You: A Novel

Caroline Kepnes

Sep 2014 · The You Series Book 1 · Sold by Simon and Schuster

About this ebook

NOW A HIT NETFLIX SERIES
A NEW YORK TIMES AND USA TODAY BESTSELLER

“Hypnotic and scary.” —Stephen King

“I am riveted, aghast, aroused, you name it. The rare instance when prose and plot are equally delicious.” —Lena Dunham

From debut author Caroline Kepnes comes You, one of Suspense Magazine’s Best Books of the Year, and a brilliant and terrifying novel for the social media age.

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.

A terrifying exploration of how vulnerable we all are to stalking and manipulation, debut author Caroline Kepnes delivers a razor-sharp novel for our hyper-connected digital age. You is a compulsively readable page-turner that’s being compared to Gone Girl, American Psycho, and Stephen King’s Misery.

Ratings and reviews

I Give This Book 4.5 Stars And It Deserves that.Now I Started Hidden Bodies,The Sequel,And I Am So Confused,I LITERALLY DONT KNOW IF HE HAS MET LOVE YET! I AM AT PAGE 87! But The First Book,I Understood LITERALLY Every Detail.It Was Way Easier To Understand,And Even Though IN SOME SCENES I Thought Beck Was Really Unpolished And Too Obsessed With Joe,I Still Loved Her Character,She Is Begging For Help At The End And I Felt So Bad For Her.I LITERALLY Thought I Was Beck,And Those Suspenseful Scenes Are Really Nerve-Racking (In A Good Way!) And I Was Just Waiting To Learn More About Joe And His Twisted Mind.I Was Rooting For Him And That Is Wrong On SO MANY LEVELS! I Can't Explain How Much I Would Have Liked This Book If I Knew I Didn't Have A Few Marbles Lost In The Brain.Now This Book Is Definitely Not Perfect.I Just Didn't Like The Charles Dickens Festival,I Thought It Kind Of Dragged With The Writing.But I Finished This Book Twice Waiting For The Sequel,So I See It As An Absolute Win.

The novel YOU by Caroline Kepnes will soon be adapted as a new tv series this Fall on Lifetime. It will be interesting to see how these characters are portrayed, especially since much of the setting takes place inside the narrator’s depraved mind. Joe Goldberg works in a bookstore, and is a relatively attractive and intelligent young man who bristles a bit about his lack of a formal university education. He is looking to meet a nice girl with similar tastes in reading, music and worldview. He also is a truly sadistic sociopath who obsessively stalks potential soulmates with ruthless cunning and determination. When Guinevere Beck (Beck) comes into Joe’s shop, she engages with him in playful, flirtatious way. Joe is immediately smitten and uses social media to discover many personal details about Beck that he then uses to insinuate himself into her life. He appears just as Beck is trying to sort out her own complicated love life, recently recognizing her tendency to be drawn to egotistical people who seek only to take advantage of her. Joe acts the part of the refreshingly sweet and understanding man with whom she has so much in common. Actually, he is just privy to an expanding amount of information about her and is contorting himself into her ideal companion. As he draws closer, Joe jealously eliminates any potential competition for her affection. His desperation soon escalates into violence, and there are subtle hints that Beck may not be the first paramour to be trapped in his laser sights. Beck is portrayed as smart but clueless, and her naivete can become exasperating. The novel slowly builds up unbearable tension as the reader begins to predict and dread where things are headed. YOU is a bit long, with some unnecessary repetition and overuse of gratuitous vulgarity. It is a very disturbing and uncomfortable experience to be trapped inside the perspective of such a truly odious character. Still, it is a bit like a watching a horror movie that you want to look away from but need to know how it ends.

I got this book, thinking that it was going to be an amazing, terrifying read. Somehow, this author found a way to make an obsessed, murdering, stalker novel...boring. I know that it was written in a way that makes you relate to the main character (Joe), but he was a pretentious hypocrite, as was Beck. Every single thing in this book was unrealistic and unrelateable, I found myself just waiting for him to kill her so it could be over. Basically, good in theory, horrible in execution. Nice try, Kepnes.

About the author

Caroline Kepnes is the author of You, Hidden Bodies, Providence and numerous short stories. Her work has been translated into a multitude of languages and inspired a television series adaptation of You, currently on Netflix. Kepnes graduated from Brown University and previously worked as a pop culture journalist for Entertainment Weekly and a TV writer for 7th Heaven and The Secret Life of the American Teenager. She grew up on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and now lives in Los Angeles.