Reviews with content warning for Sexual content - Você

I absolutely loved this book! Joe was creepy and disturbing and it was interesting to see inside his mind and how he saw others actions compared to his own.

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shereadsmysteries's review against another edition

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I will revisit at another time.

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violetsonata93's review against another edition

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dark tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

It’s the first time I read the actual book. I had seen the show, than listened to the audio book (which is truly fantastic btw, I highly recommend it, loved the narrator). I just love how well the author captured the psyche of seriously deranged Joe. It’s like entering the mind of a narcissistic, APD-ridden person.

Not a five star for me because some parts ran a little too long imo, but it’s still unique enough and a solid thriller.

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missss_snow's review against another edition

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dark funny mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.5

If you’re expecting it to be like the TV show, it is not.

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breezie_reads's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

This book disturbed me from the the very first sentence. And what made it so unsettling was the fact that it was written in 2nd person POV. Despite the title, I was not expecting it to be written that way. It got the desired affect, though, that's for sure.

I loved the fact that the characters were far from perfect, Obviously, Joe has issues. But the fact that he's obsessing over this woman who is clearly mentally unstable and doesn't take care of herself or really care about anything other than getting laid was refreshing. Beck could have been this picture perfect, straight A student who wrote amazing prose and new all about the classics and "fine modern literature," but she wasn't. She was just as messed up as Joe was.

My biggest issues with this book, though, and why I couldn't rate it above a 3.5 despite how much I loved it, was the unbelievability of certain aspects of the plot and the characters themselves.

This book takes place in the 2010's. There's iPhones and high speed internet and bluetooth and all this great technology, and the characters ONLY communicate with each other through email? Not even a group chat through imessages or private messaging on the many social medias these girls had? Beck's email communication with Nicky at the end made sense, because they had to be secretive about it, both from Joe and from Nicky's wife Marcia, but the fact that email was the main means of communication between all of them made no sense. And if the term "email" was being used in place of texting, then that's just a poor choice of words on the author's side, and it doesn't make it any better.

Another issue I had was with the lack of police investigation into WEALTHY WHITE PEOPLE'S disappearances? Joe was smart about Benji, but what he did with Peach was careless. He bashed her in the head with a rock and they just decided not to see that when they find her body washed up? There were absolutely no forensics done and they just carted her off to a funeral? No. That's not how the authorities deal with wealthy white people who go missing and/or are found dead.

And the last thing I'm going to complain about is probably the most unrealistic to me. Joe was able to have several false identities with no identification and no questions asked? The hospital in Rhode Island I can understand. He was in and out, but absolutely no paperwork was filed and that's not real life. But he never would have been able to get an appointment with a therapist without any identification and with no insurance or proof of insurance, whether he paid for the sessions in cash or not. And the amount of cash he always seemed to have didn't make sense, either. He always had "just enough" to cover whatever emergency costs he came across, despite stating several times about how it's difficult to live on the salary he had from working in the bookstore and how he didn't have money to afford a lot of things.

All in all, this book was amazing. But the few things that I found to be inaccurate distracted from the narrative for me. I don't care to read the other two books, but this one was great and I feel like adding on the other two probably ruined it. We get it, Joe has issues.

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grahammatthews's review against another edition

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dark tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

One word describes YOU, and that word has a rightful place on the cover, UNSETTLING.

YOU by Caroline Kepness is a departure from the typical style of books I have read. It is also the first time I felt I read from a “Villain's” perspective. I found my self in the begging feeling so uneasy reading from this perspective of a Stalker, and later a murderer. However, Caroline’s brilliance was giving Joe such a unique personality. He was undoubtedly creepy yet, he had jokes with himself, his obsession became addicting, and I found myself continuously turning the pages to learn more about him.

I also found this book to be a love note to writing, and literature. And it put a smile on my face consistently, whether it was jokes about certain authors, or about figuring out what to write it was great commentary on it mixed in with a horror story.

There aren't many flaws with what this book was trying to do and I enjoyed it a lot. I can see how this book ends up in “Romance Sections” sometimes, because Joes mind is very sexual, so there is a lot if steamy descriptions. Being someone who doesn't read steamy stuff found myself saying man this is A LOT of sex, and that is my personal flaw with the story.

With that I highly recommend this book to people who like Horror and reading from the perspective of bad people. I give YOU by Caroline Kepness 4.5 out of 5!

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