Name: l ˚｡⋆୨୧˚'s review of You Love Me by Caroline Kepnes
Item: You Love Me
Rating: 4
Author: l ˚｡⋆୨୧˚

Caroline Kepnes

The highly anticipated new thriller in Caroline Kepnes's hit You series, now a blockbuster Netflix show--a compulsively readable trip into the deviant mind of the uniquely antisocial, savvy bookseller . . . Joe Goldberg. "Fiendish, fast-paced, and very funny."--Paula Hawkins, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Girl on the Train ONE OF THE MOST ANTICIPATED BOOKS OF THE YEAR--Cosmopolitan, PopSugar, Literary Hub Joe is done with the cities. He's done with the muck and the posers, done with Love. Now, he's saying hello to nature, to simple pleasures on a cozy island in the Pacific Northwest. For the first time in a long time, he can just breathe. He gets a job at the local library--he does know a thing or two about books--and that's where he meets her: Mary Kay DiMarco. Librarian. Joe won't meddle, he will not obsess. He'll win her the old-fashioned way . . . by providing a shoulder to cry on, a helping hand. Over time, they'll both heal their wounds and begin their happily ever after in this sleepy town. The trouble is . . . Mary Kay already has a life. She's a mother. She's a friend. She's . . . busy. True love can only triumph if both people are willing to make room for the real thing. Joe cleared his decks. He's ready. And hopefully, with his encouragement and undying support, Mary Kay will do the right thing and make room for him.

A You Novel

You Love Me

Sven Test

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - The highly anticipated new thriller in Caroline Kepnes's hit You series, now a blockbuster Netflix show--a compulsively readable trip into the deviant mind of the uniquely antisocial, savvy bookseller Joe Goldberg. "Fiendish, fast-paced, and very funny."--Paula Hawkins, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Girl on the Train ONE OF THE MOST ANTICIPATED BOOKS OF THE YEAR--Cosmopolitan, PopSugar, Literary Hub Joe Goldberg is done with the cities. He's done with the muck and the posers, done with Love. Now he's saying hello to nature, to simple pleasures on a cozy island in the Pacific Northwest. For the first time in a long time, he can just breathe. He gets a job at the local library--he does know a thing or two about books--and that's where he meets her: Mary Kay DiMarco. Librarian. Joe won't meddle, he will not obsess. He'll win her the old-fashioned way . . . by providing a shoulder to cry on, a helping hand. Over time, they'll both heal their wounds and begin their happily ever after in this sleepy town. The trouble is . . . Mary Kay already has a life. She's a mother. She's a friend. She's . . . busy. True love can only triumph if both people are willing to make room for the real thing. Joe cleared his decks. He's ready. And hopefully, with his encouragement and undying support, Mary Kay will do the right thing and make room for him.

l ˚｡⋆୨୧˚

** spoiler alert **
           ok i’m not gonna lie … this one made my heart hurt for joe 😭 he was ready to chill out and settle down but it didn’t work for him. he stopped being as terrible as he was before for mary kay & in the end, he was still left. i don’t know if i should be happy that it didn’t work out for him (because he really doesn’t deserve it) or be sad that he keeps getting hurt because of the women he loves !!:,( 

i would’ve given “you love me” five stars but it wasn’t as entertaining because joe was … calmer. also, he saw a girl after he heard that mary kay was going to die & immediately fell in love. this man does not stop. after everything that happened with mk i thought he would grieve for MUCH longer!! i didn’t expect him to move on that fast ?? he was literally about to get married !! 3.5

Tish

Took me a little while to finish this but HOLY SHIT. I did not see that plot twist coming at the end. Like at all. Jesus Christ. I won’t give anything away but you will not see this coming in the end.

I enjoyed this book more than the second. I wish they showed more of this in the TV show. This was a good quick read. I actually felt bad for Joe this book. I hope to see some of this adapted into the tv show. I did skim through at some parts of the story. I do feel like these books could be shorter. 

Bookworm

High Fidelity

Whoa. I am overwhelmed. I tried to read it,but then i switched to audio book,cause that is how i consumed the first two books. And one again Santino Fontana did not fail me. 
Joe is mostly the same but trying to do better in a different environment. And i feel like it was more about other people than him, which is not a bad thing. And these people are messed up to a level. Still, things from the past aged really well and are having the impact on the story. Love interest did not fit with me completely,but i rooted for it. 
I felt like story was a constant reminder or warning about people intensions and behavior. This might not be best thought review but it is all i have for now. And i should definitely get the books to own them and annotate them before we get the 4th one in the series.

Jasmine

Joe Goldberg is back and *maybe* a little more human than we’ve known him to be in the past. Has the prospect of new love saved him or is this change a culmination of regret and misfortune? 

This book took me a little longer to get through because 1.) my brain is currently kind of broken and 2.) holy shit this story is just anxiety in word form. This is not even remotely close to a complaint, though. There’s just so much that can (and will) go wrong at any given time. Sometimes those things come way out of left field and that’s actually what adds to the readability of these books. 

I loved following Joe around for a bit longer and hope there are several more opportunities to do that again in the future.

Kelsey Lynn

2.5 stars. I almost gave it a three because if this wasn't a "YOU" book, it would be entertaining. Unfortunately, as a "YOU" book, it really missed the mark and made some questionable decisions. 

Unfortunately, I won't be able to write this without spoilers. But I'll start with super minor ones to help determine if you want to read this book. If you are a Joe Goldberg "is actually a good guy" fan, then read this book. 

"You" the books and "YOU" the show have always been pretty close but very different in my opinion when it comes to Joe. Joe in the books is much more clearly a complete psychopath. You get his internal dialogue for every second of the book and he is downright gross. Incel level gross. But in the show, they made him more of a nice guy. A guy many women online falsely crushed on. Even Penn Badgely called them out. He was much more sympathetic (as much as he could) in the show. But I always loved that the books always reminded you of his true nature. You'd often find yourself accidentally rooting for him and then be bluntly reminded why you shouldn't. 

 This was completely thrown out the window for book three. As well as a lot of other things. Love, for instance. The plot from book two is completely thrown out the window and returns one or two times in very shoe-horned, unrealistic ways almost as though the author went "Oh yea! I had a whole plot from the last book". The biggest issue I had with this book is it felt like the author was actively trying to make Joe a sympathetic character. Quick to kill Joe is gone. Possessive, entitled Joe is gone. Joe is the victim a lot in this book, and not in a he finally gets his due kind of way. I genuinely think the author was trying to get us to sympathize with him. This just was not my jam and this is all I can say without full spoilers. SO WARNING, from here on is SPOILER CITY.
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(view spoiler)[
 This book felt like a fanfic a Joe fan wrote. Love is awkwardly and abruptly removed from the story. Only to return in moments that the plot was getting snail's pace slow and needed something to steamroll it ahead. Joe has been paid off by the Quinns to be out of Love and his son's life and lives in an idyllic ocean town. He meets a librarian name "Mary Kay". AKA Every Joe fan who wrote a fanfic of being the bookish girl that could "fix" him. A straight-up Mary Sue. That was plain and normal and borderline insufferable. They hit it off. Joe promises himself he'll be good this time and honestly... he is. This is where the problem lies. Sure he does a few online stalks, a few outside of the house looky-loos. He breaks and enters once or twice. But overall Joe is "good". He doesn't kill a single person in this book. We get close with Mary Kay's extremely annoying friend. But it's framed as him legitimately helping her realize she's living a lie. Because yes, being kidnapped will make us figure out who we truly are. It was rather cringy and uncomfy. Felt insanely misogynistic. She ultimately does herself in because she can't handle that she's a lie and just oh so lonely because she's not married. 

 That is the closest thing we get to Joe killing. Joe is lied to, tricked, blackmailed. But he slowly but surely gets the girl. Oh, she's married? Must be time for Joe to kill someone. Oh, nope the guy overdoses himself. Sure Joe pulled some Amelie shit to make the couple fight more, but the couple's relationship was already dead. Joe is patient, Joe is kind. Mary Kay is the one that just can't get her shit together. Being a newly single mom with a teen daughter will do that to you. So Mary Kay and Joe are happy, hubby is out of the picture. So enter unnecessary brother of husband that for a chapter tries to make the girls join his cult. Super random and out of the left-field, but could be good. So Joe finds legit dirt on him being a sexual predator and spreads it on the internet, getting him out of the picture. Joe's gone legit, Joe's good, he just saved these girls and exposed a man without killing him. Good for Joe. 

 Once again, happy and idyllic couple. So let's finally bring Love back. Love is just so insanely lonely because she doesn't have Joe, even though her family paid him off. She's gone absolutely bonkers because he hasn't watched her Instagram stories (you read that right). Even though she hired someone that threatened him with a gun and told him to stop checking her Instagram. So what does she do? She shoots him and herself. End of Love. Joe lives. Mary Kay is mad because Joe went MIA. But what woman who is super pissed and recently windowed wouldn't accept a sudden proposal? So a wedding happens! 

 Now enter the most shoe-horned aspect of the story. This whole time there has been a real background character. Cardboard cutout 2D character. Barely registers because he's mentioned in passing a few times and seems obviously to have a thing for Mary Sue, I mean Mary Kay. Is a confrontation expected? Probably. But to the level that happens? No. This dude kidnaps Joe, beats him up, pours blood on him, and then tries to get wild animals to eat him. Someone shoots him and saves Joe. Joe's hands are still clean and oh, poor victim Joe. 

 In this whole story, Mary Kay's teen daughter has been a stereotypical teen doing teen things. She's been very uninvolved in the story. But suddenly after the wedding, she's all over Joe and convinced Joe loves her. We've seen them interact maybe 5 times this whole book. So this is the definition of left field. Oh and that guy that kidnapped Joe? In love with the daughter, not Mary Kay. Oh, silly reader, how did you not see that coming? Maybe because absolutely nothing pointed to it? Mary Kay and daughter fight. The daughter pushes Mary Kay down steps, Mary Kay is in a coma and dies. 
Joe's hands remain clean.
Oh poor Joe, finally found love and had it ripped away from him. 
Poor Poor Joe.
He's literally written as a victim in this book. It's... gross. 

The book of course ends with a new lady walking in and him taking notice. We know the drill. But I can't forgive the author for missing the opportunity of changing the pronouns from "Her" (as he describes a new girl he keeps saying her) to "you" in the last line to show his obsession has transferred. What a missed, obvious, opportunity. 
 (hide spoiler)]
This did not feel like a "You" book. Joe was not Joe. He was deliberately written as a victim. If this had been another book by her, with different characters where I could let myself sympathize with the main character, it could have been a good story. But it wasn't. It was a full story trying to make me sympathize with Joe Goldberg, and because I cannot do that based on who he has been established to be. This book added nothing and had no real plot. I never thought I would type this. But I needed Joe to kills some people. I'd rather have standard psychopathic Joe, than this weird, uncomfortable attempt to humanize him.

Dee B. 

Jordan /

Caitlyn Hagen

** spoiler alert **
           I got this one on Audible. As always Santino Fontana was amazing. 

This book I would rate below the first but above the second. 

I thought the first third of this book was kind of boring and slow. Joe is older, wiser and more cautious. No less crazy but cautious. 

I would say things pick up in the middle and one they start coming they don't stop. It was one thing after the other.

And the last 2-3 chapters were insane. 

While Joe doesn't directly kill anyone in this book, he is involved in all of their deaths somehow.

And then after it all goes down he packs up and moves to Florida. I am sure only good things await the people around him there.

KADY BURNS

The third book in the You series is a return to form to the first book. When I read Hidden Bodies, I couldn't really connect to it as I did with You. I can't explain why, but it feels like it was just too much in one book. This book, however, reminds me more of the first one. Fewer characters and plot points weighing it down. I really enjoyed the bit of a twist at the end. I hope this is the end of the trilogy, as I think she wrapped the story perfectly.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The highly anticipated new thriller in Caroline Kepnes’s hit You series, now a blockbuster Netflix show—a compulsively readable trip into the deviant mind of the uniquely antisocial, savvy bookseller Joe Goldberg. “Fiendish, fast-paced, and very funny.”—Paula Hawkins, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Girl on the Train ONE OF THE MOST ANTICIPATED BOOKS OF THE YEAR—Cosmopolitan, PopSugar, Literary Hub Joe Goldberg is done with the cities. He’s done with the muck and the posers, done with Love. Now he’s saying hello to nature, to simple pleasures on a cozy island in the Pacific Northwest. For the first time in a long time, he can just breathe. He gets a job at the local library—he does know a thing or two about books—and that’s where he meets her: Mary Kay DiMarco. Librarian. Joe won’t meddle, he will not obsess. He’ll win her the old-fashioned way . . . by providing a shoulder to cry on, a helping hand. Over time, they’ll both heal their wounds and begin their happily ever after in this sleepy town. The trouble is . . . Mary Kay already has a life. She’s a mother. She’s a friend. She’s . . . busy. True love can only triumph if both people are willing to make room for the real thing. Joe cleared his decks. He’s ready. And hopefully, with his encouragement and undying support, Mary Kay will do the right thing and make room for him.

Paulina 

Kath Lau

The man we hate to love is back! Joe has recently moved to a small island and trying to start a new peaceful life. He gets a job volunteering at a local library where he meets the head librarian, Mary Kay. Joe thinks that she's the right one for him and this time, he will not make the same mistakes he did with his previous relationships. Yeah right.

This was one of my most anticipated releases this year eventhough the second book was a huge disappointment to me. Joe is definitely one of my favorite antiheroes so I'm not giving up on this series yet. You got to give it to the author for writing a deeply disturbed and obsessed character that we can't help rooting for. Joe's character always fascinates me. He's hilarious and annoying at the same time. His opinions are still brutally honest. Mary Kay's character is more complex compared to Joe's previous love interests in the series. I still didn't end up liking her character which was okay because I didn't really like any of the characters aside from Joe. The plot is pretty much the same with YOU but not as thrilling. It also felt dragging at times but it did pick up once I reached the last 30% of the book. There were just some scenes that didn't make any sense to me. The twist towards the end was definitely surprising but I wanted to know more about it. Overall, I still enjoyed it. I highly recommend listening to the audiobook because Santino Fontana's narration is incredible or watch the tv series featuring Penn Badgley as Joe.

Ruth Parker 

I loved You... I hated Hidden Bodies... by You Love Me was back in form. Not as good as You, I don’t think anything could be as shocking as the hit of that first novel. But Joe was back to his crazy self and the characters were yet again people I cared about. Love and Forty were awful, I hated them and I did not care what happened in Hidden Bodies. 
Much much much better!

Ipshita Kanungo

3.4 ⭐ Just finished and here I am. It was...fun ig? Am not sure tbh. In the beginning, the pace is quite slow and I was thinking of dropping it but then, Joe was Joe again and I had to keep reading. This book is more about the other characters he meets and what's up with their story. Sure, in the previous books too we get a lot of insights about other characters, but it was always how he dealth with 'em. This time, it seemed like he was just a bystander while everything kind of happened on its own and he didn't have much control. I would suggest reading the previous ones before jumping in here, cause you'll need it. Overall the book is good ofc, but Caroline set the bar too high with the first one and sadly, this and the second one couldn't match it. Still, I would definitely ask you to give it a chance.

Zoe Smolen

3.5 

Another fantastic installment of the Joe Goldberg! There is definitely a different side of Joe featured in this novel, but we still get a glimpse of the man we hate-to-love. I found this one to be a little slower than the first two installments, but once we got to the last 100 pages there were plot twists left and right that I did not see coming! Also LOVED that we got some solid library rep in this book. We love a book that love books. 
 
Overall, a real solid installment, and I can't wait to read about Joe's adventures in Florida. 

Thanks to NetGalley and Random House for a free copy in exchange for an honest review.

Sven Test &
You Love Me by Caroline Kepnes

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