You

YOU by Caroline Kepnes is a 2014 Atria/ Emily Bestler Books publication.

Joe Goldberg may be one of the creepiest characters I’ve happened across in a very long time!!

When Guinevere Beck walks into the bookstore where Joe works, he is instantly smitten… obsessively so. He decides she is made for him and he will have her… by any means necessary.

This book was named one of Suspense Magazine’s best books of 2014 and I can see why. Joe, if you haven’t guessed by now, is a psychopathic stalker. But, the unique thing about the book is that the entire story is told from Joe’s perspective, using a second person narrative, which I rarely see happen.

I have to say being inside of Joe’s brain, being privy to his thoughts is one show more weirdly fascinating, dark and disturbing place to be.

Beck is not a character I necessarily liked all that much. She’s shallow, but insecure, erratic, a little unstable, and very self-centered and absorbed. She makes the perfect target for someone like Joe, though. He seems so genuinely in love with her that if I didn’t know he was a real sleaze ball, I might have thought he was sincere.

But, he’s also quite vulgar too, and his thoughts are not always so sweet and flowery, as he indulges in sexual fantasies about Beck and leaves nothing to the imagination.

Joe’s narrative often made me laugh, especially when it came to his use of Twitter and his spot- on analysis of Beck’s friends or the reading habits and attitudes of customers in his bookshop. The realization that I found him darkly humorous or felt charitable towards on occasion is a sobering thought.

The suspense builds as Joe manipulates Beck by hacking into her phone and stalking her on social media, as well as those closest to her in the most clever and diabolical ways imaginable. Don’t under estimate Joe for one minute!!

This is a very clever and imaginative novel, as well as scathing look the importance placed on perfunctory social media hierarchy, which hasn’t changed much since 2014. The story is very, very twisted and disturbing and well, I loved it!

The author did a fantastic job with the characterizations, the dialogue and with the very important pacing of the book and of course Joe’s narrative which couldn’t have been done any better.

I believe there is a follow up to this book and I am definitely going to check it out!

4.5 stars show less

I was in a reading slump, picking up books but not being engrossed by any of them, and then this beauty came along.

A girl walks into an independent bookstore and has a conversation about books with the cute bookstore worker. She runs into him again...and again. She realizes that she has a lot in common with him and finds him attractive. Sounds like the start to a romantic movie, right?

Yeah, not so much, because the cute bookstore worker is actually a stalker who is seriously deranged and has become dangerously fixated on the girl.

Everything else is spoilers because the less you know going into this book, the better. Joe (the bookstore worker) is one of my favorite fictional characters from this year's books read so far. He's hilarious show more at times, scathing and sarcastic, and absolutely out of touch with reality. Reading the book from his perspective was both weird and amazing, and I wouldn't have changed a thing.

As the book progresses, we see him seriously losing it - he kills two people, and we discover that they aren't his first kills, either. And, in the end, he kills Beck, because he can't handle the fact that she has found out who and what he is, and he sees that she is not perfect, and she was going to leave him for good. He cannot handle rejection.

But even knowing that he is a murderer and etc, I couldn't help but feel attached to this character in a bizarre way. He's just so damned likable at times. It's really unnerving, and I love it when a book does that to me.

A great book and I'm looking forward to reading the sequel! show less

The main merit of this novel, and what distinguishes from the Netflix series, is masterfully threading the thin line between the realistic depiction of a deranged stalker's perspective and the glamourisation of women's abuse, without ever falling on the other side.
The inner voice of the protagonist, constantly spinning the narrative of control and obsession and of their rationalisation, makes for a wildly unsettling ride. And kudos to the author for making the victim(s) quite unlikeable. She proved a point there: being hyper-sexualised, cheating, lying, posing and being immature DOES NOT influence or justify the abuser's actions. It does not get much clearer than in the pages of this narrative, and I guess it would be interesting to show more have it read collectively and discussed in high schools around the world.

A final remark: it is impossible to review this story eithout talking (or at least thinking intensely) about the series which, although I binge-watched it with mucho gusto, falls quite short of setting the boundary between the taking the killer's perspective and looking for a justification. A major symptom of this lack of honesty is the introduction of the healthy friendship between our monster and an abused child, absent in the book. That story line makes it look like he WOULD BE indeed caring and loving, IF ONLY his victims were not so imperfect. Well, this quite betrays the spirit of the novel and casts the shadow of "she asked for it" on the whole thing.

Anyway, the hipster dude had to go XD show less

This is the reason I'm on Goodreads. This book.

A few days ago, I happened across a glowing review from Edward Lorn, an author and reviewer who's opinion I take quite seriously. We don't always agree on what makes a book good, but he praised this novel up, down, and sideways, so I figured I've have to check it out. It's not a book that would have ever been on my radar otherwise.

So, because of Goodreads, I read You. And, holy shit, am I ever glad I did.

There's nothing incredibly shocking here. The plot is actually somewhat predictable. But what the author does with Joe, the narrator, the insights she gives him, the POV, the sheer manic stream of consciousness outpouring of...well...everything...is simply breathtaking. It's like talking to show more someone for a few hours that's ADD to start with, then is pumped full of coffee. Joe's like the energizer bunny, just going and going and going, and it's a beautiful thing to behold.

I'm not going to spoil a damn thing here, because this is a novel that should be experienced cold. I know there's some issues with others about all the references to a specific time, with all the mentions of Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code and King's Dr. Sleep, and it will ultimately serve to date this novel. But damn, what Kepnes does with all those pop culture references is amazing.

I loved this novel. show less

You by Caroline Kepnes is a thriller story about an obsessive stalker who poses as a Manhattan bookstore employee but is really living as a predator, hunting and tracking his victim. The book is unusual in that it is told entirely from the stalker’s point of view. The reader gets deep into Joe’s thoughts which are all involving the “You” of his current stalk. He meets Beck when she comes into the bookstore, but something about her attracts him and then they bond over literature.

Joe sees Beck as his perfect match, but his way of worming into her life, leaves no doubt that this is not a romance, but deeply disturbing psychological behavior that is going to eventually implode. Joe uses technology to stalk Beck, and I don’t mean show more that he follows her on Twitter. He hacks into her e-mail, lifts her cellphone and monitors her text messages. He methodically removes anything or anyone that he sees is an obstacle all the while telling himself this is for her own good.

The author excels at placing the reader firmly into Joe’s head and as he works through various situations the sense of impending doom heightens. You is a dark, twisted story that kept me totally engrossed and reading well past my bedtime. show less

This was incredible, I feel like I need to think about how I feel about this book, but at the same time I don't want to think about it because I just want to embrace how much I love it and carry on with my life until the next book comes out.

This is probably the darkest and most twisted book I've ever read. I've never seen myself enjoying a book like this, but oh god did I ever enjoy it. I bought this book five months ago, and every time I've started a book since I bought it I've picked it up and then thought "no, I'm not ready. I'm not in the mood for this" but I think that I was in the mood, but I didn't think I'd like it. Well, I've only torn my face out of the page to sleep and eat since I started it, and every other waking moment show more I've spent reading this, or researching this. I rarely look into a book, especially while reading this, but I was so captivated with this book that I just kept looking into it, and looking into the sequel which I'm already excited for.

I highly recommend this book, I thought I'd hate something so dark, that it would weird me out and I'd run away from my boyfriend screaming after I finished it (LOL), but I actually found myself looking up at him and thinking "THANK YOU FOR NOT BEING THIS GUY" and appreciating him a bit more. Weird, I know. Who reads a book as fucked up as this and then looks up lovingly at their boyfriend? Me, I guess.

I feel antsy after finishing this. The last few pages made me anxious, I think. This poor girl, Amy that we were introduced to at the end is already making me worry and I can't even read her story for another six months, and I think that despite how much I hate Joe, I also love his character. His character is incredible, and his story is incredible and I loved all the characters in this book. show less

I purchased this audio book during one of Audible’s two for one sale. I chose it because I heard great things about it, however the book was nothing like I expected. I know many of my blogger friends enjoyed this book, but it did not blow me away as I hoped it would. Not that the story wasn’t good, in fact I found I couldn’t give up on it as I wanted to know if it would end the way I expected. Well, the details leading up to the end may have differed from my expectations, but the result was exactly what I expected.

What really got to me about this book were the characters. I knew prior to starting the book that the main character (Joe) would be someone that I would probably end up not liking and I was right; I did not like him one show more bit. I hoped the secondary characters would have provided a balance to his madness. Instead, they proved to be no better than Joe was, with the worst being Beck, the woman he stalked. Throughout the story, I kept wondering what Joe saw in her. Self-centered, shallow and dishonest would be the perfect terms to describe Beck and her friends were no better.

With YOU, we get the story from Joe’s POV, now that was one crazy journey. OMG! Demented but smart, Joe knew exactly what to do to get what he wanted, and he wants Beck. The lengths he went through to achieve this was horrific.

On the surface, Joe appeared sweet and harmless, but being inside his head creeped me out, but I could not stop listening. I had to know what his next move would be. I was not a fan of his inner dialogue as he rambled on and on, with no end in sight, which exasperated and frustrated me. As a result, I read other books in between to combat the frustration and annoyance. Eventually as the story neared the end, it picked up the pace and things became interesting.

The story highlighted the dangers that come with the use of social media, credit cards and mobile phones. It is scary knowing that we are not safe using the things designed to make our lives easier. Having been a victim of online banking fraud, this scare for me was real. Beck made it easy for Joe to get to her as she posted her life all over twitter and Facebook.

Narration

I enjoyed the narration by Santino Fontana. He captured every facet of Joe, bringing his character to life. I am glad I listened to YOU as it enhanced my experience with the story and made it easier for me to endure to the end.

Conclusion/Recommendation

Overall, an interesting take on stalking and obsession. Please note this is not for the faint of heart, so if unreliable and crazy characters, violence and a host of other scary issues, do not freak you out then you can give YOU a chance. show less