“Every day I close up without finding anyone like you. Look at you, born into my world today“.ย Excerpt from the novel “You” by Caroline Kepnes.
Hey You, ever wonder what’s inside the mind of a stalker? oh well, let’s just say, a very romantic stalker that doesn’t really seem to realize that he’s actually a stalker or he doesn’t want to admit that he’s one. This book by Caroline Kepnes called “You” is all about the story of Joe Goldberg. A smart bookstore manager in New York City who seems harmless, seemingly kind, and likes to keep to himself with a serious passion for books. Joe seems like any other guy, romantic and cool, but Joe has a secret, in fact, he harbors a lot of secrets, and when he’s in love, he’s the type that goes all the way.
Joe met Beck at the bookstore and he was so captivated that began googling everything about her. She became the subject of his obsession, passionately knowing and trying to find things about her through the instant access of the internet and today’s incessant display of social media. Meanwhile, Beck seems like the ideal, pretty and likable girl that every guy would want to have. She’s everything that Joe desires and he has fallen madly in love with her, to the point of obsessively imagining and following her. He’s determined to do whatever it takes to make her fall in love with him, and nobody can stand in his way.
This book is giving me the whole Dexter meets Pretty Little Liars with a Gone Girl vibe. It’s giving me all the “feels” (LOL, whatever that means) and it’s beautifully written in the sense that it would make you really get into the mind of a stalker and sort of realize what it must be like to fall head over heels crazy in love with someone so bad that you’d actually do anything to make that relationship happen. There is something likable and strangely relatable about Joe. He’s just like most of us when we fall in love with someone, we do get obsessed with that person and we do feel the pain if that person does not reciprocate how and what we feel, even more so if that person doesn’t even realize that we exist, right? But loving and crushing are not the same as stalking. Stalking is wrong and it’s creepy. We don’t act out on our emotions and do crazy evil things when we have feelings for someone who doesn’t seem to be interested in us. We move on and find someone who can truly love us back the way we want to. That’s life, that’s what’s normal and that’s healthy. But then again, this book will take you inside a hopeless romantic psychopath’s mind and see what it’s like to fall in love with someone so obsessively to the point of being mad.
The series adaptation of this book is currently being aired on Lifetime every Sunday night. The latest episodes are uploaded online for the viewers to watch. It’s kinda weird that Lifetime made an adaptation of this. I’ve always thought of Lifetime as the channel that contains Golden Girls, Romance films, and all the feel-good movie type, but anyway, I think the series itself is just as well-done as the book. It has all the vibes and atmosphere of the novel’s story. Penn Badgley is great as Joe Goldberg and so are most of the actors. It’s as haunting and intriguing as ever.
I listened to the Audible version of this book, and I couldn’t stop. The narration is captivating and superb. It made me feel claustrophobic, strangely in love and was always on the edge. A real page-turner and true to what they say, this book is not your usual boy-meets-girl story.
To purchase this book online, click HERE
To listen to the Audible version of this book, click HERE
To watch the LIfetime series adaptation of this book, see it HERE