My Review of You

I'm really trying hard to work on my 2015 reading challenge as I'm really far behind on it and I still want to fully complete it by year end. This is meaning that I'm changing up some of the choices I made at the beginning of the year so that the books fit into the current genre mood I'm in. Overall I'm only 4 books off hitting the amount of books I'd set myself to read this year (I wanted to read 100 books) but out of those only 21 of them are from the 70 books for the challenge.

The book I chose for "a book with a one word title" was You by Caroline Kepnes. I was really excited to see this in The Works in their 3 books for £5 offer as I had heard so many good things about it and the whole concept sounded really new and interesting, getting a view from the eyes of the stalker rather than the stalkee. There are some very minor spoilers ahead, but if you've read anything about this book, you'll probably already know.

The start of the book was fantastic, I felt incredibly uncomfortable reading from Joe's perspective and the things going through his mind. The language used was so far from what I would use or hear, especially when the C-word was dropped in the first few pages or so. My hubby kept asking if I was enjoying the book and all I could say was "I don't know" the main character gave me the creeps and I didn't like being in his head but obviously that meant that Kepnes had done a brilliant job of portraying Joe. The book is exceptionally well written and it was definitely a unique way of telling this kind of story.

All of the characters in this book are absolutely awful human beings (apart from Ethan but we barely see him) and they have no redeeming qualities. Joe is awful for obvious reasons. Guinevere or Beck is a selfish, flaky and entitled brat. As for Beck's friends, each one is worse than the last. I know a few people who have read this have felt sorry for Joe and want him to succeed, this isn't my opinion but I certainly understand why they would feel like that with all the people he meets.

I got around half way through the book and I started to think the story started to lose credibility and believability, The story to begin with, was very creepy and made you seriously look at the mark you are leaving online that makes it so easy for the wrong people to find out everything about you. When Joe began on his kidnapping and murderous ways (also finding out about previous murders) it just lost the magic that had been created and just no longer captured my imagination the same way it had to start with.

Sadly the book ended up falling flat for me and it just wasn't what I had expected or wanted. I have since finishing the book found out that this isn't a stand alone which I feel takes away from the uniqueness even more, however being a completionist if I see the next book/books I will probably pick them up, just to see where this story can be taken as I feel everything has already been covered. I would love to be proven wrong and for me to get the experience that I wanted out of You from the next book (Hidden Bodies).

Overall a brilliantly written piece that in my opinion is let down by the story told.

I started reading this book on the 30th of August 2015 and finished it on the 2nd of September 2015
I gave this book 3 stars on Goodreads