[3] Barrodale's debut short story collection, You Are Having a Good Time, was published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in 2016.
The New York Times wrote: "All of the stories in this stark and cutting collection grapple with our failure to communicate, and investigate not merely the woeful inefficiency of language itself (although that's bad enough) but also the inherent impossibility of truly understanding another person's internal state.
"[4] Bookforum called it an "icy, masterful first short-story collection," praising how "Barrodale elevates anecdotes into art.
"[6] For Electric Literature, Barrodale's "characters' actions seem empty or methodical, devoid of purpose," and the book "is not an even collection, and as it progresses, it becomes more distant and difficult.
"[7] Carmen Maria Machado, writing for NPR, noted that the stories' conflicts are nothing new, but that "the old struggle is freshened by these characters' voices, and how they justify the low-grade, unyielding stubbornness of their desire to do what they are doing, consequences and reality be damned.