Book reviews by Mobilism's Book Review team
Jan 17th, 2015, 4:39 am
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TITLE: You
AUTHOR: Caroline Kepnes
GENRE: Mystery/Thriller/Suspense
PUBLISHED: September 30, 2014
RATING: ★★★★
PURCHASE LINKS: Amazon.com
MOBILISM LINK: N/A

Description: From debut author Caroline Kepnes comes You, one of Suspense Magazine’s Best Books of 2014, and a brilliant and terrifying novel for the social media age.

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.

A terrifying exploration of how vulnerable we all are to stalking and manipulation, debut author Caroline Kepnes delivers a razor-sharp novel for our hyper-connected digital age. You is a compulsively readable page-turner that’s being compared to Gone Girl, American Psycho, and Stephen King’s Misery.

Review: With such an unimaginative title and a forgettable cover, this novel turned out to be much more interesting than I imagined. At first I was unsure how to categorize it - romance? Perhaps it could be - if you consider Nabakov's Lolita to be a romance. No, in my opinion, You is a thriller. Joe is a bookseller is a small, unique bookstore, reasonably handsome, glib and charming. Beck is a girl who walks into his shop to buy a book and takes a few moments to flirt with Joe. From this beginning, Joe is smitten and begins to insert himself into her life. Joe is more of a stalker than a love interest, but it's hard to remember this when Joe talks to us so intimately. You see, Joe loves books, and as I am a reader, I started to love Joe by association because of quotes like this one...
“The problem with books is that they end. They seduce you. They spread their legs to you and pull you inside. And you go deep and leave your possessions and your ties to the world at the door and you like it inside and you don't want for your possessions or your ties and then, the book evaporates.

Joe loves to talk in an intimate conversational tone to Beck, whether she is there or not. On occasion, he switches to second person narrative, which gives a omniscient stalker vibe to the story, but mainly he uses first person narrative to talks intimately to the reader, frankly and adorably sharing his charm, poignant memories of family and witticisms. He also is very intelligent and muses over thoughts like these...
“The only thing crueler than a cage so small that a bird can’t fly is a cage so large that a bird thinks it can fly.”

So we start feeling comfortable with Joe, but then suddenly we realize he has just done something super creepy and is talking about it like it's just a matter of course. For example, when Joe picks up Beck's old boyfriend, Benji, and brings him over to the bookstore, at first we are too busy laughing at Joe poking fun at Benji to notice Joe has locked him in a cage and is quizzing him for hours and punishing him for "wrong" answers...
“I pick up the list of Benji's five favorite books because we've got work to do:

"Gravity's Rainbow" by Thomas Pynchon. He's a pretentious fuck and a liar.

"Underworld" by Don DeLillo. He's a snob.

"On the Road" by Jack Kerouac. He's a spoiled passport-carrying fuck stunted in eighth grade.

"Brief Interviews with Hideous Men" by David Foster Wallace. Enough already.

"The Red Badge of Courage" by Stephen Crane. He's got Mayflowers in his blood.”

At first glance, I confused You with the comparatively lackluster The Book of You by Claire Kendal. Oddly, they had similar forgettable titles, similar author names, and both of them were books about stalkers. However, the difference became clear on the first page. With You, Joe, our protagonist was memorable and likable, while the characters in The Book of You were not (so much so that I have forgotten their names entirely).

Social media is a huge part of You, as it is for most people in real life. It is a chilling reminder that yes, in the best case scenario, social media can augment getting to know a person, you can easily learn their hopes, dreams and favorite things through their online postings. But in the worst case scenario, social media can quickly unravel a person's life before a near stranger - and creates a false intimacy. People often reveal far too much about themselves online, and don't realize how easily accessible they are to everyone.

I feel most women who enjoy books about relationships and/or thrillers would enjoy this book. 4 stars.
Jan 17th, 2015, 4:39 am
Jan 20th, 2015, 4:13 am
I did not pick up this title after seeing it tagged as "erotic psychological thriller" and having a bad 50 Shades of you-know-what flashback.

Based on your review and the interesting social media hook (which was not at all evident in the description I read on Amazon), I will give it a try.
Jan 20th, 2015, 4:13 am
Apr 29th, 2015, 3:58 pm
I LOVED this book. It's being turned into a movie. The followup book is due out later this year or next!
Apr 29th, 2015, 3:58 pm
Mar 1st, 2016, 6:57 pm
so it's not entirely in second-person narrative? i opened the book and was shocked when i saw the p.o.v. i feel like second-person narrative is almost gimmicky so i decided not to read it when i skipped around. it looked like, to me, that the entirety was in second person.
Mar 1st, 2016, 6:57 pm

currently reading: station eleven by emily st john mandel
Mar 14th, 2016, 9:53 pm
Well in a way it was in second-person narrative (when he was talking about Beck) but you also find out a lot about him because he is talking about himself as well. This thriller is one of my favourite books ever, I loved the main character Joe so much! At times I forgot what a psychopath he was as he was so charming and intelligent that I actually wanted them to end up together! The sequel has been out for a month, it's a good book but not quite as good as this one :)
Mar 14th, 2016, 9:53 pm