Reviews with content warning for Cursing - Hidden Bodies

Reviews tagging 'Cursing'

Hidden Bodies by Caroline Kepnes

9 reviews

david_slack110507's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

I continue to be interested in this series and the shenanigans that Joe keeps getting himself into. While I don't think this was as strong as the original/its predecessor, it was still enjoyable and easy to listen to with Santino Fontana continuing to deliver an eerily excellent performance as Joe.

A change in scenery due to a continuation of the ending of the 1st book was interesting as this book starts closely after the ending of the first book, as we see Joe get into a relationship with Amy and how their relationship ends acts as a trigger for how Joe ends up in LA. Seeing Joe try to integrate himself into this new type of lifestyle and manipulate these people was really interesting and I found that these characters had well more character to them rather than in the first book where most of them are kind of forgettable besides Beck and Peach. I do wish that we had explored more of the hunting/tracking down Amy storyline as it is the main reason why Joe goes to LA only for it to get dropped once, he finds Love and sees Amy once, it does get a resolution later and does add to the delusion narrative of Joe thinking he is a good person by doing the bare minimum e.g. not murdering and/or stalking someone but the storyline kind of gets dropped from most of the book until near the end.

It's kind of hard not to compare this to the TV show and vice versa but while I do prefer the interpretation of Love in the TV show I did still like Love in this book and whether she will be in the next book I don't know but if she is I hope she remains as interesting and dimensional as she was in this. Love is much more outspoken than Beck when it comes to Joe and while she does have personal issues and drama, she's also confident in who she is and what she believes in. I do prefer the killer twist in the show, but this interpretation of Love is still solid, and I hope she's in the next book (Though I have a feeling that she might get the Amy treatment of being the plot device to bring Joe somewhere new so that he can then stalk the new main woman in the book hopefully this will not be the case)

I do feel like at times the book does drag a little bit, there are parts where not much happens and character deaths and decisions only come to be important either in the moment or near the end when everything is going down. I think parts of this book could have been cut down or cut out altogether to avoid a sluggish pace but overall, the book kept me interested and entertained. Overall, again another solid entry into the You series and one that I delayed finishing as I left it with one chapter left to listen to for about a week or so for no real reason whatsoever but I still remembered much of it, I'm interested in seeing how the cliffhanger ending plays out for the next book; will it be the same as the TV show adaptation or something completely different and original?

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alicelalicon's review against another edition

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challenging dark fast-paced

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

2.5

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malloryhill10's review

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adventurous dark 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

5.0

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ellaticonstellation's review against another edition

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challenging dark funny mysterious sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Hidden Bodies was sick, both in a good and bad way. Caroline, damn! You created something so believable I got scared. Haha! Character-wise, Joe had a funny and loud mind that I liked a lot. He was savage, and I loved it! He was also so problematic that it made me sad because of his shitty childhood. Joseph Goldberg was a waving red flag that attracted another red flag named Love. The irony! The murders were unforgivable for apparent reasons. I was not too fond of the fact that he thought people's lives were in his hands. (When he decided not to kill certain characters, as if they needed to thank him for not killing them) It was disturbing and disgusting. But overall, the story was compelling and fast-paced. 😎

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anne311's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional tense fast-paced

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

5.0

I love this book it was genuinly so much fun to spend time reading it... it's so weird (in a good way) that the very basic premise and events are like in the netflix show and the characters are absolutely in character, but also i never knew where anything was going to go. there are so many divergences ever since book 1 and they are like HUGE things that make it impossible to go the same route as the show. but also it kind of ends up at the same points here and there and it's so weird i love it and i love this writing style so much especially. the informality of it, like using a ton of "and"s to conmect multiple sentences in a grammatically incorrect way really does flow so well, joes mind is racing and this style absolutely encapsulates it. like 5 times on the last couple pages i thought ok this is the end of this book, but it kept going, this book always keeps escalating, i love my time spent with this series and look forward to when i find the time to read book 3

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brookey8888's review

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dark funny mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I actually really enjoyed this. I went into it nervous because a lot of people didn’t like this one. I get that it changed from second person to first person, but I honestly didn’t mind it that much. I think the change was good because the first one was mostly stalking and this one wasn’t as heavily about that. I did enjoy the characters. The plot was fine like did I really care about Joe and Love being in love,no, not really. But I just find Joe so interesting. It does end on a cliff hanger so be warned.

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thefoxyreader's review

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dark funny slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

I’m reading through reviews of Hidden Bodies and it cracks me up that people complain about this book feeling like it was written by a 13-year-old boy who watches too much porn. It’s from the perspective of a narcissistic stalker/sexual predator/now serial killer. What exactly were you expecting?

Now, I’m not going to call Hidden Bodies a good book. It has a lot of issues, but this book is supposed to creep you out and make you uncomfortable. You aren’t supposed to love the main character. And it’s fine to not like the book because it’s gross and makes your skin crawl, but I find it weird that people act like this book was trying to do something other than be off-putting.

Following the events of Caroline Kepnes’s solid debut novel, You, Hidden Bodies follows Joe Goldberg as he relocates to Los Angeles to stalk another woman who in his perspective has wronged him. While living there, he meets the love of his life, who is literally named Love, and her dumbass twin brother, Forty. But with a mug of his urine still sitting in Peach Salinger’s house and more people getting in the way, Joe will do whatever it takes to have his happy ending with Love.

The best thing about Hidden Bodies is that Kepnes roasts the hell out of LA culture. This book is just one giant critique of a city where people’s dreams go to die. So, when Joe is very accurately deconstructing the perils of Hollywood, the anger-inducing traffic, and the hipster grocery stores, I was here for it.

However, this book is over 400 pages long, and making fun of LA isn’t going to fill up those pages. Unfortunately, the actual story doesn’t fill up those pages either. Once Joe gets to LA and meets Love, the story sloooooooowwwwwsss doooooowwwwnnn to an almost unbearable pace as nothing happens except for Joe and Love repeatedly having sex.

And this is where You, the Netflix series, is better than this book. The show realized that Love is equally crazy. Joe, narrating this book, never comes to that realization and Love is just the main object of his obsession. I guess this is on brand because I don’t think Joe would ever give anyone else credit for being his equal, but it still just makes Love an empty character.

So, yeah, I don’t hate this book but I don’t like it either. The writing still manages to be both funny and disturbing. I also thought it was funny that Joe is quick to become a serial killer. His main form of problem solving is to just straight up murder somebody.

I said before that You works best as a standalone novel, and Hidden Bodies does nothing to disprove that.

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chronicallyplotting's review

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

5.0

The first book in the series YOU was good but it took about half the book to pickup. Although this one took me awhile to finish (due to I read multiple books at a time and a CE course) it sucker you in from chapter one. I love the first person narrative and how you see everything through Joe’s point of view and yet still see killer character and plot development with everyone involved. Great book.

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ohnoluiza's review

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dark mysterious tense slow-paced

Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.75

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