Reviews with content warning for Sexual content - Hidden Bodies

Reviews tagging 'Sexual content'

Hidden Bodies by Caroline Kepnes

30 reviews

tatiannaskye's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

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

5.0

Hoooooolllllllyyyy shit! This book took me through a roller coaster of emotions and made me have a deeper understanding of Joe and actually quite like him compared to the other characters in this book. To say I was pissed off with all the assholes he encountered would be (sadly) an understatement! Even though Joe himself is a narcissistic, antisocial sociopath I still am on his side (for now at least).

But anyways this book surprised me as I didn’t quite enjoy the first book of the You series. First book sucked, second book now has me buying the third book and hopefully it is just as good, if not better than the second and first combined! Ahhh can’t wait!!

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jbells7's review against another edition

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dark 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

3.0

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esus's review against another edition

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2.5

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jayadevi's review against another edition

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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

3.5

Here's the thing, I don't anyone who's reading this series has deluded themselves into thinking that Joe is loveable or redeemable in any way. But damn, if it isn't painfully obvious in this book that he hates women! This aspect of his character was certainly set up in the first installment, but I feel like it was too much in this sequel. I'm still interested in seeing how the plot progresses in the next book though. And I will definitely continue with the audiobook format, especially if Santino Fontana continues narrating!

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thefoxyreader's review against another edition

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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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kylantis's review

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dark mysterious 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

3.0

Honestly, the plot in this book makes no sense to Joe's character. Explanation:

This girl he loves screws him over and runs away and he goes after her across the country to kill her, and then before he manages to follow through, he falls in love with another girl along the way and completely forgets why he's there in the first place? And then he finds out he's going to be a dad and he's suddenly changed for the better?

Most of the book feels like filler and it drags, and the ending absolutely pissed me off also. Don't get me wrong, it was interesting, but Joe's character just ends up not making a lot of sense.

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aeai's review against another edition

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dark sad tense

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

1.0

Honestly, just watch the series instead. They had to add so much plot and character development in the series, not to mention depth to the female characters and just any representation of non-white characters... It's not even funny. Also (still) bothered by the misogynistic voice of the narrator, I really don't like internalizing this toxic stuff by reading it. Having seen the second season of YOU, I powered through in hopes of getting to any kind of interesting turning point, but I ended up very disappointed.

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chronicallyplotting's review against another edition

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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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markedwithanm's review against another edition

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dark mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

3.5

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ohnoluiza's review against another edition

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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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