Review: You by Caroline Kepnes

You
by Caroline Kepnes
Published by Simon & Schuster
Contemporary, thriller

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.

You is disturbing. That's the best way to describe the story. What makes it more disturbing than other stories in the same category, is the way it's executed: it's written in second person, so the narrator Joe speaks directly to Beck. Joe's looking for true love, and he's obsessed with Beck. The genius of the story is that it feels so disturbing at first, when Joe starts stalking Beck, but the more we find out about Beck it becomes clear that she's not a good person either. What Joe does is still wrong, but Beck's manipulative and well, gold digger. In fact, most characters in You are despicable so it's difficult to feel for them, which only adds to the disturbing feel of the story.

I enjoyed to story, despite disliking most, if not all, of the characters. It's quite a feat for a story to achieve that, because I usually need to be able like the characters to enjoy the story. Overall, a very good book for its genre, and if you're up to some disturbing thriller, then You is for you.

4 of 5 stars

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