You by Caroline Kepnes

You by Caroline Kepnes
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Time taken to read - less than 1 day

Pages - 422

Publisher - Simon Schuster

Source - Book shop

Blurb from Goodreads

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 Review

Meet Joe Goldberg, Joe is working in a bookstore when sees her, from the first sentence we see Beck through Joe's eyes. Cataloging her dress, her expression, her book choice, her interaction with him we see how it all kicks off. Joe stalks Beck and starts sculpting himself to be her perfect man. Page by page we are drawn further into Joe's world and watch as he goes to deprived lengths to get exactly what he wants, Beck.

This book is absolutely not for the faint hearted or easily offended. There is a lot of sex, masturbation, depravity, the C word which many find offensive as well as other derogatory words for the female anatomy, some of which feature within the first 14 pages! I think it is to show just how dark, depraved and creepy Joe actually is and as the tale unfolds it he gets darker and creepier. His obsession with Beck knows no limits and nothing and no one will get in his way.

It isn't too often we get a book where we see the tale from within the psychopaths perspective particularly as Joe thinks his behaviour and actions are completely normal for someone "in love". There isn't a rapid decent into madness it is just a constant stream of interactions, actions and situations and how Joe reacts to them. Some of it is disgusting and horrifying particularly as Joe deems it all as normal. Whilst you want to put the book down and go give your eyes, brain and soul a shower you can't help but turning page after page to see what comes next. Apparently there is another book after this one, I can't imagine where the book will go but I think I have to read it to find out what comes next, 4/5 for me this time. This was my first encounter with this author, with themes of a strong sexual nature, stalking, violence, murder and very disturbing "acts of love" this is to be approached with caution.

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