Gripping thriller with twists I didn’t see coming. Fast paced, easy read. I look forward to reading more from this author.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for forwarding me this ARC.

It took me a long time to finish this book. Not because it was bad but because it was really hard to get into. The writing style is very unique and the storytelling did take a while to pick up. But once it did, I couldn’t stop.
This book tells a haunting tale of racism, gaslighting and toxic relationships.
Our main character Annie is suffering from OCD and is also the unreliable narrator.
Honestly if you love a good unreliable narrator this is THE book for you. It may be one of the best books I’ve read with that trope.
This thriller told the story of domestic horror so so well and it reminds us that often your daily life and the people you think you know and love are your worst enemies. I seriously devoured this.
I loved how this all wrapped up and am looking forward to read more by this author.

"A first generation Vietnamese American artist must confront nightmares past and present ,,,"
Literally? Say less.

I was so excited by the premise and the dark, moody atmosphere of this book, but unfortunately the plot was not plotting and could not hold my attention all the way through. A solid 2.5 stars for me.

Thank you to both NetGalley and PENGUIN GROUP Dutton for the ARC copy of this psych thriller out now!!!

While I do love me a great psych thriller, unfortunately this one was a bit too slow paced for me personally. It felt as though the beginning was filled with a tad bit of fluff, and it took a while before we really started to get into things.
I would've liked a little bit more happening to keep me engaged with the story line.

I also thought the ending was a little predictable.

However, there are plenty of readers that have rated this highly! So it may just be that it didn't quite work for me, but it will for you!

Unfortunately this just wasn't working for me. I am having a lot of trouble staying interested. I am thankful for an eARC!

Thank you NetGalley for sending me this arc in exchange for my honest review!

Rating 3.75

This novel was really interesting and fun, though it did feel slow at some points. I loved the unreliable narrator and how it kept me on the edge of my seat when it wasn't dragging in those slower moments.

I always love thrillers. The cover art had me interested and the comparison to Lisa Jewell made me know I wanted to read this book. I devoured the book, constantly guessing at the ending, but never quite getting it right.

This was a great story.

Following the main character and her complicated relationship with her mother from childhood to after her mother’s passing. With suspense of did she do something to her mom, to someone else, interwoven through the story, you’ll stick around past bedtime turning pages to come to the satisfying conclusion and the answers that await you.

Unfortunately, You Know What You Did was a bit of a drag for me, which was disappointing because this was one of my most anticipated reads this year. I think K. T. Nguyen is skilled in terms of writing, but I just did not care about these characters and felt like Nguyen's efforts to be mysterious eclipsed the pacing and character development.

Thank you to PENGUIN GROUP, Dutton, and NetGalley for providing an ARC!

Annie’s mother (with whom she had a complicated relationship) just passed away, her teen daughter doesn’t want anything to do with her, and a seemingly promising article covering her art career turns out to be a massive disappointment. All in all, it’s no wonder her OCD is flaring up (though she insists to her husband she’s fine, she doesn’t need therapy, stop asking.) Then, as soon as her husband leaves on a work assignment and her daughter goes away to summer camp, her arts benefactor disappears, and Annie is under suspicion. Suddenly alone and struggling against her own mind, Annie is not one hundred percent convinced she didn’t do it.

If you’re someone who is triggered by detailed descriptions of mental illness struggles, this book is not for you. Annie’s anxiety is palpable, running throughout the novel and growing thicker and more toxic throughout. It gave me second-hand anxiety, reading this book, making it at once more gripping and less pleasant to read. I found Annie deeply frustrating in a lot of ways, but also sympathetic in others.

The twist at the end was shocking but not surprising – I saw it coming but that didn’t make it any less impactful, and had me thinking back and reframing many scenes in my mind, especially ones with a certain character.

Representation: Vietnamese characters, including main character, and other POC characters; lesbian character

CW: severe mental illness (OCD, hoarding, paranoia, hallucinations, delusions, dissociation, and memory loss), child abuse and neglect, PTSD, car accidents, death of animal, infidelity, domestic violence, sexual assault

In honor of Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, I’m kicking things off with K.T. Nguyen’s razor-sharp debut, “You Know What You Did." Here, complications from untreated mental illness drive the unreliable narrator trope for a swirly, tangled hair-raiser.

After first-generation Vietnamese immigrant Annie “Anh Le” Shaw’s mother dies unexpectedly — the two had a fraught but close relationship — the loss impacts Annie more than she is initially aware of, and her seemingly perfect life begins to fall apart. First is the emergence of Annie’s long-forgotten obsessive-compulsive disorder, the details of which are depicted in such a way that only someone who has experienced Shaw’s specific type of OCD can portray.

“Through Annie, I describe some of my lived experience with disgust-driven, contamination-based OCD,” Nguyen wrote in an online author’s note. “The imagery is raw and vivid — and very necessary to realistically portray how this chronic disorder can affect people’s everyday lives, how it can make you feel like a prisoner in your own body.”

Then, when a well-known art patron suddenly disappears, all signs point toward Annie, who can’t prove she’s not at fault because she isn’t entirely sure — with blackouts and visions, she can’t trust her own mind. As sinister as it is emotional, “You Know What You Did” explores mother-daughter relationships and generational trauma with taut, captivating prose and a touch of horror.

Unfortunately, I could not get into this book. The mystery aspect did not captivate me and it took a long time to reveal itself. Furthermore, the story seemed to drag on a bit and perhaps that was why I found it a bit hard to follow at times. I was so intrigued by the cover, but it didn’t live up to that for me. 2 stars ⭐️. Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the advanced copy for review.

The ending really saved this book for me. I feel like it took me a really long time to get into this book. Chapter 1 grabbed my attention, but it was quickly lost after that. The story dragged on and I didn't feel it picked up until about the 80% mark.

While I did find that the OCD representation was accurate, I felt like the story relied too heavily on it. I didn't love that it felt like "are these things happening or is it just her OCD". Also the major trauma dumping about her life with her mom? That felt very out of place and I still am not quite sure how it added to the story.

Our main character was severely unlikeable which I think added to me not wanting to pick up this book. Honestly after the first weird thing happened I was hoping she would go to jail, that's how much I didn't like her.

This book should definitely come with some form of content warning. The scene with the dog made me want to throw up and honestly stop reading this book. It felt severely unnecessary to go into that much detail.

Overall it was a fine book. I don't know that I would read it again, but I am glad I experienced it at least once.

I loved this! Such a good twisty story. I love an unreliable narrator and was satisfied with the ending - however, the pacing sometimes felt like it was dragging in places which took it down to a 4 star read.

DNF at chapter 7. i was so lost with the story going back and forth. her mother is dead, but then with no date/time change they're having a conversation about tabby. i didn't have the patience to keep it straight myself. i feel like the plot won't develop anyway.

Okay this one took me a while to get into--at first I was pretty confused and didn't see the point in a lot of the story line--but by the end I was invested, there ended up being a lot of good twists!

*Thank you to Dutton and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for my honest review*

This book is intense - there's really no way around it. K.T. Nguyen viscerally describes symptoms of OCD and psychosis. Between the mysophobia, hallucinations, and intrusive thoughts, it's hard to discern what's real and what's a symptom and the author really leans into it. I quite enjoyed the moments we got where Annie was lucid and enjoying herself, she really deserved it. We're flip-flopping in the timeline with flashbacks and never-weres, just often enough to really jar the reader. This is a true psychological thriller, but also delves into generational trauma.

I did see the ending coming and was honestly kind of annoyed by it. But I did like that there was still a bit of a sinister air at the end despite the happy ending. Big fan, will read again.

Holy smokes! My first KT Nguyen book but please sign me up for the next one! Hard to believe this fascinating novel is a debut. Rich and well developed characters started the book out right and it just kept building steam throughout. Tough subject matter that was delivered with tender care and precision. Just nonstop secrets, lies and tension. Crazy great reveals. I was literally exhausted when I closed the book. Dark and disturbing.
Thank you NetGalley and KT Nguyen for the opportunity to read and review this cracker of a book.

Intense, fast-paced thriller dealing with OCD, trauma due to being a refugee from the Vietnam War, and trying to deal with some pretty evil characters. Annie is an artist, wife and mother. She recently experienced the death of her mother who she called Me, a difficult woman who hoarded the guest cottage she lived in and raised Annie with little food and little love. Me herself lost a child and found herself pregnant in a refugee camp after making sacrifices just to keep her baby alive. As a mother she was over-protective in terms of allowing Annie to have friends or much of a life, but she also failed to provide food or physical safety. Annie has long suffered from la particular type of OCD, one in which she has intrusive thoughts about germs and dirt as well as disease. She has mostly been doing well but the death first of her mother than her beloved dog has caused her to spiral.

This book is a. slow burn in the first half and then moves very fast. The parts dealing with mental illness and trauma are well done but the thriller parts are not given the same attention. Annie's dreams and intrusive thoughts are so horrifying that the author tries to create the thriller portions to be just as horrifying which made some of the dialogue and scenes almost cartoonish. I guessed the bad person from the beginning but the author does include a number of suspects as we find out about he deaths of a wealthy woman named Birdie and later an attack on a man that Annie has met named Gabe. I found a few things to not make sense like the police being overly concerned about a woman dying a natural death in her 80's and American police receiving insider details about an unsolved murder in Hong Kong many years after the event. Annie was often frustrating as she seemed to make little effort to help herself and was often rude to other people. I also thought the character of Dr. Patel seemed very unprofessional and Annie's daughter was hard to like. This was a good read despite my few nitpicks and I look forward to more from this author. Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for a copy of this ARC in exchange for a review.

You Know What You Did by KT Nguyen was a propulsive thriller, but readers need to be aware that some of the imagery in it veered into horror territory that was a little more intense than the average thriller. In fact, I read it much slower than many thrillers just because some of the scenes were very difficult to get through and I would need to take a break from the heaviness before moving on to the next one. Annie Shaw is the protagonist. She is a Vietnamese woman married to a white man. They share a teenaged daughter. Annie's mother, who was a refugee of the Vietnam War, has recently died at the beginning of the novel. First, we learn that Annie's mom had crippling mental illness that caused her to live in squalid conditions in Annie's and her husband's carriage house. The more we learn about Annie and her mom's background together, it is clear that the mom lived in terrible fear of all things "other". She was paranoid of most people and she was controlling to the point of mental cruelty.

Annie, as an adult, has Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. This is where most of the horror-like imagery I mentioned before comes in. Annie is so fearful of germs, she pictures things in her mind that are something out of a horror novel/movie. Many are related to bugs infesting living bodies, both animal and human. Unfortunately, much of what she fears ends up actually happening. She has started to lose some time in her mind, even passing out occasionally. Her OCD symptoms are getting worse, which has led to relationship problems with both her husband and her teenaged daughter. Suddenly, one of Annie's main clients is found dead and Annie is a suspect. She doesn't fully trust herself or her memory, so she is precariously on the defense, with little support around her as her journalist husband has taken an overseas assignment and her daughter has gone away to summer camp.

This book is well-written, but I was so uncomfortable reading it. The nature of mental illness is difficult to understand, but the author did a beautiful job demonstrating how OCD works from the perspective of the one suffering. She also does a great job showing the effects the disorder might have on relationships as well.