YOU by Caroline Kepnes

4 stars from me!

I seem to be reading a lot of seriously creepy books at the moment and YOU by Caroline Kepnes is right up there with the best of them.

Main character and all round proper psycho, Joe Goldberg, is horribly fascinating and all too believable as he so swiftly and utterly invades the lives of anyone he fancies. His ability to switch between Joe the perfect dreamboat boyfriend into Joe the certifiably insane is slick and scary.

Probably the creepiest thing about this book is quite how easy it would be to fall prey to someone like Joe. It does make you want to wipe out your internet presence and deal in cash only!

All in all a perversely enjoyable read, it does get a little bit far fetched in a couple of places which is why I’ve scored it four stars rather than five – but even so I still highly recommend it if you like a book that will mess with your mind!

I can quite easily see this being made into a film and I can’t wait to read more by Caroline Kepnes.

As much as I’ve enjoyed this book, stalking is a horrible, invasive crime that all too frequently leads on to assault or worse. If you need any further information please see: http://www.stalkinghelpline.org/faq/about-the-law/

Synopsis: 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.