You, the debut novel by Caroline Kepnes, is a disturbing and engrossing piece of fiction. It's a study of obsession, lust, and murderous rage in the modern age of social media. In it, a man stalks and woos a woman he met in a bookstore. He obtains her name from her credit card, and in no time he knows everything he needs to know about her. He wastes no time in launching his campaign to own her. Well, what did she expect?
Wait. Before the PC Posse breaks out the tar and feathers and comes for me, please allow me to elaborate. I'm not claiming that the woman "deserved what she got". What I am saying is, everyone--man or woman, old or young--takes a chance of getting unwelcome attention when they put their entire lives on display on the social media platforms.
You is written in an uncomfortably intimate second-person narrative from the perspective of the stalker. The entire novel is a long-running imaginary conversation with the "You" in question, which happens to be the woman he has fixated upon. He will do anything to possess her, and woe betide the friends, competitors, or anyone else who gets in the way of his quest.
The really distressing thing about You is how the book is so initially repugnant, but also how the reader begins to relate to the narrator. We kind of want him to succeed. Reading this white-knuckle novel is kind of like a literary Stockholm Syndrome.
You is also a satire of the hipster age we live in. It mercilessly skewers the hipper-than-thou people we so love to hate. Those who name-drop "cool" artists, filmmakers, authors, when they all-too-often are woefully ignorant of the subjects. Lazy fauz intellectuals who are too aloof to feel genuine passion about anything. The kind of people who express their emotions and feelings through hashtags.
You is always gripping, occasionally hilarious, ghastly, and even a little bit touching. In a sickening sort of way. It's easily one of the best books I have read in 2015. I'm counting the days until the sequel, entitled Hidden Bodies, is published.
Wait. Before the PC Posse breaks out the tar and feathers and comes for me, please allow me to elaborate. I'm not claiming that the woman "deserved what she got". What I am saying is, everyone--man or woman, old or young--takes a chance of getting unwelcome attention when they put their entire lives on display on the social media platforms.
You is written in an uncomfortably intimate second-person narrative from the perspective of the stalker. The entire novel is a long-running imaginary conversation with the "You" in question, which happens to be the woman he has fixated upon. He will do anything to possess her, and woe betide the friends, competitors, or anyone else who gets in the way of his quest.
The really distressing thing about You is how the book is so initially repugnant, but also how the reader begins to relate to the narrator. We kind of want him to succeed. Reading this white-knuckle novel is kind of like a literary Stockholm Syndrome.
You is also a satire of the hipster age we live in. It mercilessly skewers the hipper-than-thou people we so love to hate. Those who name-drop "cool" artists, filmmakers, authors, when they all-too-often are woefully ignorant of the subjects. Lazy fauz intellectuals who are too aloof to feel genuine passion about anything. The kind of people who express their emotions and feelings through hashtags.
You is always gripping, occasionally hilarious, ghastly, and even a little bit touching. In a sickening sort of way. It's easily one of the best books I have read in 2015. I'm counting the days until the sequel, entitled Hidden Bodies, is published.
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