin Group Dutton and K.T. Nguyen for the ARC via NetGalley!

This was so good. I highly enjoyed this and I was totally absorbed into this story. I was hooked from the beginning and I absolutely loved this story.
I just reviewed You Know What You Did by K. T. Nguyen. #YouKnowWhatYouDid #NetGalley
[NetGalley URL]

I would like to thank the author and the NetGalley to be selected to preview this book. Unfortunately it was a difficult ready for me. It took far to long for me to get interesting and I just couldn't get into so I didn't finish it.

Thank you to NetGalley & Dutton for the opportunity to read this. My rating is a 3.5. This book is broken into 3 parts. The 1st part, I personally did not enjoy. There was backstory & flashbacks & it felt confusing to me. Part 2 & part 3 I did enjoy. The storyline became more clear & I felt more interested. However, I was able to guess the twist early on & parts of the writing felt repetitive. I think if the story felt more cohesive, I would have enjoyed it a lot more.

Slow and steady wins the race? I enjoyed this book but did not love it, it was good but not great.
I enjoyed the characters and the story line however things moved a bit slow but the ending made it almost worth it.
If you don't mind a slow go and a steady thrill I would recommend giving this book a try. If you need to be at the edge of your seat from the get go, put this book down and find another.

4.5 Stars.

The beginning was a bit confusing and some of the flashbacks werent flashbacks. It was also getting a bit repetitive too with Annie’s thoughts. I understand why though due to her OCD. I did enjoy the question of whether Annie really hurt anyone or not. She wasn’t a super reliable character which made the book more interesting. I wnjoyed the twist and had an inkling it might have been that person. Once you hit part 2, it really speeds up and I just wanted to know what would happen.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for this arc in exchange for an honest review.

Thanks to NetGalley for this copy of You Know What You Did by K.T. Nguyen.
Even though Annie seems like she has it all with her flourishing artwork, she doesn’t. Annie Shaw was raised by a single mother, a Vietnam War refugee, who was always terribly hard on Annie and always found fault with her and everything she did. When her mother dies one night, Annie’s old OCD comes roaring back with a vengeance and threatens to upend her life with her husband, Duncan, and her daughter, Tabby.
When Annie’s friend, Byrdie, goes missing, Annie is afraid her paranoia and OCD tendencies make her a suspect in the disappearance.
I absolutely LOVED this book – I devoured it in two days. It had lots of twists and turns that kept me totally captivated and an ending that I didn’t see coming – can’t wait to read more from this author!

I absolutely loved this book. Right from the beginning, you are invested in the main character and need to know what becomes of her. The book also takes a deep dive into mental illness and the struggles of refugees which was captivating. 5 stars without a doubt.

Thank you Dutton Books for my Netgalley copy of YOU KNOW WHAT YOU DID by K. T. Nguyen out 4/16/24!

When I saw this was for fans of Celeste Ng or Lisa Jewell, I knew I had to request this debut! It follows Annie Shaw, an artist with her dream career, devoted husband and whip-smart teenage daughter. When her mother, a Vietnam War refugee, dies suddenly, her life starts to unravel as her obsessive-compulsive disorder comes roaring back.

One of her prominent clients goes missing and the investigation zeroes in on Annie. She begins to question her own mind, hyperfixate on her traumas she endured as a child, and as she pushes everyone away around her, wakes up in a hotel room next to a naked, lifeless body.

This book had twist after twist, and while the narrator was frustrating at times, I couldn’t put it down. This is an amazing thriller, that details the hardships of OCD paired with the wounds of the refugee experience. What legacies do we leave for our children? Is the bond between mother and daughter unbreakable or does it have its limits? Can we ever escape the trauma we endured?

The ending is wild and my skin crawled on more than one occasion. I will definitely keep my eyes peeled for K. T. Nguyen’s follow-up novel!

Wow! This book started a little slow for me but when it picked up, all I wanted to do was read it! It was a very long book so I was a little disappointed that the end felt rushed and not really true to character, but I throughly enjoyed the ride to the finish.

What impressed me about You Know What You Did by K.T. Nguyen was the way I felt during and in the day after reading the book: deeply disturbed, paranoid, germaphobic. I want to be clear that I do not mean to suggest that reading about someone experiencing extreme psychological distress is equivocal to a lived experience but I was surprised even by the headspace that this put me in. I was definitely rattled by the experience of reading this book.

The book follows Annie Shaw in what at first appears to be a picture perfect life: perfect marriage, blooming career as an artist, and a doting mother. Over the course of the novel, Annie's life unravels, and we are led to believe this is largely Annie's own doing. As her anxiety grows and her psychological episodes increase in intensity, Annie comes undone, and her most disturbing thoughts appear to manifest inexplicably in real life. At times, her narration appears incomplete, and I went spent entire chapters where I genuinely thought perhaps she was an unreliable narrator in that her telling of events appeared to commonly and conveniently omit details that painted her in a less than ideal light. There is a twist at the end that I did not see coming that explains Annie's intuitions and paranoia were more than just a gut feeling, and makes you reconsider every observation of one of the other characters in the novel in a different light. A psychological thriller from page one, You Know What You Did explores intergenerational trauma, psychological distress associated with OCD and other mental illnesses, familial love, and more.

Thank you to K.T. Nguyen & team, Penguin Group Dutton, and NetGalley for an advanced copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

You Know What You Did was a page turner, I could barely put the book down! I read it in 3 days! This is the first Vietnamese type book I’ve read and boy did I love it! Annie’s mother passes away and then her demons from her childhood come back up. Will Annie escape unharmed? This book was 5/5 stars for me, I can’t wait to read another by this author!

Thrilling to read. Dark and scary at times. Good writing and pace throughout the book. Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC. I think this book will do well with an audience that likes psychological stories and complex relationships. Four stars.

Wow, I definitely didn’t see the end coming in this book. It kept me hooked on my seat and I finished it in less than a day. I’d definitely recommend this.

I would definitely categorize this in the thriller/horror genre. On paper, Annie’s got the perfect life - she’s an artist with a loving husband, a smart teenage daughter, and a nice home. But in reality, her life is anything but perfect.

Annie is caught in a confusing pull between love and hate when it comes to her relationship with her mother. She also is exhibiting OCD habits, and her mother’s OCD kept her from living a “normal” adolescence. Annie has memory loss and struggles to maintain her sanity throughout this novel.

Since we’ve got an unreliable narrator, it’s hard to parse through what to believe and what to not. I liked figuring out the truth alongside Annie, but I felt like the beginning of this novel (maybe the first 25%?) dragged on and there was a lot of background information.

The resolution was a little too clean for me. And it was truly difficult to empathize with Annie, even though we see her evidently struggle with OCD and PTSD from her past. I felt like the entire cast of characters was in the ”morally gray,” none of them being out-right good or bad people, and that’s supposed to make the story even more complex - but for me, with the graphic depictions of worms (I have a legit phobia of worms lol) and her other OCD tendencies/paranoia, it just made it harder to read.

I can’t in good conscience blanket recommend this to everyone, as there are some triggering topics like OCD, emotional parental abuse, and mysophobia (germophobia). Please be mindful going into this! The writing was good though, there’s no doubt about that. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC in exchange for my honest opinions.

You Know What You Did is a book about intergenerational trauma, family loss, mental illness, and the refugee experience contained within a mystery/thriller--and the last 25% of the book is so compelling that I was unable to stop reading until I finished.

It has the added benefit of making me incredibly hungry, particularly for pho....which ends up being a really important aspect to the story. I do love a book that engages my sense of smell and taste (and which brings back memories for me, much in the way those senses are tripped as part of the novel).

I was particularly interested in the ways in which all the characters were flawed, and how those flaws play into the plot and resolution.

*already posted to Goodreads