I LOVED the others in this series by Kepnes! I try to get everyone to read them, and this one is no different. I really enjoyed the writing style in this book. The twists and turns kept my attention throughout. I will definitely be checking out other books by this author and I would recommend this book to friends and family.

DNF and I probably knew this going in.

Recently I read Hidden Bodies by Caroline Kepnes in anticipation of her newest release, YOU LOVE ME. Unfortunately, I DNF'd Hidden Bodies. I could not get through it. Joe, the main character, is memorable. But I don't believe his character can carry the entire series. I also don't think the books POV can hold the entire series. It's just not enough.

These are supposed to be thrillers, but nothing thrilling is going on. Joe is a psycho at best. Sorry, psychos. But unlike in the first book, where I would have intentionally crossed the street to avoid coming in contact with someone like Joe, I felt like he was a miserable man that hated women but hated himself more. I felt bad for him. I did not fear him.

This will be the last attempt I make on a Caroline Kepnes novel unless she comes up with another new character. And I'm crossing my fingers that it would be a standalone>

Thanks to NetGalley and Random House for this advance copy!

I received a copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I was a huge fan of the book You, and I also really enjoyed Hidden Bodies. I waited years for book 3 to come out. I was so excited when I finally say it was coming. But this book really dragged for me. I rushed through it just to get through it. It was a struggle.

Joe has been my favorite bad guy since You, but I just found him annoying in this one. And everything was so predictable. I was reminded a lot of the first book.

I’m not sure I’ll read the next book if there is a next book.

5 stars. I am impressed with this one. There is an added layer to Joe's character that we've never seen before. It's horrifying and unsettling. While one may argue Joe is probably at his nicest and most docile compared to his other murder sprees, he presents a horrifying look into the worst kind of human being. Full review to come.

You Love Me is the third book in the You series by Caroline Kepnes. Joe Goldberg is back! He’s left the city and moved to a quiet island in the Pacific Northwest. He’s working at a library and has focused his attention on a new woman.

Joe continues to be an intriguing character. He’s met a new woman, Mary Kay, but she’s not exactly interested in Joe. No worries though, Joe has a plan to win Mary Kay over. Joe is a stalker and psychopath, and it’s interesting to read along as his plan unfolds.

Although You Love Me is part of a series, it can be read as a standalone. I have read the first book, You, but haven’t read the second book, Hidden Bodies. I’ve enjoyed the two books I have read, and plan on reading Hidden Bodies soon.

You Love Me is a gripping and twisted story. I liked that the story was from Joe’s viewpoint. Getting into his mind made for a disturbing yet intriguing read.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Witty, funny and wickedly dark narrative made for a quick fun read. Joe is charming and oh so stalkerish even if he doesn’t agree. You Love Me is yet another hit that I’d be interested in knowing if it’ll also be adapted to the series on Netflix. Enjoyed it.

Thank you NetGalley for this arc

Joe is back and still has psychopathic ways. He is looking for love. There are many twists and turns that will have you gasping until the final page.
Many thanks to Random House Publishing and to NetGalley for providing me with a galley in exchange for my honest opinion.

I received a galley copy of Caroline Kepnes’ You Love Me. I’ve read the previous two books in the series as well as another book by Kepnes. This book took quite a few twists and turns. Without giving any spoilers, you’ll have to be willing to suspend disbelief while reading this book, but it’s a solid story with a good mix of suspense and humor.

It’s an easy and enjoyable read that I’d recommend to any fiction readers.

I'll be honest I watched the series before I started reading this book and I didn't read the first two books before reading this third one in the series. I felt like I would get the sense of the characters and plot book-wise because the show had already given me a foundation to work with. The book was admittedly more plotty than the show obviously. While the show has many episodes, there's only so much you can cover in 45-mins episodes. The story is from Joe and how he views women and the world around him. The show itself can be hard to watch for some people because it's not a romance story, it's actually a quite terrifying thriller that deals with stalking and misogyny and death and possession. I liked the show enough to want to read this book but I could not get through it as it was very monologue-y and dealth hard with obsession and self-centric thoughts of a psychopath. I should have known what I was getting into and it's completely on me that I couldn't get through it. I'm sure the book itself is good and I would've loved to have read this one, but it wasn't for me and I know people enjoyed it and the other two books in the series because it was converted into a tv show that has been rather successful. The show is framed in such a way that it doesn't seem heavy with the monologue even though it's still filmed from joe's perspective and everything that happens is still dark and psychopathic and insane. The book just takes it a lot slower and the build up is more intense that way which is why I couldn't get into it and couldn't enjoy it for very long.

<i>*Thank you to the publishers; Random House Publishing Group, the author; Caroline Kepnes, and Netgalley for my free copy of this book in exchange of an honest review!</i>

The end of Hidden Bodies left us with Joe sitting in jail, accused of murdering Peaches and Beck after a tip from Dr. Nicky, but bragging to readers that the cops will never nail him.

You Love Me picks up with Joe in Bainbridge, Washington. What?! What happened with Love, Joe’s unborn baby, and the white-picket-fence life he had planned with them both? Well, that’s something you’ll discover bit by bit in the newest novel by Caroline Kepnes.

In classic Joe style, he immediately falls for Mary Kay DiMarco, his (sort of) new boss and the branch manager of the Bainbridge Public Library. But Joe is determined to stay on the straight and narrow this time, stay out of the American Injustice System, and he swears he’s done with his conniving, stalking, creepy, murderous ways.

Naturally problems find Joe (according to Joe, anyway). Will Joe finally be able to find - and sustain - love with a new target? (whoops, I mean love interest.) Can he really make a change and redeem himself?

One of the best things about the You series is how it takes a story about a very damaged, creepy, horrifying serial killer, gets into his head, and flips everything you feel upside down. In his world, Joe Goldberg is a downtrodden survivor who has barely managed to make it, thanks to the various women in his life and the American Injustice System. (His word, not mine.) Obviously if Joe was a real person, it would be safest for women to stay away from him, but in his world, he’s not the problem, and that’s what makes the series so compelling.

However, if you feel that you’ve already lived this one too many times with Joe, and you aren’t interested in the side story of what happened with Love, you may not find this the engaging read I did. I liked it because it quenched my thirst for more Joe and his perverted world view of believing he’s the Good Guy. There’s also plenty of commentary, as always, of other relationships, which are surprisingly accurate given that Joe can’t tell when a woman is trying to get the hell away from him. How Caroline Kepnes writes this character, I’ll never know, but I’m so glad she did.

Also, I felt the descriptions of Bainbridge and Washington as a whole were accurate. It almost made me miss that rainy state.

Thanks to NetGalley and Random House New York for the free ARC in exchange for a fair and honest review.

I would read anything Caroline Kepnes writes! I've loved all the books in the YOU series with 1 & 3 being top two favorites. No one else has the ability to make me commiserate with a psychopath quite like her. This book took a little different turn than the first two and you can really feel Joe wrestling with wanting to be a good person and wanting a normal life but in typical Joe fashion, the train always derails. 5 stars and I would recommend to anyone who lives thrillers.

It’s pretty clear that this book was written in response to the popularity of the Netflix series. The beginning reused elements of the first book, the middle was actually decent, and the end was just WEIRD. How no one on this island questioned a bunch of a dead bodies is beyond me. Skip it.

I thought I'd be getting tired of Joe by now, but I'm not.
Although this third in the series has a couple of "kinda convenient" plot twists that are almost a bit too much, it's still a solid psychological thriller in keeping with the first two books.
Joe is one of my favorite psychopaths in fiction, but in this book, he's definitely not the only psychopath in the mix. Can't say more for fear of spoilers, but trust me--the crazies have multiplied since the first two books.
The style was a bit distracting at first, with the emphasis on "You said" or "You thought" and the reader not knowing who the hell "You" was, but after the first chapter, it began to flow elegantly and was key to enjoyment of the novel.
Great book. I'm not sure you'd "get it" if you didn't have the first two under your belt (and honestly, I liked the first two books better than this one) but you owe it to yourself to jump into it--especially if you've read the first two. And if not, start with #1 because it's phenomenal.

You Love Me by Caroline Kepnes is the continuation of a story I'm not certain needs to continue. It is slow, slow, slow. One good thing is that Ms. Kepnes changes things up this time by having Joe try to be a productive member of society without caving to his baser urges. Ironically, bad things still happen around him. While he remains a fairly unreliable narrator, his problems center on the blindspots he puts up and his complete underestimation of his acquaintances. While I liked this new Joe to some extent, I do think this new Joe is boring. Plus, I am not a fan of how this part of his story ends.

Caroline Kepnes is back with the third installment featuring everyone’s favorite psychopath: Joe Goldberg.
Joe has given up on Love, and moves to a small PNW town with a super low crime rate (because safety first, am I right?) and is determined to love his best, quiet, good guy life.

Volunteering and then working at the local library is peachy keen because Joe obviously knows his way around a book.

Enter You. Mary Kay. One more trip on this tilt-a-whirl/fun house mirror of love is what readers can expect, adore, and realize they need to make another appointment with their therapist after reading You Love Me.

You Love Me didn't quite do what You and Hidden Bodies did for me but I can't quit Joe. I'll pick up anything Kepnes has to offer.

I loved the first book in this series, I really enjoyed the second, and this third - wow. Full disclosure - I didn't love it quite as much as the other two but I did enjoy it, I had looked forward to reading this title and must give credit - Caroline Kepnes certainly delivered on Joe, and how.

In this third installment, Joe can be found on Bainbridge Island, away from the ghosts of his life in New York, and away from those in California. He finds his next object of affection, Mary Kay, working at a library, begins to work there himself after obtaining his position in typical Joe fashion and slowly begins to insinuate himself into her life. Mary Kay's life is full of people who are roadblocks to the happiness that he just knows they'll have together and again, in his way, he sets out to mitigate those roadblocks, however necessary.

I received an eARC from Random House Publishing Group through NetGalley in exchange for my review. All opinions shared are mine and are influenced by nothing other than my own reading experience.

I don't even know what to say. The first book in this series was great, and two was a definite step down (I gave it 1 star), and now book #3 was tedious to the point of boredom (but this is still better than the last book IMHO).

At this point I agree with another character that told Joe that he went soft, he did. And it's boring to read about it for 400 pages. And it also didn't help that Kepnes was just writing things in order to get Joe out of trouble at this point. I mean everything that happens, totally not his fault. I am also going to say that the woman that Joe becomes obsessed with in "You Love Me", Mary Kay is not someone that even makes sense based on what has attracted Joe to the women he's stalked/loved/killed before. Probably the only thing I can say that was amusing at this book is the backhanded way that Kepnes throws shade at Debbie Macomber's "Cedar Cove" series. As someone who used to love that series and got tired of it, there's definitely something there at the surface level that would appeal to Joe's ridiculous self.

"You Love Me" follows Joe after he gets released from prison. Yep, our boy Joe, still getting out of trouble. However, now Joe is alone and single and is going to move to Washington state (and by the way I laughed about the fact that of course Joe, who is a serial killer, would move to Washington state, which for a while there seemed to be prime lure for real life serial killers) and specifically live on Bainbridge Island. After being in prison and reading the Cedar Cove series (look, don't ask me, I didn't write this) Joe is focused on starting again. Joe is angry though. He lost his son Forty (that name) and Love and her family won't let Joe see him. But when Joe starts working as a volunteer at a library, he meets Mary Kay DiMarco and realizes that she's the next woman he's in love with. And of course we follow Joe as he gets close to Mary Kay, her daughter, and starts to push himself onto her friends. Things though in this one quickly get out of hand.

So Joe was tiresome in this one. I think one character said it best about him, he likes looking at people from afar but really doesn't like them up close. And we readers know that best at this point. Joe got real tired of Love in the last book and you just wait for him to get tired of Mary Kay too. Especially because she's hiding a lot of secrets of her own.

The other characters are just meh to me besides the character of Oscar. That character was inexplicably hilarious to me. But Mary Kay needed therapy. Her supposed best friends were terrible. And her daughter also was a non-entity until she wasn't. I just didn't get why Joe felt the pull to be with someone like her, especially because she was older and Joe didn't seem like the type to revert to a different type of women all of a sudden.

The dialogue was okay, but being in Joe's head was exhausting at this point. He's also making up new words to refer to people and things and even sexual acts and I wanted to scream.

The flow was so slow. Nothing really gets moving in this one and it just fits and starts. Somehow we even get a cult and a #metoo plotline going on in here and I just felt like this book had way too many ideas and they really didn't work.

The ending was just a cop-out of epic proportions I thought. And it seems to be setting things up for another book and Joe is never going to end it seems.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the early copy of this one.

I started this and got 20% in and just was not enjoying the story and didn’t care. Was not feeling reading about some creepy guy.

Thanks to NetGalley and Random House for an egalley in exchange for an honest review.

In the third book in the You trilogy, everyone's favourite obsessive stalker/serial killer, Joe Goldberg has returned. Now working at a library on a cozy little island Joe's latest obsession is co-worker, Mary Kay DiMarco. Oh and how he manages to weasel his way into her life.

So much happens in this book, plenty of plot twists and it once again proves my theory that Joe isn't the craziest character Caroline Kepnes has created. But #hiddenbodies which was book #2 is still my all-time favourite.

Publication Date 06/04/21
Goodreads review 03/07/21
#YouLoveMe #NetGalley
#erinrossreads2021 #readersofinstagram #goodreads #teachersandbooks #netgalley #unrealiablenarrator