Patricia Wants to Cuddle: A Novel

Product Information

Look, this is basically the coolest thing I’ll ever get to do in my entire life. I loved writing Real Queer America — I poured my soul into it, in fact! — and I’m grateful every day that my nonfiction debut continues to connect with new readers. That said, publishing a novel is truly my childhood dream.

This a freaking marvelous madcap adventure! I read this novella in one sitting and at a blazing speed because as the smashing (literally) denouement approached I was desperate to see how it'd unfold. A bizarre and delightfully monstrous twist on competition reality TV series and what it really means to be the Final Girl . . . This horror story is both a commentary on modern American media trends and a lesbian love story that’s deeply focused on found family and forming supportive communities against any odds.”—Samantha Puc, The Mary Sue So simultaneously lovely and haunting you will be torn by wanting to look closer and wanting to look away, which is fitting, because that’s exactly how I feel when watching the best episodes of reality television. It is, simply put, a delightfully strange and wondrous book, one that takes multiple high concepts and smashes them together, ultimately spinning a story about desire, the things we want, and what we’re willing to do and sacrifice to get them….Singular, strange, spectacular.” - Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya, Autostraddle And as she and the other contestants begin their final challenges, they slowly start to realise that the island they've been taken to is hiding a terrifying secret - one that could make the final Elimination Event all too real.

Advance Praise

Thankyou to Netgalley, RB Media and Recorded Books for my advanced audio copy in exchange for my honest review.

This book was not what I was expecting at all and it was fantastic. Perhaps one of the most eccentric books that I have ever read. Parts were really funny and bizarre. And when I say bizarre, I mean way off in left field bizarre. Bizarre in a way where I loved it the more I thought about it. Even the dating show parts were hilarious. Every damn thing about this was pure love insanity. Totally worth the read. If your book club is searching for a riotous read, then we have to point you towards Patricia Wants to Cuddle. . . . A little horror, a lot of comedy, and a charming queer romance—this sounds like a great summer read to us.” —Abbie Martin Greenbaum, Dandelion Chandelier The problem with Allen’s novel is this: how do you satirise something that the real world is already pushing to absurd extremes? In America, there’s a reality TV show in which a panel of “experts” including a pastor – a man of God! – coerce young men and women desperate for love and companionship to marry without ever having met or seen each other. It’s called Married at First Sight, and has had 16 series already. (The British version is up to seven.) Patricia Wants to Cuddle by Samantha Allen is this incredible, hysterical, quirky thriller of a novel that weirdly gets a whole lot of things right about behind-the-scenes reality tv.” - Connor Brennan, contestant on The Bachelorette Season 17 and Bachelor in Paradise Season 7 This sapphic novel is a great mixture of horror and comedy that I think all fans of Jordan Peele will appreciate. On top of being about monsters, this book is also about filming a television show, so basically it’s a win, win, win.” - Emily Martin, BookRiot

A Note From the Publisher

There’s this quote I loved from the book about how every couple loves discussing their “personal mythology.” It really resonated with me. Do you think that’s a uniquely queer experience? 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 Having just finished a series of stories featuring the final girl trope, I loved the fresh way Samantha Allen connected the horror final girl to the Bachelor-esque final girl. Though this book is rather light-hearted (even in spite of the harsh events) I walked away with a lot to think about this connection. I think it’s intentional, yes. I think that like a lot of the time as writers, you’re aware of the metaphor you are doing without having set out to do the metaphor. Do you know what I mean? You know when you were at school and you were like, “God, do these writers mean to do all these things that you are being told they were doing?” It’s like, “No, they didn’t at all.” But metaphors become kind of obvious to you after a while.

Renee should be thrilled to have been chosen as one of the final four contestants in The Catch, the world’s biggest reality show. But now she, the other contestants, and Jeremy ‘the Catch’ have arrived on the remote, wooded island for the final show, Renee begins to wonder if there’s something wrong. Is she taking a bigger risk than she realised? I found it so interesting that your protagonists’ fraught relationships with their late parents — Miri with her mom, and Leah with her dad — seeped into the narrative. Can you talk about incorporating those elements? When the contestants go to a remote island to go glamping, one night all hell brakes loose. One of the ladies goes missing, then there is a loud metallic bang heard that can be heard across the whole island, which could possibly be a car accident. More people start to go missing, and the island is not as it seems. Patricia Wants to Cuddle was an amazingly fun read. This is one that I'm still thinking about even after I finished it and I love it more with each passing day. This book is one you don't want to pass up on. You'll regret it if you do. This is a bland book, I truly don't know why I bothered with it until the end. The only thing it had going for it was the suspense of the story, I wanted to find out what happened in the end.Picture a miniature version me spending recess scribbling stories and poems into a spiral notebook as I sat on some unbearably hot Southern California asphalt, and Patricia is basically the grown-up version of that childhood authorial fantasy. (Not to date myself, but it took well over three decades to make it a reality!) Deliver[s] some razor-sharp satire of American reality TV and influencer culture… so amusingly written that it sails by, dropping acid-tipped barbs as it goes…The mix of humor, drama, and brief flashes of monster works well to keep the reader engaged and the tension surprisingly high. When Patricia does finally burst onto the scene and the blood begins to flow, the scares feel well-earned… It is unlikely there will be another book this year that is both this entertaining and this unique.” - Sean Farrell, Avalon Free Public Library Journal

Renee should be thrilled to have been chosen as one of the final four contestants in The Catch, the world's biggest reality show. But now she, the other contestants, and Jeremy 'the Catch' have arrived on the remote, wooded island for the final show, Renee begins to wonder if there's something wrong. Is she taking a bigger risk than she realised? At least her wife hadn’t died like this sheep, suddenly and violently, although perhaps she would have preferred that to chemotherapy in Anacortes.If it sounds like I'm being harsh, I hope not; this really was a great creature-feature in book form, with characters I cared about. I think it's just easier to be disappointed when something you're really into doesn't quite get all the way to as great as you want it to be? Allen is smart-as-hell, but inclusive and impassioned. Hers' might not be the book all the gay boys are talking about in an exclusive NYC salon, but it is the book the rest of us can read aloud at the kitchen table with our queer family and our blood family, with our chosen sisters and our yet-to-be-educated uncles. . . . So many wonderful books get written for the NYC and San Francisco LGBTQ community. I'm glad Samantha Allen wrote Real Queer America for the rest of us." ―Lambda Literary So simultaneously lovely and haunting you will be torn by wanting to look closer and wanting to look away, which is fitting, because that’s exactly how I feel when watching the best episodes of reality television. It is, simply put, a delightfully strange and wondrous book, one that takes multiple high concepts and smashes them together, ultimately spinning a story about desire, the things we want, and what we’re willing to do and sacrifice to get them. . . . Singular, strange, spectacular.” —Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya, Autostraddle If the Bachelor and The Hunger Games had a baby it’d be the mutant offspring that is Patricia Wants to Cuddle. Fans of Libba Bray’s Beauty Queens will love the rompiness of this super fun, super weird, queer-bent love story.” —Eva Morreale, Betches A comedic approach to horror doesn’t always land, especially when it relies heavily on satire. However, I think Samantha Allen was able to find a good balance with “Patricia Wants to Cuddle” by adding enough campy fun to break up the criticism. She’s particularly good at incorporating dark humor into her descriptions that made me laugh out loud.