Written by Caroline Kepnes, this novel follows Joe, a bookstore manager who meets a girl whom he thinks is perfect, and then proceeds to stalk her and work his way into her world to be her boyfriend, only to have everything fall apart.
The key word here is stalking. Stalking. This is not a novel for young kids (the language is crass, though it is that way to try and convey this guy and his thoughts), and honestly rather terrifying.
Beck, our love interest, is not a good girl. Okay? She isn’t. I don’t like her. I don’t like Joe either, but Beck isn’t a perfect girl. Joe is a crazy, crazy stalker. But, reading You from Joe’s perspective makes it more realistic how someone could obsess over another person and just to what lengths people could go to do things. Joe kills people. He feels a little… remorse. But, just a little. Generally, he seems to be overcome with this book/movie ideal of who a good person is and what that looks like. If you are just acting like a good person or look like a good person on the outside, then that possibly makes you worse than those who wear their non-perfections on the outside.
In the novel, Beck’s ex Benji tells Joe that Beck isn’t worth the effort that Joe has already gone through. And between the other things that happen in this novel, I would have to agree.
With that, this novel was very slow in the beginning. Wading through all the stalkerish things that Joe ends up doing, and having to get to understand what Joe is thinking about and (for me) getting past the crass language took a bit.
This is a novel for those who like psychological thrillers. You want to read something dark that could be true. You want to read something from the killer’s perspective. This isn’t a romance novel. It has some dry humor bits spread throughout, but overall this is a very dark novel.
