Review: YOU by Caroline Kepnes (with references to the Netflix show)

You by Caroline Kepnes
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

When aspiring writer Guinevere Beck strides into the bookstore where Joe works, he is instantly smitten.

But there's more to Joe than Beck realises and much more to Beck than her perfect facade. And the obsessive relationship quickly spirals into a whirlwind of deadly consequences...

A chilling account of unrelenting, terrifying deceit, Caroline Kepnes' You is a thriller more perversely clever and dangerously twisted than any YOU have ever read.
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(This review contains spoilers for both the book and the Netflix show)

So, I only discovered this book because of the Netflix show. Usually I like to read the book first, but I’d just finished the show when I saw the ebook was on sale, so I snagged a copy. Having watched the tv adaptation meant that I was constantly reading YOU through the lens of the show. I was constantly comparing, noting the similarities and differences, examining how the different mediums added—and detracted—from the story. Therefore, this review is going to contain a lot of comparisons between the story in both mediums, as I can’t really review the book without comparing it to the show, given the complex narrative style that is present in both. I also believe my reading of the book was informed greatly by prior knowledge of the show, so as I was reading it with the show in my mind, I feel my review should reflect this.

From watching the show, I hadn’t expected the narrative voice of the book to be as strong—you’ve got a voice over in the majority of the scenes in the show—and I was curious as to how the book would portray Joe’s commentary. I’d even doubted whether it could portray it to such a powerful extent, but I was wrong. How’s commentary was stronger in the book than a show. I recognised many of the same lines which was a delight, but whereas Joe’s voiceovers in the show were added to scenes and we still saw the action, in the book, it pretty much feels like absolutely everything is given to use through Joe’s direct address commentary where he talks in his head to Beck, and recounts her dialogue and their conversations amid this internal monologuing. It’s almost exhausting to read.

Joe is a truly fascinating character. He’s cold, ruthless, a murderer, stalker, and a psychopath, yet he justifies all his actions to us in his narration. He’s strangely likeable and there was something disturbingly alluring in reading his narrative. His voice just grabs you and keeps you reading as you wonder just how far he’ll go to pursue Beck.

Unlike the show, the book tells us early on that Joe has murdered before he meets Beck. (Spoiler ahead—skip to the next paragraph if you don’t want to read it.) Whereas the show reveals Candice is alive, the book tells us early on that Joe murdered her when she broke up with him. Knowing how dangerous Joe is, right from the start, really heightens the tension and makes us concerned for Beck.

Beck, the female MC, is just as interesting in the book as she is in the show. She’s a writer, she’s lost, she sleeps around, she’s insecure and looking for validation, she has huge ambitions. Yet, with the book however, I found her slightly harder to picture, in that she didn’t feel as “true and real”. By that I mean, her characterisation is still strong and well written, but we see her only through Joe’s eyes in the book, rather than the more omniscient point of view in the show. This meant for me that I found it slightly harder to root for Beck as a character when reading her; I didn’t feel like I really knew her, and this was only added to by the use of direct address—Joe constantly refers to her as “you”. This book is his love letter to Beck, and he writes it as an explanation of why he (spoiler alert!) murdered her. This narrative voice means there’s distance between the reader and Beck, and I firmly believe that’s the author’s intention as where our connection to Beck lacks, our bond with Joe strengthens.

The show had many added characters—such as the boy who lives next door to Joe—and the book had equally many characters who didn’t appear in the show. Or who appear in a different way. Whereas Ethan is a permanent fixture in the bookshop in the show, he’s only in the book from about the 50% mark onward. But I was glad to see the book still has his romance with Blythe. She was definitely one of the most interesting characters in the show, and her personality and voice is portrayed beautifully in the text too, despite seeing it all through Joe (who predominantly only hears of her from Beck). It’s definitely a framed narrative/Chinese Box kind of story with Blythe, and I loved how this raised questions of reliability. In the book, do we ever know the true Blythe as nearly everything we learn of her is told to us via Joe who has his own agenda and biases?

Both the book and the show deliver a harrowing warning about social media, a story of stalking and murder (which I found myself also comparing to the narrative in A LONG FATAL LOVE CHASE by Louisa May Alcott, which begins and ends in the same way), and warns readers beautifully that you can never know the true thoughts of someone around you. This is a story of lies and deceit, of passion and insanity, of love and murder. There’s also *a lot* of sex in the book. A lot more than the show.

YOU is a complex story, beautifully written, and I’ve never read anything like it before. But I believe that I only enjoyed it as much as I did because I had the context of the show as background. I already had a framework to map this story onto as I read. And given how unique it’s narrative style is, this helped immensely. I’m sure if I’d come to the book first, I’d have felt lost and not quite sure what was happening at several points.

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