“There’s something deeply insidious about the storytelling of Caroline Kepnes. As satire of a self-absorbed society, Kepnes hits the mark, cuts deep, and twists the knife.” –Entertainment Weekly “Obsessed.” –Jessica Knoll, New York Times bestselling author of Luckiest Girl Alive “Delicious and insane…The plot may be twisty and scintillating, but its Kepnes’ wit and style that keep you coming … scintillating, but its Kepnes’ wit and style that keep you coming back.” –Lena Dunham
“Hypnotic and scary.” –Stephen King
In the compulsively readable follow-up to her widely acclaimed debut novel, You, Caroline Kepnes weaves a tale that Booklist calls “the love child of Holden Caulfield and Patrick Bateman.”
Joe Goldberg is no stranger to hiding bodies. In the past ten years, this thirty-something has buried four of them, collateral damage in his quest for love. Now he’s heading west to Los Angeles, the city of second chances, determined to put his past behind him.
In Hollywood, Joe blends in effortlessly with the other young upstarts. He eats guac, works in a bookstore, and flirts with a journalist neighbor. But while others seem fixated on their own reflections, Joe can’t stop looking over his shoulder. The problem with hidden bodies is that they don’t always stay that way. They re-emerge, like dark thoughts, multiplying and threatening to destroy what Joe wants most: true love. And when he finds it in a darkened room in Soho House, he’s more desperate than ever to keep his secrets buried. He doesn’t want to hurt his new girlfriend–he wants to be with her forever. But if she ever finds out what he’s done, he may not have a choice…more
Another standout from Caroline Kepnes. Like “You,” it was full of rich detail and great storytelling. While “You” seemed to be more of a stand-alone novel, “Hidden Bodies” has the kind of ending that makes you want more. I hope Kepnes is planning to revive the Joe character because i’ll keep reading! A great summer read that stays with you.
This series is SO good. LOVED this book. There are so many quotable lines. Also, more Joe books are coming! I need to watch the Netflix series now.
This is the second book to “You” and I loved every single chapter. The storyline is so unpredictable, I just couldn’t stop reading it. The characters are so realistic, you find a way to connect with each one which is something that really pulls you in. Although I loved the first book, the second one filled in a lot of the blanks and the constant twist chapter after chapter left me wanting more. I look forward to the next great read by Caroline Kepnes!
This was so much better than book 1. I enjoyed the characters, they were off beat, needy and greedy smart and vulnerable without being TSLT. I believed, I could see these events happening, I may not have liked the characters mostly but I believed their stories. It starts off right when book 1 ends, but the story moves to a different location, Los Angeles. Rich and fabulous meet up and coming, rules are different here, depending on who you know and your bank account. This was an E ticket ride up and down with steep curves at every turn. Oh that ending, let’s say I wanted more finality.
3 out of 5 stars to Hidden Bodies, the second book in a thriller and suspense series by Caroline Kepnes. Last month, my buddy Medhat suggested a read of You, the first novel in the series. It was such a fantastic book, probably in my top 2 of 2017 to date, that I had to continue reading the series. I’ve heard rumors there will be a third book, but I’ve yet to see it confirmed. I need to check on that! I am also completely excited as Lifetime is turning the books into a television series. I can’t wait… but until then, let’s get on with the review of this second book. While I enjoyed several parts of it, it doesn’t hold a candle to the first book and I’ll explain why below.
Plot, Characters & Setting
When we left off at the end of You, our protagonist/villain, Joe, completed his vicious cycle of crossing many lines and breaking tons of laws in NYC all in the name of love, also known to most people as stalking your prey. Yet he escaped without anyone knowing of his crimes and found himself falling in love with a new potential victim, Amy Adam. Joe begins trusting Amy, realizing she’s a much-improved version of his last girlfriend, Beck. Amy begins pushing him for a key to his bookstore, which we all know from reading the first book contains a few secrets Joe would prefer stay buried, like some bodies. He hides everything as much as he possibly can, caving in to his girlfriend in order to hold on to her. When he arrives for work a few days later, the place has been robbed and Amy is missing. Did she do it? Was she kidnapped as payback for his prior crimes? What does she know? You’ll find out… he finds a lead that shows she may be in Los Angeles. Joe quits his job and moves cross-country, where he meets an interesting cast of characters in his typical LA apartment. He negotiates/manipulates his way into working closely with a few Hollywood type agents and producers, finding himself falling in love with a new woman, coincidentally named Love.
Love is perfect for Joe. She adores him. And he soon forgets about Amy. All seems well for a short period of time. But he keeps worrying about the one piece of evidence of his former crimes back in Rhode Island… and it drives him nearly insane, especially when the case is re-opened. He knows he has to find a way to retrieve it without anyone seeing him in the victim’s house. Unfortunately, he’s distracted by Delilah, one of the women in his apartment complex who has the hots for him. And then there’s a cop who has taken a dislike to Joe, tailing him at different parts of the day while Joe is trying to tie up loose ends. But it’s when Love’s ex-boyfriend and her brother monopolize all of Love’s time, Joe goes off the rails. As he begins to unwind, adding more and more crimes to his list in order to cover up the past and protect himself from losing Love, Joe finds himself getting careless. It all comes crashing down in the last few chapters of the book, ending at a place where it’s very clear, a third book is necessary. Readers will not be OK with this ending, as it opens more holes than the one’s Joe’s already had to dig for each of his hidden bodies.
Approach & Style
Whereas in the first book, Joe talks to the readers almost as if they are Beck, it’s quite different in this second book. It’s still told in first person with the perspective only on Joe throughout the whole story; however, there’s no concept of “you” this time around. It works just as well, given the title is no longer “You,” which means alternative progression is an expected path.
I read a large-sized soft-cover book with ~430 pages. There are 56 chapters, so each one is less than 8 pages long on average. It took me 4 days over the course of a week, as I couldn’t read each day; in total, probably about 6 hours. Some sections are a bit slow-paced while others are ultimate page-turners where you probably skip every fifth word just to see more quickly what’s happening.
Strengths
Kepnes can certainly dream up extremely aggravating and realistic characters. Everyone she incorporates feels like someone I’ve met before, and at times, I wish I could be Joe and punish them for the things they say and do. But I’m a good guy and I don’t commit many crimes. I mean any crimes.
When she’s on point with a dramatic scene, the plot and action is amazing. A few scenes were just as good as the initial book, especially when Joe is dealing with Delilah and the cop. It’s almost like we never left the first book.
Love is a really multi-dimensional woman; she has moments of brilliance followed by sheer silliness. I want her to be with Joe, but sometimes, she seems too good for him.
The settings are crystal clear for the most part. I can always tell where we are and whether it’s gonna be a safe zone or all hands to the battle field.
Concerns
It was such a let-down from the first book. Joe became weak. I didn’t buy his drama. He seemed to cause problems for the sake of causing problems. He had the girl. But he let himself get caught up in other areas, ones that made him a true criminal and not a man in love. That’s where he becomes a bad stalker. In the first book, he loved the girl so much, you could see why he did the things he did. This time, I struggled connecting with his motivation. He became every other evil antagonist, rather than the guy you wanted to root for.
The ending gets closer to the original strength, but not all the way. I was pleasantly surprised when the last 100 or so pages took the story in quite a different and unexpected direction, but it wasn’t enough to turn the book around for me. If this were the only book I read, and I didn’t know much about the original plot, it wouldn’t have been a book I’d recommend to friends. And that’s sad because Joe is an amazing villain. I toyed with giving this less than 3 stars but I know that is mostly the disappointment in ruining a good character. It’s redeemable in a third book, so I will have faith things get better.
Final Thoughts
The story is still good. It’s got major problems with his constant quest for sex, which is just an overused plot component in this book. Pull that out. Take out the section where he turns into a whiny mess. And maybe give him a few more close calls, and we’re back in the game.
This is the follow up to “You” by the same author. Joe Goldberg is back and up to his same old ways but in a new setting. Joe moves out to LA and meets a new group of people. Slowly but surely, his past begins to catch up with him. Much like “You” I could not put this book down. It was dark, suspenseful and sometimes funny. I cannot wait for more Joe Goldberg books.
I don’t even know what to say.
I can’t explain to you how I came to root for an insane psycho killer, (Qu’es’tque ce?), but I did.
YOU AND HIDDEN BODIES are original books with twists, turns, hot sex, vicious murders and close calls. I’m pretty sure I had some type of mini-stroke in there somewhere.
Santino Fontana is an incredibly talented narrator who totally became Joe to me.
Where can I get in line for Caroline Kepnes’ next book?
Oh Joe. Joe. Joe. Joe. What a wonderful, twisted mind you have! You leave my soul feeling dark, just the way I like it. Your fascination with life leaves me with a twisted smirk on my face!
Welcome back to the world of Joe. If you have read his first book (and YOU better have), YOU, then you have a little incling of what I mean. But just a little. This continuation of the story of Joe is so much more and so much more twisted than the beginning. This one will have your inner sinister persona laughing and clapping.
Yes, you guessed it. More murder. More stalking. More danger. More of everything. I could not have enjoyed this story any more than I did. I read this MONTHS ago and have been itching for everyone else to read it. I needed a support group after this book. I needed daily meetings. Who is in for a Joe support group? You will need it after this book!
I want to dig around in Caroline’s head. What makes it tick? How does it create such wonderful, twisted plots? How does this messed up material materialize in her brain? Then getting the words to paper? Such a genius Caroline Kepnes is. Pure. Genius.
As I wove my way through Joe’s new journey, I couldn’t imagine where Caroline was going to take me. I sat there soaking up every word, shaking my pom-poms cheering Joe on. He is the perfect anti-hero hero. He is the best villian you will find. And you will be on his villianous side. I promise. As the story plays on, I am thinking happy ever after for Joe… Then the ending came…
The ending. (Insert a bunch of swear words here since I can’t type them. I mean I could, but Amazon won’t post my review if I do.) What can I say? Well, nothing really. I can’t tell you how this ends. I can tell you that I messaged Caroline right away begging and begging for information. Just so you know, she refused to give it to me. Denied. Yes, I was denied. Damn her.
Basically, what I am telling you is that this book is a MUST read. MUST. READ. If you haven’t read YOU yet, then do so. Then read this. Don’t read this until you have read YOU. I mean, technically you could read this without reading the first book. But if you did, you wouldn’t get the full effect that is Joe and you will be missing some key pieces to the story. Hidden Bodies will make more sense when read after YOU.
P.S. READ THIS BOOK!
Joe Goldberg will forever be one of my favorite fictional characters for his sarcasm and cynicism.
Hidden Bodies, book two of the You series, continues where the first book left off. Joe is happy finally with his girlfriend Amy. After the trouble with Beck, he’s glad to be moving forward with his life…until she decides to rob his bookstore and disappear. Flushed with anger and embarrassment, he moves out to Hollywood in pursuit of Amy, hoping to find her and add another to his ever-growing body count.
Out in Hollywood, he meets a variety of interesting characters. The most important of them, Love and Forty Quinn. He believes Love to be his soulmate but in order to have a future, he must first clear up his past.
While I loved every bit of this book, I found myself liking it slightly less than the first one. The reason for that was that it seemed as if he had TOO many close calls and got away unscathed without the police being called. I can see this happening once but it just became a regular occurrence throughout the second half of the book. The first time is when he breaks into a woman’s apartment thinking it’s where Amy lives and the girl lets him go (but not before asking him for his number). The other time that really bothered me was when one of the people he tried to kill (I won’t say the name as to avoid spoilers!) turns up alive, he doesn’t decide to call the police but rather blackmails Joe to do as he says.
That bit made me frown but I thought the ending of the story wrapped it up really well. However, I can see this potentially leading into a third book and I really hope that’s the truth because this is one addicting series.
Anybody read this? Looks interesting.
I didn’t like this as much as I did “You”. I also wasn’t as annoyed by the narration either since Joe was not talking to the reader as if they were Beck/Amy etc.
I don’t feel as if Kepnes writing is a satirical take on modern America, at times it just reads as if it is trying to be hip and NOW, which will just leave it dated in a few years time.
Joe is not really Joe to me in this second book. The author mellowed him out, attempted to show him as a person that grew, changed, almost as if she was trying to make him likable. “Normal” characters skewed by Joe’s perception were shown as annoying, clingy, as hipsters, fakers, posers. As if we were to feel bad for this guy…
Ms. Kepnes leaves book #2 open, just as she did with the first novel, leaving me with a feeling that if fans clamour for more, there will be a third book.
Joe still had some weird hang-ups but he just didn’t seem like the same guy. He barely obsessed over the girl, more so stuck on that mug, and other people. It felt hollow in a way, out of sync.
I didn’t hate this installment but it didn’t wow me the way the previous book had.
I have decided to completely rewrite my review for Hidden Bodies by Caroline Kepnes due to how poorly I wrote my first review. I’m sure no one felt this way but me, but here we are! I originally rated both this book and You 4/5 stars, but after not being able to get either of them out of my head, raised my rating to a 5 for both. Then I had to do rereads, especially considering I haven’t watched the show yet and wanted them fresh in my mind. Well this one definitely held up its end of the bargain and I am holding firm on my rating. Joe is the guy you love even though he is a complete psycho stalker, and there is just something about him that always holds my attention. In Hidden Bodies Joe heads to Los Angeles in pursuit of someone, only to find a new love interest along the way. Of course, he ultimately gets up to no good again, and all sorts of craziness ensues.
This second time around I decided to listen to the audiobook, and it is a COMPLETE game changer. Santino Fontana has narrated all 3 books that are currently out, and he kills it (no puns here!) every damn time. I almost wish they had cast him in the show as well since now I am so used to listening to him as Joe. A lot of readers weren’t a fan of the books after You, but I am a die-hard fan and I loved Hidden Bodies just as much as I loved You. I think it’s because I just can’t get enough of Joe and his crazy. I loved the new setting in LA and there were quite a few things happening as well as some murder. This was a page-turner that I couldn’t get enough of, and I listened to the audiobook in just 2 days. Highly recommend going with the audio and who knows, maybe you will love Joe more!
What can I say about Joe? ….He’s the same old psycho. The story felt a bit choppy. I thought we jumped from his obsession with another girl and then right into another. Overall I enjoyed the book. I’m glad Netflix went in a different path for the second season and I can’t wait to see whAt happens to Joe in YOU LOVE ME!
First things first…if you watched the TV show You, you may be disappointed reading this book. The characters, for the most part, are the same, but the storyline is very different. I really liked Love in the TV series, but not so much in the book. She reminded me of Peach from book 1 and I was surprised that Joe would fall for a girl like that. Love’s brother Forty is the same in both. He’s a goofy drug addict with dreams of making it big. He’s actually a fun character. Sometimes the worse make the story. Dr. Nicky returns and remember the cup of urine from book 1? Yep, it makes an appearance as well.
I did enjoy the book for the most part. It’s a good story that moves quickly and has you sitting on the edge of your seat during some parts. Joe kills multiple people throughout the book, as expected, and I find it interesting how he decides their fate. He truly has a twisted mind.
The book ends with a huge cliffhanger that isn’t in the TV series. I look forward to the next book in the series and will probably read it before I watch the next season of the series.
Love, love, love Caroline Kepnes’ writing. This is such an original series, with a central character that keeps you coming back for more. Addictive writing, and a classic case of watching the action with your eyes half closed. Joe is one of those characters who prove unforgettable.
A dark fun page turner
I was highly anticipating the arrival of HIDDEN BODIES by Caroline Kepnes, that I basically camped out by the front door until it was delivered.
I refused to watch Season 2 until I read the book first.
For those who don’t know about this book, you must read Caroline Kepnes’ first book in the series “YOU” before reading this one. It’s also on Netflix as Season 1 & 2.
I recommend this book and the series wholeheartedly!
Amazing book by one of the best authors out there. That is all.
Almost as good as the first book.
Oh Joe.
I loved this story just as much as the first. Kepnes’ talent knows no limits. Her insight into this dark mind is so twisted. I couldn’t stop reading…I had to know what was going to happen and Kepnes didn’t disappoint!