You (You #1)

You by Caroline Kepnes
Series: You #1
Published by Atria/Emily Bestler Books on June 16th 2015
Genres: Thriller, Psychological
Pages: 448
Format: eBook, Kindle Book
Source: Amazon Kindle

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.

I came across this psychological thriller, YOU, while surfing Amazon’s recommendations for me. The cover caught my interest right away as it was so mysterious. I read the book blurb and was very intrigued to buy the book and start reading right away.
As I said, YOU is a psychological thriller that starts by Beck – an aspiring writer – stepping into a bookstore. The moment she steps into the bookstore, she also steps into the mind of Joe the bookkeeper who works at this bookstore. The story is narrated by Joe. So as Beck steps into his mind, the reader also delves into the twists of Joe’s mind. It’s not hard for us to discover very soon that Joe is a stalker. In his mind he finds every action by Beck as an invitation for him to dig harder into her life and come closer, which he does. He thinks that she paid at the bookstore using the credit card only to give him a chance to know more about her and so he goes looking her up on the net.
Through a series of events happening to Beck, Joe manages to get closer, get hold of her life and be her best friend and even her lover later on. However, this is not all. There is still more to it.
This has been quite a good read. However it was also dark. The unique thing about this thriller is that you get to hear it through the voice of the stalker himself, which is new at least to me. You can see his twisted mind that always has reason for his off limit actions. As you feel intimidated by his thoughts and actions, you are also intrigued to read more. The other interesting thing I liked is that Joe refers to Beck throughout the book as “YOU” as if the whole book is dedicated to her. His whole world is about beck and nothing else matters to him. As I mentioned previously, the selection of the cover was very successful from my point of view. It reflects the whole book. A beautiful woman with no face. You only see a glimpse of her face. This is what the book is all about. You don’t actually see Beck. You only see what Joe sees about her.
Having said that, I still have to remind you that this is a dark read. It’s one of the most disturbing books I have read as you go through the events through the mind of a stalker.
For those interested in psychological thrillers as myself, this is a book I highly recommend for you. Don’t miss it. You will really love it as I did.