Rating: 4/5
Read: Feb 20th, 2016
I’m not even sure where to start with this review, but let’s see where this takes me…
This is my first ever ‘Adult’ book, and what a first one it was. I was also so impressed to realize that this is Kepnes’ debut novel, and it is astounding for a debut.
You was enticing, scary, thrilling and downright psychotic.
Our protagonist, Joe, is the one doing all the psychotic things, so it literally messed me up to be in his mind, so much so that I had trouble sleeping because I just kept thinking about Joe and all my theories about him. I also didn’t allow myself to read this book for two days whilst I was studying because I was remembering/thinking of the book more than I was my notes…
In terms of the focal point of the novel, in my opinion, the stalkerish ways and obsessions that Joe had, I feel like were written so seamlessly and so well-done that it was easy to forget that what Joe was doing was not normal, much as he never realized that either.
I applaud Kepnes’ for her ability to write from this perspective for so long whilst creating the book, I’m not sure I would’ve come out of it sane.
This novel had me turning pages, and wanting to know more the whole time, and although at some points I was a little disappointed because I was expecting more to come from certain situations, that didn’t really take away from my overall opinion. Also I feel kind-of bad that I didn’t seem to care too much about the deaths of certain characters because no one was very likeable at all, and they all had pretty bad lives anyway, oops. (I swear I don’t mean that in a psychotic way, haha).
The ending, the ending (and I’m talking the last 2 pages), just perfectly drove home the whole concept of the novel, and really just cemented the whole backstory and current story of Joe, you’ll know what I mean if you’ve read it! It also set up the second book perfectly, which I’m not sure if I’ll read, but still.
I found myself analysing a lot throughout this book thanks english class, uh but in this instance, I enjoyed analyzing it, because I was able to pick up on things that perhaps weren’t explicitly stated, and it allowed me to delve deeper into the mind of Joe (not that that’s such a good idea).
Although not perfect (but what is), You was a fantastic psychological/stalkerish/messed up book that’ll keep your brain ticking for weeks.
I really can’t think of much more to write other than I think you need to read this book for yourself in order to realize that you come out of it with not much to say but a lot to think about.
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