I feel the story needs improvement in the depth of it characters, and descriptive nature of setting scenes etc. It felt more like the author was rushing to put the story into words, but didn't spend the time setting the scene or the characters.

I enjoyed this, though not quite as much as the blurb would have me believe I would. Patricia Wants to Cuddle hits all the notes that make reality tv such a guilty pleasure, and marries that to a pretty great monster premise, all set in the gorgeous woods of an island off the coast of the Pacific Northwest. 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. I don’t know how to write a review for this without filling it with spoilers, but I’ll say that what started as a pretty clear (albeit unusual) plot unraveled into a tangled mess around the 50% mark. How can you make me not like a lesbian horror Sasquatch story? I was so excited. Gah! In the meantime, Renee wanders off into the woods to presumably search for Amanda, where she finds her decapitated head in a cave and has the most blasé, chill reaction possible to seeing her castmate’s body parts strewn around the dirt like jigsaw pieces. (So, uh, Renee might not be all there, so-to-speak.) Lady Sasquatch does the rest of the heavy lifting for the group, dismembering Lilah Mae and Vanessa in extremely gruesome fashion. She also pummels the Catch (Josh? Jimmie?) to death (the description of his demise . . . oof) thanks to Renee, who helps out the injured creature when the older women show up and spew more cryptic dialogue about “Her” and “She” (who they’ve named Patricia, by the way) and the magic of the island. Apparently Patricia just wants companionship, but doesn’t know how to properly show it. The sapphic horror story is challenged when it comes to character development. However, 2D characters are standard in satire, so I don’t think the novel should be down-voted because of it. In fact, I think keeping the reality show characters flat serves to emphasize the key points of the book: critiquing our capitalism culture’s obsession with inauthenticity.There's a lot to like here, number one being the characters, because Samantha Allen nails certain types while giving them some wiggle room to be more than their expected types. The contestants at least; those four women were given most of the focus, as you'd expect. I could have done with just a bit more for some of the others (make me care if you're going to slaughter people, I beg of authors in general, I want it to matter!). The balance between petty Housewives-based melodrama, gore, and identity struggles is wonderfully achieved despite the novel’s brevity. Silly fun for the whole family as King Kong meets The Bachelor in Paradise and Naked and Afraid.” - Jim Piechota, Edge Media Network It’s those same 22-year-olds who made me realize Patricia Wants to Cuddle would have a home in 2022. The kids have grown up and they want weird queer shit. In one short decade, we’ve gone from studios assuming that only men would be interested in a film like Jennifer’s Body to Showtime actively courting a female audience for a cannibalism drama that was executive produced by none other than Karyn Kusama.

But for one of them, the introspective and deeply over it Renee, the island isn’t quite so nightmarish after all. As the events of the show and the actions of an invasive producer makes her begin to question her sexuality, Renee finds herself bonding with Otters Island — and its inhabitants, human and otherwise — in unexpected ways. Set in a Bachelor-style reality show where 4 women are competing for the interest of a mediocre man, there are lots of behind the scenes UnREAL-style vibes. It's biting and funny and also somehow sympathetic towards everyone. When filming takes the final contestants to a small island past its prime where women have previously gone missing, things take a turn. What makes a novel like Patricia so vital is that it reminds us just how fun literature can/should be, in this case with all the hallmarks of a “beach read,” that double-edged recommendation. And yet the sentences in Patricia are supple and smart throughout, the characters deep, human, growing more complicated as our views into their interior lives and histories expand across the novel.” - Ryan McIlvain, Los Angeles Review of Books The contestants of a reality television dating show compete for love—and their lives—in this pulse-pounding and viciously funny fiction debut from the GLAAD Award-winning author of Real Queer America. I had high hopes for this one—The Bachelor meets a creature feature? yes, please—and Samantha Allen delivered: I devoured it in one sitting . . . Part satire, part gleeful horror, part lesbian love story, I had as much fun reading this as Allen clearly did while writing it. A delightful, surprising summer romp that I dearly hope gets the silver screen treatment.” - Eliza Smith, LitHubEnter Patricia, a temperamental, but woefully misunderstood local, living alone in the dark, verdant woods and desperate to forge a connection of her own. As the contestants perform for the cameras that surround them, Patricia watches from her place in the shadows, a queer specter haunting the bombastic display of heterosexuality before her. But when the cast and crew at last make her acquaintance atop the island’s tallest and most desolate peak, they soon realize that if they’re to have any hope of making it to the next Elimination Event, they’ll first have to survive the night. With a light smattering of gore and spine-tingling moments of mystery, readers will gleefully follow Renee as she tries to uncover what she’s seen in the distance and realise her sexuality. Allen’s sarcastic, witty debut invites you to question the values of our modern world and asks you to look past its trivialities. Offered a glimpse at something different, a natural sighting that allows us some much-needed perspective, some are horrified at the sight of this gift, while others find it awe-inspiring. What’s lurking in the woods might be scary, but Allen posits that compulsive heterosexuality is what’s truly terrifying. Real Queer America might be the best travel book of the year...a must-read for all Americans."―Refinery29 were some of the characters queer? yeah. but it's never expanded. like, one of the characters has a crush on another, and it seems like it's building to something but it just... never does? i love books that don't center a character's entire identity around their queerness, but, in this case, it wasn't done well.