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3.82 AVERAGE
3.82 AVERAGE
3.5 Star
Look I can't say I liked this book, but I did find myself strangely enthralled. I didn't like Joe, but yet I could follow his crazy twisted logic. I couldn't keep from reading even though I knew there was no way things were going to end well.
Look I can't say I liked this book, but I did find myself strangely enthralled. I didn't like Joe, but yet I could follow his crazy twisted logic. I couldn't keep from reading even though I knew there was no way things were going to end well.
medium-paced
This is it. This is the sweet stuff. Creepy, hilarious, tragic with a protagonist that gives Patrick Bateman a run for his money. Kepnes has created the perfect horror novel for our information age, and this is horror.
The entire novel is in protagonist Joe Goldberg, an orphaned, Brooklyn born an raised bookstore manager with an unhealthy obsession for a young woman Guinevere Beck. His idea of courtship is to spy and her, hack into her email and all her social media accounts and track her twenty four hours a day and eventually get rid of rivals to his affection, permanently.
He is also the typical snarky millenial. Hilariously putting down everyone who isn't authentic and real while simultaneously constructing a persona for Beck (as she's called) to fall in love with. And of course, he believes she's perfect and she's frankly a mess (like most of us) but even her mess is perfectly Beck. She plays hard to get, unaware of all the stalkage and eventually gives in and it creepily mirrors most twenty something courtship, save for the occasional murder. Joe really does SEEM like a good guy, and he wants to be a good guy, and he wants to be a protector, but he and only he decides who Beck should be protected from. Kepnes brilliance is in understanding twenty-somethings. Goldberg's lack of self esteem and self loathing leaks through even when he's doing the bad stuff. Twenty somethings (and I kn0w because I was one, I am not absolving myself) are relentlessly self-analytical and self-centered and Joe Goldberg is the ultimate twenty something.
So, what you get is a black comedy and a genuinely horrific story masked as one man's twisted love story.
And Kepnes .. . boy, oh boy can she write. There are so many laugh out loud moments people may be thinking you are reading a Sedaris, but when she gets down to business and gets down the dark stuff, she is unrelenting.
Highly recommended
The entire novel is in protagonist Joe Goldberg, an orphaned, Brooklyn born an raised bookstore manager with an unhealthy obsession for a young woman Guinevere Beck. His idea of courtship is to spy and her, hack into her email and all her social media accounts and track her twenty four hours a day and eventually get rid of rivals to his affection, permanently.
He is also the typical snarky millenial. Hilariously putting down everyone who isn't authentic and real while simultaneously constructing a persona for Beck (as she's called) to fall in love with. And of course, he believes she's perfect and she's frankly a mess (like most of us) but even her mess is perfectly Beck. She plays hard to get, unaware of all the stalkage and eventually gives in and it creepily mirrors most twenty something courtship, save for the occasional murder. Joe really does SEEM like a good guy, and he wants to be a good guy, and he wants to be a protector, but he and only he decides who Beck should be protected from. Kepnes brilliance is in understanding twenty-somethings. Goldberg's lack of self esteem and self loathing leaks through even when he's doing the bad stuff. Twenty somethings (and I kn0w because I was one, I am not absolving myself) are relentlessly self-analytical and self-centered and Joe Goldberg is the ultimate twenty something.
So, what you get is a black comedy and a genuinely horrific story masked as one man's twisted love story.
And Kepnes .. . boy, oh boy can she write. There are so many laugh out loud moments people may be thinking you are reading a Sedaris, but when she gets down to business and gets down the dark stuff, she is unrelenting.
Highly recommended
3.5 stars, almost a 4 but something stopped me. Joe is a masterfully realised portrayal of ‘the mundanity of evil’ - and a very particular variety of it. So many parts of his character are unsettlingly familiar, and this, along with the ‘logic’ he uses to explain himself into and out of events, makes the horror of ‘You’ hit sickeningly hard. It’s a great read, but I think Kepnes has the potential to sharpen what she has even further. I now feel qualified to say that the Netflix adaptation does a very good job, as well!
3.5*
I have started and read You on and off for a few months now. I have also started the show and watched a few episodes here and there, without going past the events I had already read. From what I’ve seen I think the show is better, I think they did a great job with the pacing as things go much faster on screen than on page.
Still, I appreciated the clever and original concept of this book. As it is disturbing to read, being in the mind of a stalker, it is also very entertaining. I liked how relevant the pop culture references were and how they were reflective of Joe’s twisted mind (like how he loves Woody Allen for example, and how Allen is a known predator.) I admit, I was fascinated by Joe at the beginning. He’s the most compelling character throughout the book. The other characters are unlikeable and egocentric so reading from Joe’s perspective is a change from that. But I also felt detached to him after the halfway point as his narration gets slightly repetitive. It’s the main reason why I didn’t fully enjoy this book. The repetitiveness gets annoying. I got tired of reading his narration and all the “yous” that comes with it. It gladly picks up at the end. I am happy I finally finished this book and am on my way to finish season one as well, without being “spoiled”.
“It’s been almost two weeks with you staying at her house, just in case the bogeyman stalker returns. Ha. I’ve only seen you twice.”
I have started and read You on and off for a few months now. I have also started the show and watched a few episodes here and there, without going past the events I had already read. From what I’ve seen I think the show is better, I think they did a great job with the pacing as things go much faster on screen than on page.
Still, I appreciated the clever and original concept of this book. As it is disturbing to read, being in the mind of a stalker, it is also very entertaining. I liked how relevant the pop culture references were and how they were reflective of Joe’s twisted mind (like how he loves Woody Allen for example, and how Allen is a known predator.) I admit, I was fascinated by Joe at the beginning. He’s the most compelling character throughout the book. The other characters are unlikeable and egocentric so reading from Joe’s perspective is a change from that. But I also felt detached to him after the halfway point as his narration gets slightly repetitive. It’s the main reason why I didn’t fully enjoy this book. The repetitiveness gets annoying. I got tired of reading his narration and all the “yous” that comes with it. It gladly picks up at the end. I am happy I finally finished this book and am on my way to finish season one as well, without being “spoiled”.
I'm not a prude but when a book uses the C word over and over it deminishes the reading experience. Every character in this book got exactly what they deserved. I was hard to like any of them, so I didn't. Knowing that there is a book #2 makes me shutter. Will I read it? Maybe once my mind has had a chance to be cleansed.
I can honestly say that this was unlike any book I have ever read.
If you've never heard of this book (just like I hadn't until a friend read it and told me I needed to read it as well), here's the basic premise: Joe is a stalker, and sets his sights on a girl name Guinevere Beck (Beck for short) after she comes into his bookstore.
Joe is the most unreliable narrator since Humbert Humbert in Lolita which is the only other character in literature that I have experienced who comes close to Joe. In fact, when I first started reading You, Humbert Humbert was pretty top-of-mind, just because he was also so convinced that what he was doing was good and right. Neither narrator has any concept of the reality of the situations they are in, which is fascinating to me.
Despite early similarities to Humbert Humbert, though, Joe eventually became entirely his own person to me, reaching depths I never expected. Although this book did take me longer than usual to read, the fault is not with the storytelling, which was incredibly compelling. I never knew what Joe was going to do next, and seeing how he justified all of his own crazy behavior was amazing. The lengths he went to in order to "secure" Beck really took an incredible amount of dedication and self-delusion. I know I've already used the word fascinating, but....getting into Joe's mind really was fascinating. Truly.
Although there are a couple of hints here and there, the reader never really knows what may have happened in Joe's life to make him the person that he is. He's clearly lonely, and probably hasn't had many normal social interactions. Mr. Mooney, the original owner of the bookstore that Joe works at, is the closest thing Joe has to a father figure, and it doesn't sound like he's totally on the sanity train himself, so that probably explains some things.
Another thing that I loved about the book were all of the references to movies, music, and books. Joe can find a pop culture comparison to just about anything. Tying into that, the writing is really magnificent -- the repetition of italicized words and phrases (often taken from songs and books, but not always) adds a very poetic feel to the storytelling, while also highlighting Joe's obsession. For example, early on in the book, he refers to the line "It's been seven hours and fifteen days since you took your love away," from the song "Nothing Compares 2 U," and comes back to that phrasing repeatedly throughout the course of the book to relate how long it's been since he has seen or heard from Beck. This is just one of many repetitious phrases used throughout, and it really does add a poetic feel to the storytelling, while also illustrating how mentally unbalanced Joe is.
There's so much to be said about this book, and more than anything else I've read in a long time, I just kind of want to dissect it and talk about it and recommend it. It was really interesting, and a refreshing read because it's so different than anything else I've read.
If you've never heard of this book (just like I hadn't until a friend read it and told me I needed to read it as well), here's the basic premise: Joe is a stalker, and sets his sights on a girl name Guinevere Beck (Beck for short) after she comes into his bookstore.
Joe is the most unreliable narrator since Humbert Humbert in Lolita which is the only other character in literature that I have experienced who comes close to Joe. In fact, when I first started reading You, Humbert Humbert was pretty top-of-mind, just because he was also so convinced that what he was doing was good and right. Neither narrator has any concept of the reality of the situations they are in, which is fascinating to me.
Despite early similarities to Humbert Humbert, though, Joe eventually became entirely his own person to me, reaching depths I never expected. Although this book did take me longer than usual to read, the fault is not with the storytelling, which was incredibly compelling. I never knew what Joe was going to do next, and seeing how he justified all of his own crazy behavior was amazing. The lengths he went to in order to "secure" Beck really took an incredible amount of dedication and self-delusion. I know I've already used the word fascinating, but....getting into Joe's mind really was fascinating. Truly.
Although there are a couple of hints here and there, the reader never really knows what may have happened in Joe's life to make him the person that he is. He's clearly lonely, and probably hasn't had many normal social interactions. Mr. Mooney, the original owner of the bookstore that Joe works at, is the closest thing Joe has to a father figure, and it doesn't sound like he's totally on the sanity train himself, so that probably explains some things.
Another thing that I loved about the book were all of the references to movies, music, and books. Joe can find a pop culture comparison to just about anything. Tying into that, the writing is really magnificent -- the repetition of italicized words and phrases (often taken from songs and books, but not always) adds a very poetic feel to the storytelling, while also highlighting Joe's obsession. For example, early on in the book, he refers to the line "It's been seven hours and fifteen days since you took your love away," from the song "Nothing Compares 2 U," and comes back to that phrasing repeatedly throughout the course of the book to relate how long it's been since he has seen or heard from Beck. This is just one of many repetitious phrases used throughout, and it really does add a poetic feel to the storytelling, while also illustrating how mentally unbalanced Joe is.
There's so much to be said about this book, and more than anything else I've read in a long time, I just kind of want to dissect it and talk about it and recommend it. It was really interesting, and a refreshing read because it's so different than anything else I've read.
I started off with the TV show on Netflix when it first came out and was hooked. I'd never been so disturbed in my life and watching everything unfold was mesmerizing in a "train-wreck" kinda way.
When I found out it was a BOOK SERIES, I immediately purchased the first two. I already knew I was going to like it and boy was I RIGHT. Joe is so much more unhinged, unnerving and unlikable in the book...but I don't mean that in a way that makes the story bad. No, what's worse is that you kind of root for the psychopath...its a weird clash of knowing what's right and what's wrong yet not caring.
This books is...original in the horror fiction. Joe is an unreliable narrator who paints everyone around him to be inferior. Everyone else is the problem and that kind of thinking is dangerous. This book had me flipping through these pages like my life depended on it. I cannot wait to start the second book, hidden bodies.
When I found out it was a BOOK SERIES, I immediately purchased the first two. I already knew I was going to like it and boy was I RIGHT. Joe is so much more unhinged, unnerving and unlikable in the book...but I don't mean that in a way that makes the story bad. No, what's worse is that you kind of root for the psychopath...its a weird clash of knowing what's right and what's wrong yet not caring.
This books is...original in the horror fiction. Joe is an unreliable narrator who paints everyone around him to be inferior. Everyone else is the problem and that kind of thinking is dangerous. This book had me flipping through these pages like my life depended on it. I cannot wait to start the second book, hidden bodies.