Wow. This. Book.

This is an awkward one to recommend to my close friends and colleagues. Not that I’m particularly prudish or haven’t read “Fifty Shades of Grey” (I have), but because not only is the content of “You” extremely explicit at times, the narrative perspective is also so uniquely dark, that there’s this moment of full-on anxiety when someone I’ve recommended it to starts listening (what will they think of me!?!?). But, while this book REALLY ISN’T for all audiences (and certainly not children), I’ve yet to have a friend not agree with me that there’s something totally brilliant happening here.

So, all disclaimers aside, here’s the deal. I have been an Audible Editor for seven years. I listen in full to – on average – five books a month. I sample and browse countless audiobooks all day long for work. This is the BEST narration I have ever heard, bar none. Caroline Kepnes has created a narrative voice that is intriguing, full of snark, complex, uniquely dark, and incredibly intelligent (all great literary things!), but still pretty hard to get on board with. How do you root for a stalker? How do you start to care for someone who, despite his protestations in chapter two, is a complete and total f**k-up? Well, Santino Fontana’s narration gets you there. He brings this character to life – and I don’t mean that in the way all good narration brings a character to life. I mean that Fontana resurrects an impossibly irredeemable soul and makes you love him. This book is frightening, gritty, edge-of-your-seat stuff that is so much fun to listen to, and it stays with you long after you finish listening to it. It’s the perfect summer listen – don’t miss it. And don’t judge me – or yourself - for loving it!

546 people found this helpful

Really terrible book.

I hope my review saves someone else from suffering through this book. I honestly think this is one of the worst books I’ve read in my lifetime. I only gave it one star (and that is a generous score) really awarded to the narrator - he did a good job reading the book. Terrible plot. Completely sick and unrealistic. Lacks any sophistication. Save yourselves time and read something else (and hopefully better).

16 people found this helpful

👁 Him 👀🧠

This startlingly original book is by no means for everyone, but you'll have the best chance of appreciating it if you go into the experience knowing that the author's goal is to draw you into the mind of a literate bookselling serial killer (who does not EVER think of or refer to himself that way) so completely that you will sympathize with and root for him to a great extent. "You" does for a sociopath loner what Mario Puzo and Francis Ford Coppola did for the Mafia in "The Godfather"; the author draws you in so completely to his hopes, dreams, fears, sights, smells, sensations (and yes, even and especially his erotic sensations--this is NOT for readers squeamish about graphic sexual language and depictions of sexually explicit scenes) that to a large extent you almost BECOME him, tasting what he tastes, craving what he craves, sweating when he sweats, rejoicing when he is victorious, and agonizing over his defeats. The sum total of this experience is confusing; you'll wonder many times how you ended up thinking of the KILLER as the HERO! And also, like Audible editor/reviewer Emily, whenever you recommend it to someone, you'll be initially filled with anxiety ("What will they think of me?!?!"). A special shout-out to narrator Santino Fontana, who delivers the BEST narration I've heard in over 150 or so audiobooks. This is not just a narration, it's a non-stop, tour de force performance so good it's as if he rehearsed it in its entirety for years. Production values are also flawless; there's not a single detectable stop, start, edit, or extraneous sound in the entirety of this recording. It sounds as if Fontana IS "him," and is just narrating his experiences in one long take. Special note to normally trustworthy and sensible reviewer Charles, who said he doubted that Stephen King (who's frequently mentioned in this book that is surprisingly very much about books) would even like the book: King, in his quote on the dust jacket of the print version, calls this novel "Hypnotic and Scary...totally original." I couldn't agree more. Enjoy...if you dare.

83 people found this helpful

Millennial-era, anti-feminist smut

1 of 5, no exaggeration, and no "you'll dislike it or LOVE!!! it" BS, this book is vapid. It's entertaining sure, but ONLY because it 'explores' the mind of a crazy person (AND, does so, from and laughably bias feminine perspective), at the end of the day its all about sex, deception, and the line in between. And for every person that I've personally offended with this review so far, YOU'RE the problem. My issue is with the writing NOT YOU. There's nothing wrong with liking smut, it's literally designed to be entertaining BUT that in no way makes it objectively ANYTHING, and to pretend that this book has any REAL development (character, story, etc.) is a bold claim that I encourage any taker to defend. If you think I'm wrong then I have a challenge, ... "put up or shut up", I argue that this book makes little sense as-is, BUT pretend that every character is female and it all makes sense. This stems from the writers failure to adopt a realistic male perspective and before anyone starts shouting anything about sexism, I invite you to try the same thing that I did, take lines from this book , remove the gender pronouns and and ask a 50:50 split of people from all walks of life to guess at the gender of the individual making the claim. If you honestly come back with anything approaching a 50:50 split, you have my sincere apology. That said... "self deception is the most dangerous type... do you FEEL honest???". and for those willing-but-lazy individuals, try this, get a hold of a text copy of the text and run a search on the words 'inside', 'eat' and 'blow' and see if you think this book has a reasonable take on the male perspective. ALL that said, I read this book hoping that some stupid director screwed up the authors work, well... the book is better the the show in the same way the 4 of 10 is better than 1 of 10. ... in short temper your expectations and know that you'll probably wanna read this alone.

9 people found this helpful

I want Santino Fontana to narrate my life.

What did you love best about You?

This is the best audiobook I've ever listened to. It's hard for me to say that because there are some fantastic books out there. This one is now my favorite. I will listen to it again, and again.

What other book might you compare You to and why?

There is no other book like this one. Not that I have read, and I think the only thing close to it would be Misery by Stephen King.

Have you listened to any of Santino Fontana’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

I would listen to him narrate a phone book. Seriously, all he has to do is change up the billion accents he can mimic and I'd be entertained for days.

If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?

"Can't say no to Joe"

Any additional comments?

If you had trouble reading the second person point of view in print, this is the answer. You'll love it. Get this one. Seriously.

155 people found this helpful

Brilliantly Creepy

Reading "You" was like reading someone's twisted, sociopathic diary entries...which, ironically, is exactly what the anti-hero Joe does throughout the story. I couldn't stop listening as each chapter got darker, and yet still wanting to hear this "relationship" unfold. I often found myself sympathetic to Joe and hating the "victims" as the story progressed...not sure what that says about me! The narration from Santino Fontana (BTW, what a killer name) was stellar, and I'm definitely planning to pick up Kepnes' Hidden Bodies in 2016.

50 people found this helpful

Loved it

The "stalker" theme seems to be all around us lately and is, quite frankly, not my favorite. Would probably not have even considered this had it not been for a post on Facebook by a friend whose tastes on books I usually share (the fact that this is how I came upon this book is actually ironic). So glad I followed her advice! And so glad I listened to "You" rather than read it on paper. Mr. Fontana is PERFECT as the first person narrator--the stalker who becomes increasingly obsessed with his prey. And Ms. Kepnes keeps your interest throughout, with the lies and deceptions becoming more and more involved, preposterous...and believable. It will make you want to reset all your social media privacy settings. It will make you cringe. And it will make you laugh! Yes, there's a lot of humor here. (Considering the theme, it is actually a pretty light--if riveting--read). Well done! I can't wait for her next one.

105 people found this helpful

Deeply disturbing exceptionally well written

I can't find a single fault with this audiobook. In my twenties, I was a book snob. I read the classics and tried to like unredeemable characters (Wuthering Heights). Or heart wrenching melancholy (Anna Karenina). I read D.H. Lawrence, Somerset Maugham, Dostoyevsky, blah blah...you see where I'm going with this. That's why I could listen to this book and get the intelligent well-read bookstore clerk's fascination with the beautiful self-absorbed writer. I don't read deep books any more. I don't want to fall into a depression brought on by Mr. Tolstoy and his ilk. For the most part, I want a little escapism while I do the dishes or my grocery shopping. How this book was slipped into the romance section, I have no idea. I will never listen to this book again. I won't buy the sequel. I also won't return it This really is a well written book and I won't sully it because it's not what I was expecting. If you like reading a dark "romance" you'll love this book. It reminds me of The Collector by John Fowles. Another book that was very well written, but I could never read again.

20 people found this helpful

Cheap Ad Hoc End Oozes Over Otherwise Witty Story

What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you?

A better ending. Even a mediocre one, had it not been as cheap and artificial would have sufficed to leave the book standing. SUBTLE SPOILER ALERT It seems like the author didn't know where to take this fresh witty story she created and reached for a ready-made shocker ending so prevalent in cheap modern thrillers. Endings are hard in general and they're hard to get right. And maybe this particular story might have been particularly challenging. But the scale of the wreckage was too big, the motivation too “cringey,” that it spread its mess over the entire project and there was nothing for even sympathy to recover. Sure, dark endings seem less trite than happy ones...or they did, a decade ago before everyone started going for the twisted shockers.

Would you ever listen to anything by Caroline Kepnes again?

Had she ruined the book with an ending and left it at that I might have. A good chunk of the story really was engrossing, fresh and witty and simple and sophisticated. So even an ending thrown at the reader because the story seemed to have grown too big and proved too cumbersome for the author But I can't look passed what I see as a brazen and ugly set up for Book 2......through 10 Coming Near You...

What does Santino Fontana bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

A very appropriate quick nonchalant rhythm that flows naturally with the story. He doesn't skip a beat, even if the reader might have been tempted to, which not only matches the tone of the story so perfectly, it actually adds to it by speeding the reader along.

What reaction did this book spark in you? Anger, sadness, disappointment?

The book starts out as a rather clever and original psycho-romantic thriller that's funny, fresh and just a really interesting easy read/listen. The plot is seemingly simple and lighthearted - quests for young love and hot sex, twentysomethings in the big city, college, books and bookstores, struggling writers, IKEA and Swedish meatballs, delicatessen cupcakes and skirts with long slits, big money and no money. A stylish and simple concrete frame. But these lighthearted and somewhat cliche elements are all caught in the hero's rather clever web of insights...and deep dark twists. Shiny clean metal pieces added in for a rather interesting mixed art piece. But the dark twists are quick, and almost funny, and there because they need to be - it's who the hero is and what the book is seemingly about. The metal pieces are just still simple and “less enough” to be “more.”

And then it all just falls apart in the last few pages and flops over the nice pan, ruining it completely.

Here is what I mean:

--SERIOUS SPOILER ALERT START--
The murder in the “grand finale” was proceeded by a few pretty gruesome ones so it wasn’t that the murder hit us out of nowhere. Nor was it the setting – the crazy cage had been set up, if not too predictably, at least early enough, so that wasn’t the cause of the rot either.
--SERIOUS SPOILER ALERT END--


Instead, the flop came from the drastic change in pressure. Licking her lips, the author decided to throw in some cheap and artificial events into her hitherto elegantly simple mix, and then shake everything up, in hopes of a good boom. But cheap is cheap and more is less and the cake deflated and our resulting emotional folds were left hanging awkwardly, leaving us feeling ashamed and uncomfortable.


--SERIOUS SPOILER ALERT START--
Prior to You’s death, we were able to take the cue from the light no histrionics tone of the book and the protagonist-murderer and move from murder to murder, if not with a chuckle then at least without too long a pause, the way the book seemed to intend for us to do. The deaths weren't really ones we could mourn, so it didn’t equip us nor did it need to, with ways of doing so.


The murder of "You" and the overly dramatic and shockingly predictable circumstances of it hit differently. In some ways I was left feeling speckles of deep sadness for the unfortunate heroine, whom, unlike the other victims, we had been made to know as well as Joe. Plus the author called her You - so Us, Me! So yeah, it's a bit hard for me to brush off my own death, as vapid as I may be. So asking us to go with it in the same manner as with Twitter Guy’s and Peach’s chainsaw massacres –as yet another creepy twist in a fun horror show - was a bit much.

On the other hand Beck was no Anna Karenina - even if she had been likable enough, which I didn't think she was, she didn't have that scale, that depth, and obviously wasn't meant to in this “uber” modern tale told with such sophisticated nonchalance which is why the speckles of “Anna-Karenina-tragedyness” seemed so off - invoking guilt and shame. This wasn’t meant to be f*cking Tolstoy and, encased in its simple concrete and metal frame, there was no room for this lump of dough to grow with psychological analysis. Nor did the author prepare a delicately subtle emotional membrane to pop. So instead, it, well, flopped.

All over that nice mixed-medium pan.

4 people found this helpful

Not even the rain has such small hands...

The narrator is amazing and he is the one of two things amazing about this book. The prose is well-written and melodic. I absolutely loved how Caroline Kepnes used such ornate and beautiful prose. One of the most beautiful lines in the book is when Joe says, "Not even the rain has such small hands..." The book was so beautifully written and I appreciated Ms. Kepnes' writing style. Yet, I did not like this book.

We follow Joe through a descent from mad into more madness. The main character, you understand from the beginning, is not quite right. He describes his view of people and interactions. He justifies his treatment of others by painting them as awful, mean-spirited and shallow. His perspective, skewed as it was, only made me sicken for the people he is involved with. I was worried about them.

Even when told from his perspective, I could not find any feeling for him. From the beginning, I was hopeful, but even then, I never rooted for Joe. I just wondered why no one else he met was creeped out by Joe. When he admitted to having stolen a cell phone, I could not understand the reasoning of the main victim/heroine. One thing I can say is that everything about this book is intense. I am still disturbed by the happenings in the story. I just found myself feeling the emptiness that I felt before after watching Jake Gyllenhaal in Nightcrawler.

I was not involved with the character--I was involved by with the people in contact with Joe. I wondered if he was supposed to be some kind of anti-hero, but he had no redeeming qualities.

Despite not liking this book, I have to let people know that Ms. Kepnes is a brilliant writer. I just did not like this book.

123 people found this helpful