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.
Dark bleatings, you.
Sorry, I couldn’t resist. I’m reviewing You today (obviously) and I’m excited to talk about it because although I’d already watched the show and heard that the book was pretty faithful to it, I was so surprised by the book. Reading the source material also gave me a renewed admiration for how the story was adapted for TV. I won’t give any major plot spoilers for either version, but I do need to talk about the characters a bit so if you consider character details spoilers, then you have been warned! The first season of the show is based on this first book, and so I won’t be bringing up anything else in either the book or TV series.
In both the book and the show, our protagonist is Joe. We experience life through his eyes in first-person monologues. He works in a book store and loves to read, and one day a customer called Beck catches his eye and he swiftly falls for her. Unfortunately for Beck, Joe is an obsessive, deluded stalker that invades her life and we quickly realise he legitimately poses a danger to her.
In the show, Joe is played by Penn Badgley (Gossip Girl’s Dan) – a nice looking, charismatic, unimposing guy with a sweet smile. His inner monologue sounds presumptuous, arrogant, and a touch misogynistic, but it’s also witty, funny, and full of romantic fantasies. Joe is a guy who loves books, makes sharp, hilarious observations about elitist assholes – people whom we agree with him about – and he’s got a beautiful, sincere relationship with Paco, the neglected kid that lives next door.
It’s this relationship with Paco, I think, that has the fanbase so on Joe’s side, despite the fact (and it IS a fact) that he’s a monster. He’s fiercely defensive of the little dude and there’s never, even for a second, any inclination that he’s a danger to him. He’s an empathetic protector and a good friend. This side of him serves to soften the character and keeps the audience in its own deluded limbo in thinking that maybe, if Joe can just, you know, calm down, things will somehow work out for him in his relationship with Beck.
On paper, this version of Joe is the ideal boyfriend. Sensitive, intelligent, funny, will cook you breakfast and encourage you in your dreams. There’s just the small matter of him being a stalker, but the show makes him so bloody relatable and likeable in every other aspect of his character that people were actually giving him a pass for the deranged stuff.
And then I read the original version of Joe, the book version, and holy heck, this guy is an absolute demon. The show couldn’t possibly have portrayed him the way he’s depicted in the book, because there is absolutely no chance that anyone could have followed this guy for even one season. He’s absolutely heinous. His inner monologue is full of observations about people, but they’re more deluded than witty, and even more mean spirited and self-serving. Book Joe isn’t funny, he considers himself romantic but absolutely isn’t, and unlike the screen version, he really has no self awareness at all.
I have to be clear that Joe’s likeable qualities in the show aren’t redeeming qualities, they’re just things that make him more relatable and endearing. There’s no redeeming this dude. But by comparison to his original book form, he’s a saint. There’s no Paco in the book, and it makes a huge difference. In the show, when he’s watching Beck, he’s doing so with possessive lust, but also a desire to serve and protect her and make her happy. It’s all control based, of course, but there is an initial sweetness to his tone. Book Joe is vulgar, his language is vile, and his thoughts are disgusting. There’s not even the possibility of misinterpreting his opinions or intentions as romantic. He is absolutely despicable, unrelatable, and he’s scary because of it.
This novel is a straight up work of horror. I’d seen Joe compared to Dexter but outside of being in the mind of the perpetrator, there’s no similarity. Dexter is easy to get behind because he’s a serial killer that ONLY targets murderers that have evaded the criminal justice system. We consider Dexter to be basically performing a horrible but justifiable public service when he rids the world of dangerous predators. He’s an emotionless, serial killing psychopath but he’s still a much better person and less scary than Joe.
This is a book for horror fans, especially if you enjoy a more interesting, twisted perspective than what we’re used to for this kind of story. If you’d like to check out the book or the author, I’ve popped some links below for you:
Bleeeeat!
Happy Goat Horror 
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