You

After binging the first season of You awhile back, and now that the second season is here, I knew it was time for me to read You by Caroline Kepnes. It’s creepy. It’s intoxicating. It’s so well written and even if you’ve seen the show it’s amazing to watch it unfold. I’m picking up the sequel tomorrow when I get to work. If Stephen f-ing King says your book is “hypnotic and scary” then there must be something to it.
Our narrator is Joe, and the novel is written as if he is talking to his love interest, Beck. The problem is, Beck doesn’t know she’s his love interest at first. And soon, it becomes something more than love at first sight for Joe.  They meet at the bookshop Joe manages, and while sparks fly, Joe doesn’t let her hard to get nature keep him away. He begins to stalk here, to steal from her, to watch her. But because we see all this from Joe’s eyes—it’s different. He doesn’t always recognize the wrongness of things. He explains what he is doing—everything has a reason. And as Joe and Beck cross paths, things get complicated. Things stand in the way but Joe won’t allow that. An ex boyfriend. Friends. An MFA program. Daddy issues and a therapist. This book takes its time getting you entranced in Joe’s psyche and you know what he is going to do before he even does it, but it’s still intoxicatingly dramatic to read. This book is dark, right, but it’s got a kind of drive to it that makes it better than just some dark first person POV about murder and stalking and creepiness.
If you’ve seen the show, you know how it goes, but there are a few slight changes in the book. Overall, it’s a pretty faithful adaptation though. I was impressed when I went back and watched the first episode of the show, for example. The language is what drives this book. It’s gritty and focused and Joe is insane and I love reading it, as weird as that is. It’s like Lolita—you hate the subject matter, but you can’t deny the writing is good. Also, I like imagining that it’s just Dan Humphrey post Gossip Girl since Penn Badgley plays Joe in the show.
Up next for me? Hidden Bodies. Joe’s going to LA.