Obviously, the perspective had to change but in doing so, it reverted the book to any other adult thriller. Without Joe telling the story to Beck, it lost all that magic that was created in book one. Having a story told from the perspective of a stalker with a dual relationship TO the person being stalked without their knowledge was creepy, unsettling, and extremely unique. There was nothing enticing about ANY character in this book, which made it much more difficult to sit through their flat personalities.Īnother shining element of You that is absent in Hidden Bodies was the second person narrative. Every character in Hidden Bodies could have been replaced with any stereotypical Los Angeles “wannabe” with interpersonal issues. The characters of You were all equally flawed and infuriating, but they brought something to the story. Moreover, the secondary characters were so vapid and one-dimensional. (I mean you can also argue Joe was never capable of loving Beck in the first place, but my point is in regard to how Joe treats the new love interests in comparison to Beck when he claims to love them even MORE than her.) There was no chemistry, nothing from Joe’s end to suggest he felt more than attracted towards them, yet the author attempts to fabricate this nonexistent emotion from Joe. In book one, it was clear Joe genuinely believed he was in love with Beck and working towards her greater interests, but I refuse to believe Joe “loved” any of the women he claimed to love in book two. Additionally, his overall characterization was watered down. I get that a large part of You is following Joe as he gets more involved with stalking Beck and takes increasing risks to achieve his goals, but it’s as if we hit the height of his character at the end and there was nowhere else for him to go in the second installment. In Hidden Bodies, if a character breathes wrong, he goes off on a tangent about all the different ways he’d like to murder them. In You, he has reasons behind his violent acts - albeit, deluded reasons - but he leads the reader to believe he’s acting out of his own perverse conscience. The only words I could use to describe Joe in Hidden Bodies is straight up homicidal. It’s clear he is a very twisted man who does horrible, irredeemable things, yet there are moments that make him seem a little less terrible which keep you fascinated enough to keep reading. In You, Joe has a unique path of development. I was deeply disappointed with the direction of Joe’s character. This is one of my least favorite books I’ve ever read.ĬW: stalking, violence, murder, substance abuse I don’t think it’s possible for me to be more disappointed. A super unnecessary sequel that lost absolutely everything that made You such a hit. ![]() ![]() I’m sorry, but this book was not good at all. But if she ever finds out what he’s done, he may not have a choice. He doesn’t want to hurt his new girlfriend - he wants to be with her forever. And when he finds it in a darkened room in Soho House, he’s more desperate than ever to keep his secrets buried. They re-emerge, like dark thoughts, multiplying and threatening to destroy what Joe wants most: truelove. The problem with hidden bodies is that they don’t always stay that way. But while others seem fixated on their own reflections, Joe can’t stop looking over his shoulder. ![]() He eats guac, works in a bookstore, and flirts with a journalist neighbour. ![]() In Hollywood, Joe blends in effortlessly with the other young upstarts. Now he’s heading west to Los Angeles, the city of second chances, determined to put his past behind him. In the past ten years, this thirty-something has buried four of them, collateral damage in his quest for love. Joe Goldberg is no stranger to hiding bodies. Hidden Bodies marks the return of a voice that Stephen King described as original and hypnotic, and through the divisive and charmingly sociopathic character of Joe Goldberg, Kepnes satirizes and dissects our culture, blending suspense with scathing wit. In the compulsively readable follow-up to her widely acclaimed debut novel, You, Caroline Kepnes weaves a tale that Booklist calls “the love child of Holden Caulfield and Patrick Bateman.”
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