Book Review – You (You, book 1) by Caroline Kepnes

First published, 2014

⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐

I’ve got to say, I’ve been looking forward to the creepiness that is writing the next, and actual first line of this review.

How I love You.

Creeped out, yet?

When an unassuming young bookseller meets a beautiful aspiring author in his bookshop, so begins a cat and mouse romance. As much as Guinevere Beck believes she’s bought some books and had a nice little chat, what she doesn’t realise is that she’s given bookseller Joe Goldberg all he needs to find her online.

And Beck loves to go online. She posts regularly on Twitter and Facebook and, in no time at all, Joe knows where she’ll be at any given time, and how he can organise a coincidental meeting.

I think Joe is an amazing character. He’s so well-realised. I have seen the Netflix series, and for my money, the written Joe is grittier than TV Joe. Nothing against Penn Badgley – he’s an awesome actor and perfectly cast for the series. In my head, Joe doesn’t have such good skin. Maybe that’s what it is. Also, Elizabeth Lail, in the Netflix series – a total chef’s kiss of casting. Beck is rather shallow and not actually a particularly good person, but she’s so well played that you kind of only see what Joe sees.

Anyway, Joe is funny as holy hell. Standing in judgement, but with flowers, over Beck and her frankly ridiculous friends; he is irredeemably unsettling I suppose because it all comes from what he believes is love. Even as he plans how to isolate Beck, how to woo her, how to get rid of Peach, there’s a charm to him which is hard to ignore, and that too is deliciously concerning.

Brava.

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