YOU

by Caroline Kepnes

Thriller

BOOK DESCRIPTION

When a beautiful, aspiring writer strides into the East Village bookstore where Joe Goldberg works, he does what anyone would do: he Googles the name on her credit card.

There is only one Guinevere Beck in New York City. She has a public Facebook account and Tweets incessantly, telling Joe everything he needs to know: she is simply Beck to her friends, she went to Brown University, she lives on Bank Street, and she’ll be at a bar in Brooklyn tonight—the perfect place for a “chance” meeting.

As Joe invisibly and obsessively takes control of Beck’s life, he orchestrates a series of events to ensure Beck finds herself in his waiting arms. Moving from stalker to boyfriend, Joe transforms himself into Beck’s perfect man, all while quietly removing the obstacles that stand in their way—even if it means murder.

MY THOUGHTS: 

4.5 out of 5 FLEURS DE LIS

You by Caroline Kepnes

This is one of the best thrillers I’ve read. This book puts you deep inside the mind of a psychopath who thinks everything he does is justified. And the things he does are chilling.

Joe is working in his beloved bookstore when his life changes the day Beck walks in. They flirt, she buys a book, and there is the start of an obsessive relationship that starts way before Beck even knows it does.

I cannot stress enough to you how absolutely creepy Joe is. The thing about him most disarming is that he comes off charming, handsome, if a bit intense, to other people. Women seem to be drawn to him, but there’s never been anyone like Beck. Within a day of meeting her, he has looked her up online, found out details about her life through social media, and thanks to the wonder of the internet, is watching her from across the street as she goes about her life. She doesn’t know this though, and the two get tangled up together in a relationship that “complicated” doesn’t even begin to cover.

Don’t go into this book thinking Beck is an innocent victim in all this. She does not deserve everything that Joe gives her, but she is a quite terrible person in her own right. Overtly using her sexuality to get what she wants, Beck coasts through life in an annoyingly narcissistic manner. She pushes and pulls and manipulates, and in a lot of ways she and Joe are made for each other.

Reading paragraphs full of Joe’s obsessive thoughts could get heavy sometimes, but once the book pulled me in it was very hard to put down. You are both enthralled and disgusted by his mind, and you have to know what ends up happening if his plans go awry.

The only issue I had with this book is that no one Joe seems to come into contact with can see through him or ever suspects anything at all is wrong with him. This seems kind of unrealistic to me, especially considering all the situations he is caught in. Joe seems to be the epitome of the phrase, “I never would have suspected this from him.”

I would recommend this book to anyone who loves thrillers. Be prepared for lots of language and vulgarity, though.

View all my reviews

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Caroline Kepnes is the author of You, Hidden Bodies and Providence. She has worked as a pop culture journalist for Entertainment Weekly and a TV writer on 7th Heaven, The Secret Life of the American Teenager and the upcoming adaptation of You. Originally from Cape Cod, Massachusetts she now writes full-time and lives in Los Angeles.

Find Caroline on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

**If you feel you’re in a relationship where things are going South, there are options.  There’s even online couples therapy available now from places such as Regain.