These two characters are villainized, with every moment of depth to their character taken away, so the narrative can find Joe- remember, the stalker, the dude who watches a girl masturbate and kidnaps and murders her?- the more sympathetic character. But… that’s because Caroline Kepnes doesn’t want me to. by villainizing all the side characters and forgoing character depth entirely.īenjy and Peach are both awful and annoying and I don’t have any sympathy for either one of these characters.

The narrative gains empathy for Joe by making you feel like you should feel empathy for Joe, and does it via what I think is a very boring path: i.e. My other problem with this book is that the narrative uses a purposeful failure to develop side characters to manipulate the audience. um, can't you can get the entire plot of this book from the blurb? He kills her and meets a new victim and that’s basically. I feel the need to explain how minimal the plot is: this book felt, to me, like it was building up to a revelation in which the girl Joe is stalking is actually going to try and kill him, which would’ve been so fucking badass. The issue is that the ENTIRE BOOK is based off this gimmick, and it is four hundred twenty pages, and very little is done with the premise. You can completely see why someone like Beck (who never goes beyond the outline of a person) likes Joe. There’s something really scary about a thriller in which the villain is so outwardly nice, even believing within his mind that he IS kind.

I will fully admit that this book does one thing really well: it makes you feel as if it could happen to you, to anyone. kind of interesting, and Santino Fontana deserves an award for his audiobook narration.

This is a book about a stalker, with one interesting twist: he narrates. But unfortunately it’s also – and don’t kill me, I’m going to explain why I feel this way – not very good. You is a book I should hypothetically like because it is messed up and creepy. If you want to see my personal hell you can read through the comments on this. If your point is 'thinking critically about media is stupid and bad', I can absolutely promise you I do not care. You can take my points or you can leave them. UPDATE: I am officially muting comments on this review because they without fail make me hate my life.

Caroline kepnes you series