You By Caroline Kepnes
I don’t usually review books, I just read them then it’s on to the next one. I made an exception for this one. My English teacher was telling me about this book called “YOU” by Caroline Kepnes. We usually don’t agree on the same types of books but she said it was so disturbing and I was sold.
“You” is one of the most disturbing and twisted books that I have ever read, and I loved every minute of it. It was a page turner. I admit it was a twisted story but it was one of those stories where it’s so weird but you want to keep going. It was written in second person which can be confusing but in this case it wasn’t. I feel like if this was written in a different way it would make it less interesting. It’s one of those books that you just have to close for a minute. I found myself thinking “What did I just read?” and “Why do I love this so much?” I can tell you this book is not for people easily paranoid.
Joe is a guy in his early twenties working at a bookstore in the East Village area of New York. He seems like your average jerk employee but he isn’t. One day Guinevere Beck walks into the store and he is instantly in love with her. Most people asks someone out to coffee or dinner to get to know them but not Joe. He decides to just hack her email and Google her. From that point on he does anything he can to make her fall in love with him even if it means murder. There’s nothing romantic about Joe’s preoccupation with Beck, but Kepnes puts the reader so deep into his head that delusions approach reality.
When I think of books like this one I think of the book “And Then There Were None” by Agatha Christie because of how well developed the characters are. You can tell she put a lot of thinking behind them especially Joe. It’s like she pulled out that dark side that everyone has in them and she showed them through Joe. She took your average obsessive love story and put a twist on it. Not only is the story told in second person, it is also told from Joe’s perspective who is doing the stalking. Usually in stories like these you read from the person whose being stalked not the other way around. You see things from Joe’s point of view and it makes the book creepy. You’re in his head so you get to understand what caused him to stalk Beck.
Stories like these also show the person being stalked as a victim but in this case Beck isn’t a victim at all. She posts her life online for everyone to see.
The thing about this modern Psychological Thriller is that it really makes you think. Kepnes does a good job of getting inside of your head with this one. It makes you think twice about social media. It makes you wonder how many people are out there like Joe.