A suspenseful, sweet, and sad story with complex characters and rich heart, PROVIDENCE is a not so common dark fantasy that mixes romance with necessary separation, and the supernatural with the all too real.

Caroline is such an amazing writer - I can't say enough how she draws you in until you turn the last page. This is also such a big turn from her last two novels - You and Hidden Bodies. Silently hoping there's a sequel to this...

'He’s coming at me fast and it turns out I am not the kind of kid who springs into action when it’s time to fight. I freeze. I choke. Same way I do on the baseball field at reccess.'

This is certainly original, and very strange. Jon and Chloe are best friend living in New Hampshire, sweet on each other with a tender innocence. Safe to confide their passions and secrets in a shed it’s easy to see Jon is awkward. He’ll never be the cool guy, the athlete. He’s the sort of boy whose sweetness is his curse when it comes to other boys, his sensitivity making him a target. With his mind on Chloe, ready to tell her how much she means to him, hoping for more, his substitute teacher (Mr. Blair) kidnaps him. The teacher was obsessed with H.P. Lovecraft, and seemed to despise all the kids who only cared about fitting in. He felt differently about Jon, but being his ‘special student’ is not a lucky turn of fate. Mr. Blair will want Jon to be ‘a part of something’ that will make humanity better. He is the chosen one.

Chloe is reeling when it happens. She is the only person who might know where he could have gone. At times embarrassed by her love for him, she wonders if her moment of meanness involving another boy, Carrig, has caused Jon to run away. Even when he is missing, there is cruelty in the excitement surrounding the kids. Tidbits of his behavior is gossip, like finding out he slept with his hamster. It’s evident she is the only one who liked him, who knew everything and understood who he was. She starts to resent that no one really cares, beyond pretending for the sake the drama, and she wants them all to know Jon will not be forgotten! There is shame that she was torn between Carrig and Jon, attracted to them both for different reasons. But Jon is the person she is her most real self with.

Chloe comes apart, for a time, distancing herself from her ‘cool’ friends but being a misfit isn’t going to bring Jon back, and it’s evident he is not coming back. She had remained loyal, saving issues of the Telegraph that he so loved, drawing pictures of him each night but still… he isn’t home. Life has to go on, she returns to her friends, she tries to fit in. But Jon is still so much a part of her. Then we are with Jon, four years have passed. We know something terrible has been done to him, but what? It sounds like some sort of experiment. All he knows is he has been ‘out’ for a long time, a long induced sleep, a coma and now he has incredible power. But what? He is special, but why? Special in what way?

Through a phone call, Chloe finds out they found Jon. As soon as he returns, he wants to run to her, but everything is wrong, as it always has been for him. This power may be yet another thing that stands in the way of the love they have always felt for one another. It all gets even weirder, it’s a supernatural sort of power and the funny thing is, now that he is back he knows he has to leave again to protect Chloe from his special gift. Terrible things are happening to others, a detective takes up the mysterious case, the creepy deaths and is soon after Jon. Is he involved? This is where the story of Lo and Eggs comes in. Eggs gives a raw emotional insight about his son Chuckie, whose room he now uses as his personal office. We know Chuckie suffers from an ‘affliction’, be it autism or something else and can no longer live with them, is in a special home. He can’t connect to this son with a ‘mess in his head’, there is a story inside of the detective that makes him more of a person and not just your typical ‘good guy’ on the trail of Jon. I think a younger reader will vilify Eggs, how he has been reacting to his son, keeping his distance. As much as he feels Chuckie is damned by whatever disorder he was born with, anyone can see he suffers as much as Jon, in a way. He can’t get past his emotional chaos enough to be with his son. A more mature audience can understand the struggle, the loss of what he hoped would be and what is. Not to say you won’t feel disgust that he distances himself from Chuckie, but maybe the real ‘head mess’ is in his own mind. For me, it was this story I loved the most. The very end pulled at my heart, but that’s the mother in me. Jon and Eggs share, at least for a time, the same emotional storms, but in different ways. The difference is, Eggs emotional barrier is self-induced.

As a reader you can dissect what it means, this ‘power’ that is more a tragic curse put upon Jon by a man who seemed to want to punish the world for his own loneliness. Jon is no longer the wimpy oddball, he is a ‘hunk’, he is a man! But their love is still damned. It’s an interesting story, because Mr. Blair is obviously the sort that can’t stand those who want to ‘fit in’, but the fact is even when we don’t, against our own inclinations the best of us find ourselves struggling with the herd mentality. It is impossible to get through life and be true to yourself with every breath, even the strongest of personalities has at some point conformed to ‘fit’. Yes, even the strongest of you out there marching to your own drum, you will conform in some way, go against your own nature, be it with family or strangers. Fate, fate is such a crapshoot for all the characters, for all of us. Mr. Blair has made it impossible for Jon to even try. With his copy of The Dunwich Horror and his written ‘clues’ from Mr. Blair, it is all he has to understand what the man did to him and why. Did it make the world better? Did it safeguard Jon from the pain of human connection? We shall see…

Publication Date: June 19, 2018

Random House
Lenny

*Spoiler Alert* Some minor elements may be given away.

I love Caroline Kepnes writing style. Lean, efficient, clever, and descriptive. When I saw Providence on NetGalley, I requested it based on name recognition alone. The plot didn’t sound like something I would normally read, but it was Caroline Kepnes, and I so thoroughly enjoyed YOU that I decided to try it. I did not, in any way, expect Providence to be anything like her other books, which is good—writers should stretch their legs—and Providence isn’t like You and Hidden Bodies, but my feelings about it aren’t based on that.

The good: with Caroline Kepnes, and maybe even unique to her, there are never any secondary characters. This book has a big cast and she does a commendable job creating such three-dimensional individuals that one never has to wonder who is whom. In the beginning, I loved underdog Jon. Teased and picked on and unrequited love Jon. Jon with the hamster. The ending of the opening chapter hooked me, and I was sure that even though I’m not a Lovecraft fan or into sci-fi (which this kind of feels like), I’m still going to love this book. Chloe didn’t sit as well with me, because she played both sides—Jon vs. Carrig, the bully who makes Jon miserable—and I decided early on that I didn’t like her. That feeling stuck, and by the end of the book, the Jon/Chloe magic was gone, because I plain didn’t like her. Her art. Her pining. Her whininess. Her willingness to be this or that. I went to school in a different time, but girls like Chloe did not hang out with boys like Jon, ever, not and date the Carrigs of the world.

Then come “Eggs” and “Lo.” A fantastic couple, I loved their backstory with Chuckie; how Eggs was trying to solve the riddle of their boy’s illness while Lo was just the removed mom. I had really thought this could go somewhere positive, but it doesn’t, and by the end, Eggs and Lo turned from a couple I enjoyed reading about to something more like Chloe: people I didn’t want to read about anymore. But I said this is the good, right? The setups for both stories are solid, and Caroline’s writing style is always spot-on, but the plot…

The bad: For as well-written as the characters in Providence are, the plot suffers. It starts strong, but with zero explanation given for Jon’s new abilities by the end of the book, I’m left feeling unsatisfied.

Same goes for Eggs’ and Lo’s story, because while Eggs finally goes to see Chuckie, there’s a whole side trip where I blinked and Eggs went from a middle-aged guy on a mission to a Stage IV cancer survivor with a colostomy bag?!? I feel like this rubbed me more wrong than it should have, but after reading Zoje Stage’s Baby Teeth, I have zero patience left for feces and colostomy stories. There’s no reason Eggs needed to be sick and it felt like a forced and underdeveloped subplot that failed on a lot of levels. I also feel like I missed the Introduction to Colostomies article in some recent issue of Writer’s Digest.

Overall, I think the book tried to accomplish too much and missed the mark on most of it. There’s no closure with Jon, and he and Chloe will continue pining and whining in perpetuity. Eggs and Lo are only a semi-solid couple, and sorry to be judge-y here, but kind of crappy people and kind of crappy parents. Lo substitutes her students for her son, calling them “her kids,” and it was good that this was her coping mechanism in the beginning, but hers and Marko’s relationship took a weird tone, and why on earth would Marko and his then girlfriend bring Eggs a post-chemo-recovery casserole and screw in his house?!?

Lo becomes very “me me me,” like Chloe, and it’s as if she begrudges all the “work” she put in keeping Eggs alive, which happens off-screen and is totally ineffective. And Eggs, in a span of months goes from death’s door to returning to work after a hiatus that seemed incredibly short and overlooked. I think this, too, bugs me more than it should, but I’ve seen someone through cancer treatment and know the toll it takes. I worked for fifteen years in medicine, including in a radiation oncology practice. I can’t buy Eggs returning to work or having nearly as much energy to chase Jon with as he does, and carrying Chloe to his car at the end… I just can’t get behind this subplot and I don’t like it. It really hurt the book for me.

I hesitate to call it this, but the plot feels half-baked, confusingly busy with too many instances of unbelievable coincidences, like Eggs figuring out the pseudonym “Peter Feder” out of thin air because of Spiderman and Grownups 2. The pop culture references feel forced, and while I think Caroline did a great job sprinkling in Lovecraft trivia, there are a whole lot of things about the character’s hometown I just don’t get—inside information about I am Providence and grain alcohol and “packies” and “townies.” I have no clue and have decided I am not this book’s target market. Caroline Kepnes has a knack for writing obsessive love, and if one is looking to see a glimmer of YOU and Hidden Bodies (and yes, I did say not to compare but people will because of the author’s name attached to it), it is in the early stages of Jon and Chloe’s relationship, when the two are so desperate to be back in proximity to one another. There’s a great undertone of want in all the relationships in this book, but just too much happening across multiple time breaks, in several locations, with too many aliases, and just too much. I feel like this is easily four books smashed into one, and for that, I say three stars, because I like Caroline Kepnes writing too much to give it two.

Thank you to NetGalley, Caroline Kepnes, and the publisher for providing me with an Advance Reader Copy.

After reading Providence, I saw this tale similar to what Kepnes’ did with Joe in You and Hidden Bodies. Instead of one character with an obsession, we have three characters who can’t let it go.

Where You and Hidden Bodies focused on a monster, Providence tells the tale of a monster’s protégé. Kidnapped as a child by a creepy substitute teacher, Jon is returned years later a changed teen who has a strange power to heal himself (the good) but kill others when he is confronted (the bad). When he realizes his family and close friend, Chloe, are in danger from him, he runs to protect them from himself. His obsession is to find the teacher/mad scientist who experimented on him and find a cure to make him normal again. Chloe’s obsession is to find Jon and discover why he abandoned her. A budding artist, she draws his face compulsively, she waits for him to return, she looks for him everywhere.

A third character, the detective, Eggs, obsesses with the trail of young adults who die of sudden heart attacks, chasing the clues to find a pattern where his captain and cohorts find none. His relentless obsession eventually leads him to Jon, who he considers a serial killer but with no evidence how Jon kills.

Jon and Chloe are like star crossed lovers, they can never be together in the same room. Kepnes could have taken the easy way out and kept their relationship to texts and e-mails, but she doesn’t. She lets Chloe feel abandoned so that she searches for the love she lost in the wrong person, Jon’s childhood nemesis, which culminates in the story’s climax.

I would’ve liked more time with Blair, the monster who turned Jon. I would have wished for more explanation on his motives and what he did to Jon during his captivity. (I’d like to hear that Kepne is writing a prequel/sequel.) Otherwise, I found this book to be another suspenseful page-turner with good character development. Kepnes knows how to write and has turned me into a fan. Thanks to NetGalley for allowing me to read the ARC.

I have to admit I wasn't a fan of Kepnes's earlier works. Providence changed my mind about this author. I cared about Jon and Chloe from the first paragraph. The characters were so real. It was as if I was eavesdropping into their world. I was the voyeur who saw everything that they did and what they felt. It has romance and it has elements of science fiction and suspense. Kepnes kept me guessing and I was riveted. I will read her future books from now on. I am glad she wrote this. She got a new fan in me.

This book is definitely not my book. I could not finish, as I was very confused.

Providence was a book I was really looking forward to reading since I LOVED Caroline Kepnes's previous books. She has a way of writing characters that may not be good but you want to pull for them. And this was no exception. Our main character was no Joe Goldberg, but I found myself rooting for Jon Bronson because he was ultimately a good guy put in a bad place.
Chloe and Jon's story begins when they are young teenagers. Jon is a bit of a loner and Chloe is his one friend. She has other friends but her connection with Jon is very different yet strong from the very beginning. So when Jon goes missing, Chloe's whole world is turned upside down. She doesn't know who she is without him. This story turns into a tale of acceptance, love and obsession for Chloe.
Jon returns a very different person 4 years after his kidnapping. But Chloe's thoughts and obsession were never far from him this whole time. The person she became was because of his absence. With his return, they can now admit their feelings and make a step forward in their friendship that hopefully will turn into more. But with a thriller/mystery, life cannot be that simple. Jon finds out he can't be around people because of his kidnapper and it all stems from a HP Lovecraft novel. This is where a little science is brought into the plot.
Having not previously read Lovecraft, I didn't feel that I was missing a plot point. Sure, it would've helped with my understanding of what happened to Jon more, but Kepnes educated her readers enough to make you be able to follow the plot in a cohesive enough manner.
Now we fast forward another 6 years and our story takes us to Providence and NY. We have an added character that feels so needed to balance our story. Told in 3 POVs, we get the three elements of love, acceptance and obsession from 3 different perspectives. From Chloe, Jon and Eggs (who is an older cop ignoring life in front of him for his obsession of some mystery surrounding deaths).
I felt for Jon so much throughout the story. His pain and love was real and tangible. He wanted to be good and was innocent, but someone made him into someone he did not want to be. I wanted to find that person and strangle him and have him fix Jon. How could he do that to such a defenseless person that only wanted to love is childhood sweetheart? He wanted to only be accepted by her, loved by her. How could you not root for him?
Then we have Chloe. She was a character that I never fully connected with, but she also was someone I wanted to have a "happily ever after". She always held a part of Jon close to her for her own sanity and obsession. She held onto it like a life raft through everything, even when she gave up and looked for happiness elsewhere.
And then there is Eggs. He was not a perfect man and he never really knew how to be one. Life had handed him and his wife, Lo some hardships, but they both handled life in different ways and eventually life handed him answers that could help him be a better man for his family.
Overall, the story was cohesive and I think would appeal to someone that is interested in mysteries and that likes a bit of a twist. But if you are a Kepnes fan, don't expect the same story you got from Joe. Caroline Kepnes went way different than You and Hidden Bodies. She keeps you on your toes when it comes to the characters and the way you should feel about them. What is right and what is wrong? Sometimes science and love confuses our obsessions in life. Miss Kepnes familiarity of a part of America and with Lovecraft held this story together for me. Even with not having read HP Lovecraft, the underlining part of who Jon is stems from those stories. Love, Acceptance and Obsession. THAT is this story.

ARC provided by #netgalley for an honest review

ARC provided by publisher and NetGalley for free, but this does not influence my review.

I didn't hate this book, but I didn't love it either. I just don't think I am smart enough or experienced enough with H.P. Lovecraft to get all the references. I will say Caroline's character development pulls me in. She writes with such realism. I was rooting for Jon all throughout the book. Chloe, on the other hand, was flat, bland, and not very likable. The beginning of this book gripped me and had me turning pages, until midway I was scratching my head wondering what in the heck I was reading. By 90% it picked up and had me engaged.

Although there is a science fiction element to this novel, I would say it's more about people and how they deal with their different obsessions of other people. I wouldn't classify this book as a thriller. If weird was a category that is where I would place it.

2.5 Stars

For me, Providence was one of my most anticipated reads of 2018. There was so much pre-release buzz surrounding it and I've been dying to read something by this author, so I took the leap and dove into Providence. 

Jon and Chloe were the best of friends. They understood one another in ways that no one else seemed to get. They shared an intense connection. However, on the day that Jon is supposed to confess his true feelings for Chloe, he goes missing. I was so intrigued by this. I was dying to know more. I needed answers. I wanted to know what happened with Jon....4 years later, Jon finally returns home, but life has changed a lot in the time that he was away. He is convinced that if he can change himself; get better, he can finally have what he's always wanted with Chloe...In addition to Jon and Chloe's storyline, we also have the one of Detective Eggs. Eggs has been consumed by a string of deaths and will stop at nothing to solve the case. How can people who are healthy just have their hearts stop beating? Eggs is convinced that all of these murders are connected and will risk everything to find out the truth....

I'm going to be 100% honest with you. I wanted so much to love this book. I really did. But, it just didn't work for me. I was really intrigued by the story in the beginning. I wanted to know what happened to Jon and couldn't wait to see where the story would go once he returned. That intrigue lasted about 25-30% into the story. After that I just felt confused and lost. This book has a heavy H.P. Lovecraft presence and that was just totally lost on me. I've never read anything by Lovecraft, so all of those references were over my head. I Am Providence and The Dunwich Horror were seriously huge themes throughout the book and they just left me with a giant question mark over my head. Maybe if I had a better understanding of HP Lovecraft and those stories, this story might of clicked for me, but it just didn't. 

Providence is one of those books that you're either going to get or you're gonna be left in the dark, like I was. It's going to be a hit for some and a miss for others. From mystery and suspense to supernatural themes, this book certainly had a lot going on. I think this author is a very unique story-telling and has a great writing style. Even though this book was a total miss for me, I'm still glad that I gave it chance and checked it out.

I really enjoyed this book by Caroline Kepnes. I haven’t been able to get through her previous books, so I was leary to try again. But I’m so glad I did. Chloe and Jon’s story starts out when they are young teenagers, and Jon has no friends but Chloe. Then Job gets kidnapped. Four years go by and he’s released with a special power that he discovers can hurt the people he loves. To protect them he leaves, but definite drama ensues with his power. Will Job and Chloe find there way back together? Read the book to find out. I’m really hoping that this story continues in another book.

I absolutely loved this book even though I'm not a fan of the supernatural! I had no idea what to expect and as I adored both You and Hidden Bodies, my expectations were pretty high. The characters were so real and multi-faceted that you cannot help but love them. I also particularly like when a writer can give the perspective of another gender; Eggs was a wonderfully flawed and imperfect man which made me love him even more as we navigate the very difficult marriage he has to Lo. The love story of Jon and Chloe is just magical; and yes it was frustrating that Jon never just texted her about his "problem," but that just heightened the suspense. Having never read Lovecraft (now I plan to), I worried that I was missing something, but the story was complete and fulfilling and left me heartbroken and heartened at the same time! Now I will go and make myself some tea and let it steep for a full 15 minutes. Exactly!

The perfect book to bring on a 5 day cruise. I didn’t want to do anything but sit in the sun and read. I adored the 2 main characters and the plots originality. Although I was looking for they all lived happily ever after, that would have been unbelievable. What a great fresh novel with enough mystery to pull you in. Super fun read!

I couldn't finish this book. I was so disappointed--I loved Kepnes' two previous books so much. While I believe authors shouldn't have to write the same books over and over again, this one just didn't work for me.

Thank you for the chance to review this book! A full review will be posted closer to release day.

I love Caroline and couldn’t wait to get my hands on Providence! It was amazing and had me on the edge of my seat the entire time I was reading. I could not put it down! I can’t wait for everyone to check it out!

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing a free ebook copy of Providence By Caroline Kepnes in exchange for an honest review.

I really really wanted to like this book.
I loved You and Hidden Bodies, but I just couldn't quite get into this one.

I think the reason I liked the first 2 books so much is the brilliant writing and the characters.
This book felt forced, There was good character development, but it just kind of jumped around.
There was much so much struggle when Jon disappeared - and then we suddenly go 4 years forward.

It started off so strong, but about a quarter of the way through, it just kind of petered out and I lost interest.

It's almost like there were too many ideas for any to actually play through.

What even is this book? This book was my most anticipated book of the year, because You is one of my favorite books of all time. I read this books description and I thought it sounded so cool and I couldn't wait to read it and now I'm just like..... what??? This book was strange. Probably one of the strangest books I've ever read. This book was trying to be so many things at once and failing at all of them. This was part mystery, part romance, part supernatural, part detective story, part thriller?? It was absolutely nothing like You, which is fine, I like it when authors try something different but this was so different and strange to the point where it felt like a different author.

It follows this boy named Jon who is best friends with this girl named Chloe. Jon gets kidnapped by his substitute teacher Richard Blair randomly one day and goes missing for four years. Four years later he wakes up and has no memory of anything that happened in the last four years. He's horrified to discover he has this strange supernatural ability now that harms people he acres about. This description sounded really cool and it's what drew me in in the first place, but from the moment Jon comes back after four years - this book really drags.

It becomes this obnoxious love story about Jon just wanting to be with Chloe but he can't because he's afraid he'll hurt her. Chloe was such a bland character, and all of her chapters talk about how much she misses Jon, or she's trying to hunt him down, and she's waiting on his call - like she literally doesn't do anything but talk about Jon. We follows this detective named Eggs as he tries to track down "the bearded man" which is Jon literally the entire fucking book and I couldn't care less about his chapters and his problems in his marriage and I don't understand why he was even included in this story.

Overall, this book had so much potential to be great, I thought the premise sounded so cool but this story dropped the ball on pretty much everything. The ending is so cliche and cringe-y and just made the whole thing feel like a huge waste of time. The only reason this gets two stars instead of one is because I really do like Caroline Kepnes's writing style, and because this book kept me curious enough to finish it all in one sitting, which is a good thing for me because lately I've been DNF'ing anything I'm not liking, but this book kept me interested until the end, even though the ending wasn't very good unfortunately.

When Jon Bronson disappears on the way to school one day, he leaves his best friend Chloe wondering what happened to him. Four years later, he wakes up in a basement, jacked up and with no memory of the past four years, only a copy of The Dunwich Horror with some notes written inside. Will Jon and Chloe be able to pick up where they left off?

This was a Netgalley pick. Edward Lorn and some other trusted reviewers have sung the praises of Caroline Kepnes in the past so I decided to take a chance.

Overall, I liked my first Caroline Kepnes experience. The shifting viewpoints between Jon, Chloe, and Eggs held my interest and a main character that gives people heart attacks is a pretty interesting hook in a story of unrequited love.

The book is promoted as a thriller but it's really about relationships and intimacy. Eggs and his wife, Jon and Chloe, Chloe and Carrig, all very different relationships between very different characters. Also, fuck Carrig! Since I've read a few hundred detective novels, I had a soft spot for Eggs and his obsession with The Beard.

And here's the part that I hated: fully 80% of the book could have been avoided if Jon had just emailed Chloe and said "I give people heart attacks. That's why I'm being a douche nozzle." Considering Jon mostly communicates by text and email anyway, this makes a lot more sense than torturing himself for the better part of a decade.

And now we're back at the other piece of bread in this complement sandwich of a review. While their situation was outlandish, I think Kepnes did a great job with the various characters. I had no trouble believing in Eggs, Chloe, or Jon. They were all very fleshed out acted like real people would in the situation, aside from the lack of communication I mentioned earlier. The Lovecraft connection was also well done. I've read the Dunwich Horror a couple times but I think someone could infer what they need to and not feel lost.

And here we are at the end of the review. I enjoyed Providence but it wasn't a game changer or something I felt like neglecting my health and/or personal hygiene to read. 3.5 out of 5 stars.

Caroline Kepnes is one of my favorite authors. I didn't know what to expect after her Joe Goldberg books, but I wasn't disappointed after reading Providence. I love her characters!