The New York Times reviewed her collection as being "brutally unsentimental,"[7] writing that "Watkins's characters wish to make sense of their pain, but also to be assured that they are not alone in it.

[3] Gold Fame Citrus, published in 2015 by Riverhead,[9] is a surrealistic novel inspired by the Californian drought and by the lives of outcasts in the desert.

"[13] The book received a starred review from Publishers Weekly which said it was "packed with persuasive detail, luminous writing, and a grasp of the history (popular, political, natural, and imagined) needed to tell a story that is original yet familiar, strange yet all too believable.

"[14] A finalist for the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award and the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize, Watkins was also selected as one of the National Book Foundation's "5 Under 35."

Watkins critically questioned her own motives of publishing Battleborn in the 2016 Winter Issue of Tin House in her essay, "On Pandering," asserting that the book had unconsciously been written for the white male literary establishment aka the white supremacist patriarchy whose values she had internalized, and that only motherhood had delivered her from its burdensome claims.

"[15] The essay, which observed that "misogyny is the water we swim in," appeared to critical reception[16] and, according to the New Yorker, was "discussed heatedly for weeks, even months, thereafter.

[20] The novel, considered a work of autofiction,[21] was summarized in the Los Angeles Review of Books as being "...about a young mother refusing to conform to societal expectations, abandoning those who love her in search of herself.