Book Review
For You and Only You
Caroline Kepnes
reviewed by Lou Jacobs


readersremains.com | Goodreads


He’s back! Joe Goldberg – everyone’s favorite psycho serial killer – will not let any mortal stand in his way of romantic pursuits. Joe has spent time honing his literary skills and has penned a fictionalized account of his previous exploits, aptly called “Me.”

This book, the fifth in the series, can nicely stand alone, as can the previous novels. Kepnes flawlessly supplies any necessary backstory. The series was the inspiration for the much-heralded Netflix series, “You,” and veers from the content of its television counterpart.

Joe has garnered the attention of the critically acclaimed author, Glenn Shoddy, and has been invited to attend a creative writing fellowship at Harvard University. Instead of being surrounded by aspiring writers, he is confronted with a bevy of “real writers” – some have even published mystery or horror novels, plays, and others have completed promising first books. Then his attention is piqued by the beautiful Wonder Parish, who aspires to be a writer. Like Joe, she has no college degree and loves literature, and lives at home, caring for her wounded veteran dad, while managing a Dunkin’ Donuts shop. She is unfortunately very insecure about her position in the group. Naturally, Joe soon becomes obsessed with her and will let no one stand in the way of his burgeoning romance. Shoddy’s wife, aptly named Sly, is somewhat infatuated with Joe and lets it slip that Glenn is actually a fake – his critically acclaimed novel, “Scabies for Breakfast,” was actually written by her.

At the same time, she extols the virtues of both Joe and Wonder’s writing skills. During the writing seminar, Glenn casts aspersions on the worth of Wonder’s writing skills, which does not sit kindly with Joe. To complicate matters, a current and favorite podcast, “The Body on Bainbridge,” is bringing much unwanted attention to the writing seminar. It’s bringing increasing attention to Joe through the musings of mystery writer, Sara Beth. The similarities between Joe’s writings and the content of the podcast are not lost on Sara. Proactive steps will be taken by Sara to draw Joe into a web of secrets and confidence.

Bodies will drop as Kepnes weaves a delightful narrative, filled with satire and wit. As she skewers the publishing industry, we enter the inner twisted mind and musings of Joe Goldberg – often dark, satirical, but always amusing. This novel almost brings us full circle to the first book when Joe was embroiled in the courtship of aspiring writer, Guinevere Beck. The body count in this novel is somewhat less than in previous ones, but the creative maneuvers to remove threats are no less inspiring. Kepnes continues to utilize ingenious plot twists to culminate in an unexpected and thrilling denouement. It’s a true delight to watch the machinations of Joe as he removes all obstacles in his pursuit of the winsome Wonder Parish. This outing further defines the delusional aspirations of Joe and sheds light on his psychopathology. Not only is he a narcissist, but he probably has elements of personality and attachment disorder. Regardless, he is not your garden-variety sociopath or psychopath but indeed a most charming anti-hero and killer.

Thanks to NetGalley and Random House for providing an Uncorrected Proof in exchange for an honest review. I sincerely hope this is not the last venture into the bizarre mind and actions of Joe Goldberg.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group - Random House for providing me with an eARC of For You and Only You in exchange for my honest thoughts!

As a fan of You (both the Caroline Kepnes books and the Netflix series adaptation), I'm always up for following Joe Goldberg on his murderous and stalkery ventures. I gotta admit, though, that this fourth novel didn't entertain me as much as I'd hoped it would. Joe's internal dialogue is darkly amusing as always, but some segments felt draggy, particularly in the second act. The first and third acts were consistently engaging, though. As for aspiring writer Wonder, the newfound focus of Joe's "love," I kind of like her, but Beck, Love, and Mary Kay were all partners whom I found to be much more compelling. Honestly, I was more invested in the supporting roster of unlikable characters, particularly Sarah Beth.

Overall, I'll give For You and Only You an official rating of 3.25 out of 5 stars. I wish this could have been more satisfying, but I'll still keep devouring whatever books Kepnes publishes. Obviously, I'll also remain pumped for whatever wildness the show's fifth and final season can dish out.

So like most people reading this book, I have read all books in the series and watched the tv shows. The joe character is fascinating to me because he is so creepy. And he is on full display in this book from start to finish. While I felt the storyline was a bit confusing/forced, I still enjoyed Joe’s arc. I would love to see a little more heat on him because he just oozes murderer but I get that would take away from the story. If you are into these books you’ll enjoy this next chapter.

Thanks to NetGalley, Caroline Kepnes, and Random a house for providing me with an advanced reading copy.

I could not finish this book. I have watched the You shows and I realize the way he talks and uses the word "you" very often. I just couldn't read the text with the word "you " in it so much. I think an audiobook would have been better for me.

I’ve been a fan of Joe Goldberg since book one, and although he’s a crazy stalker serial killer, he’s also somewhat charming and hella funny. Not to mention that he seems to put himself in the craziest situations that offer a lot of dark humor. Now, Joe finds himself being the recipient of a writing fellowship at Harvard and instantly falls in love (as usual) with a fellow autodidact and fellowship classmate Wonder. Maybe I’m a little biased when it comes to this book being a writer myself, but I found so many things relatable to both the writing process and being in critique groups with other writers. I know non-writers may find some of the scenes boring, but I enjoyed the classroom scenes a lot. I’ll say that I was a little bummed at first thinking that Joe had turned over a new leaf and was giving up his murderous ways, however, he didn’t! Although, he didn’t kill as many people as he has in the past. I don’t know if I really liked his love interest Wonder that much, she was very family orientated, obsessed with her job at Dunkin’ Donuts, and didn’t seem to really care about her writing as much initially. And honestly, she never seemed that interested in Joe either. Then again, other than Love Quinn, I never felt like Joe’s love interests have really been that crazy about him. Having said that, I know the ending hinted at a certain type of ending, but I really hope that Joe decided to take a different approach and if there’s ever a sequel, I do hope to see a certain thriller writer in it! Sarah Beth was by far, the most interesting character in the whole bunch. My only gripe about the novel is that the True Crime podcast was only mentioned a few times and quickly forgotten so that plot wasn’t explored as much as I had hoped. This book didn’t have as many crazy plot twists as book three had, and at some point, the book did feel like it was dragging along for too long for no apparent reason. But I enjoy Joe, so I didn’t mind being in his head again for this adventure.

*Thank you so much to NetGalley and Random House for the digital copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

Joe Goldberg is back and still slippery as a fish. And oh yes he’s… narcissistic, manipulative, murderous, utterly unreliable, unlikeable to readers who know him, but he’s just so doggone entertaining. I guess at this point we can label Joe as a serial killer as well. Duh?

No longer a seller of books, he’s trying his hand at writing them, and is participating in a creative writing class? Doesn’t that take talent?
He has once again relocated, now to a writing fellowship at Harvard? Joe has written a novel, with the distinct title… Me!

Glenn Shoddy, leads the workshop and is the author of a critically acclaimed novel called Scabies for Breakfast. Joe soon realizes that most of the participants in the workshop are real writers. Ani is an Obie-winning playwright, Sarah Beth the author of a successful mystery series. Mats and Lou have both completed promising first books, and O.K. hasn’t finished writing a book yet, but her mother is an NPR star. Woo hoo!

Shoddy, cool teacher he is, comes to class in bike shorts and talks more about his rides than his writing. And of course, we have the lovely Wonder Parish, who’s just as insecure about being in the seminar as Joe is. She still lives with her blue collar family, caring for her wounded veteran dad and managing a Dunkin’ Donuts. Coolatta seeming the beverage of choice.

Joe is soon madly in love/infatuated with sweet Wonder. (I applaud Kepnes for her use of creative monikers.) Since no one can resist Joe, or almost no one, Wonder responds, but their affair doesn’t go smoothly.
And of course, Joe has other things to worry about.

One is a podcast that's the topic of lively discussion in the seminar: The Body on Bainbridge—a body Joe knows too much about. Don’t forget Joe has many unsolved murders associated with him. Perfect scenario for an unsolved reality crime show.
Another is Shoddy’s wife who is named Sly and has secrets of her own.
This Joe story, once again mostly taking place inside his own head and moves along quite painfully at the pace of thick molasses until the bodies start dropping. This causes Joe to wonder if he’s the only killer in class.

Will Joe’s antics catch up with him in this fourth installment?
After all he’s alluded detection in New York City, Los Angeles, the Pacific Northwest and now possibly Boston.
Reader, who are you pulling for?

This is the Joe Goldberg I needed! I really enjoyed this installment of the You series. It had that same feeling of the first book that I loved. It was interesting to see Joe trying to be better and evolve, but be challenged in all these different ways by different people every step he took. At the end of the day Joe will always be Joe, but dare I say he may be growing a little….TBD. The ending definitely left me wanting more of You!

PS. If you’re going to read this book make sure you have a nice Dunkin coffee and some donuts at the ready, maybe even a Coolatta, because everytime I picked up this book that’s all I wanted. I especially would love to have a DD at the ready IN MY HOUSE, a girl can dream.

thinking, what he's doing, why he's doing it. And in the end, Joe wants to love and be loved. And he'll cut a B to make that happen. He is what he is.

And, despite being evil and - well, a serial killer, he's likeable and I find myself rooting for him to find the love he so desperately needs. He knows what he does is wrong. But I think he believes doing it in the name of love excuses it.

This installment he's in a fellowship at Harvard. Yes, Harvard! He meets Wonder and is obsessed. They are on again, off again and we all know he's stalking her when they are off. The others in the fellowship, all authors or wanna be authors, are an interesting bunch and their interactions only added to this story!

As always, I was sucked in from the start and can't get enough of our boy Joe!

Many thanks to NetGalley and Random House for an ARC in exchange for my honest review!

Thank you to Random House Publishing Group - Random House, and NetGalley for an advanced ebook copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

#4!!! we do love our Joe. Can't say that about many serial killers but Joe makes everything so rational. So I was very excited to continue on with Joe's story and his "issues" with his relationships.
So, it saddens me to say I was a bit disappointed with this one. It was slow and dragged on. I did not like his love, Wonder at all. She annoyed the crap out of me and seemed so pathetic. Joe, you could do so much better! I gave it 3 stars because most of the bits and pieces that I enjoyed were still a part of the story. Joe planning and acting out his murders and reasoning as to why they were necessary. I did enjoy the group of writers and their different personalities, especially Sarah Swallows and her true crime mystery novels. The teaching couple were well done, though a bit flaky, (artists truly). And the twist in the mystery did surprise me. So overall my joy in another Joe outweighed the bit of boredom I endured.
Recommended for fans of Joe, serial killers, and a touch of mystery and suspense.

A slow burn novel about our favorite killer, Joe Goldberg. This was a little slow for me, nothing can compare to the first book of the series, but Joe always manages to pull me into his sick world.

For You and Only You by Caroline Kepnes

Joe Goldberg is ready for a change. Instead of selling books, he’s writing them. And he’s off to a good start. Glenn Shoddy, an acclaimed literary author, recognizes Joe’s genius and invites him to join a tight-knit writing fellowship at Harvard. Finally, Joe will be in a place where talent matters more than pedigree . . . where intellect is the great equalizer and anything is possible. Even happy endings. Or so he thinks until he meets his already-published, already-distinguished peers, who all seem to be cut from the same elitist cloth.

Thankfully, Wonder Parish enters the picture. They have so much in common. No college degrees, no pretensions, no stories from prep school or grad school. Just a love for literature. If only Wonder could commit herself to the writing life, they could be those rare literary soulmates who never fall prey to their demons. Wonder has a tendency to love, to covet, but Joe is a believer in the rule of fiction: If you want to write a book, you have to kill your darlings.

Out on April 25.

First things first - as long as Joe Goldberg is out doing his sketchy, murder antics, I’m probably going to keep reading. There is something addictive about being in Joe’s head (there’s a good reason the show is so popular!) I love how Kepnes captures his point-of-view in the way that sucks the reader into almost rooting for him … until you take a step back and remember he’s a psychopath. She has a knack for humanizing him that is creepy and astounding, and I genuinely enjoy being inside his brain which I hate.

That being said, this is my least favorite of the series so far. The problem is that she doesn’t let Joe be Joe. Sure, there’s some skulking around and the occasional murder, but it doesn’t ever rise to the action of the previous stories. It’s all just whining and pining. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I needed more stalking.

Also, while you know I love a book set in my favorite city, if I had to hear one more Good Will Hunting or Red Sox reference, I was going to scream. Dunkin’ Sally Rooney indeed. Blech.

Overall, my series rating goes: You, You Love Me, Hidden Bodies, and then this.

Thank you to Random House and Netgalley for this ARC in exchange for my honest opinion. For You and Only is out next week on 4/25!

2.5/5 stars

Joe Goldberg is back at it again. New town. New Girl. Same wild inner monologue.
It follows the typical pattern of the other three books in this series, but this "You" novel just didn't do it for me. I've always enjoyed the books because they felt so much different from the show. The book-Joe always seemed more sinister. Darker. Crazier.
Except in this book felt like the author was trying to morph her book-Joe into the show-Joe, and that really killed it for me.
The storyline was epically slow and the side characters we very unlikable to me. I really had to force myself to finish this one. I'm a Joe-fan for life though, so even though this one wasn't my favorite, I will definitely read everything and anything in this series.

Thank you NetGalley, Random House Publishing Group and Caroline Kepnes for this ARC. For You and Only You is set to release on April 25, 2023!

Initial Thoughts
I had a good time with this book! It is always nice to catch up with my favorite serial killer, Joe Goldberg. This time Joe has his eye on an aspiring author named Wonder after meeting her at a writing fellowship at Harvard. The whole group of writers is an interesting group and I never knew how Joe would handle the various challenges thrown his way. I loved that there were plenty of surprises worked into this installment. I listened to the audiobook and thought that the narrator did a fantastic job with the story.

Review copy provided by the publisher. Full review to be posted soon.

OMG! Joe Goldberg is at it again! I have seen all of the episodes of You on Netflix, but this is the first Caroline Kepnes book I've read. Phenomenal! It was a little hard to get into. The reader is literally inside Joe's head, and boy is that a trip! But the more you read the better you get at figuring out Joe's thoughts and actions and other characters. Joe is always trying to guess what everyone around him is thinking and that makes for some crazy text! I would highly recommend For You and Only You. Seasoned readers will love it and readers like me will vow to go back and read ALL the Joe books!

The first thing I have to admit is that it’s more difficult to read the You series now that I’ve watched the Netflix show. However, that doesn’t make the books less enjoyable! The newest installment takes Joe to Boston where he’s in a writing fellowship at Harvard. There, he meets his next obsession, as well as his other fellows who are an interesting group of people. As always, there are the close calls that keep you reading. I finished this one in two days and am always looking forward to more books about Joe!

I went into this book with very little memory of what happened in book #3, so parts of the story threw me off a little. Overall, the story was decent- Joe does what Joe always does, and obsessed over a woman as an excuse to not look at his own life and faults. However, the story flowed very slowly and picking up this book almost felt like a chore after the first 15% or so. I found some of Joe's commentary to be entertaining, but most of it just broke the immersiveness of the story instead of adding to it. It was almost like the author was trying to make Joe be Joe too hard, and that made Joe lose some of his most interesting quirks and characteristics. This book definitely wasn't my favorite book in the series.

I hate to say it, but this did not do it for me. Joe's rambling/inner dialogue made it hard to read. The first half of the book moved really slowly and did eventually pick up. Honestly, I think the show has me spoiled. The way Joe thinks is easy to follow when watching, but it didn't translate for me via text. I do like this author a lot and will definitely give more of her books a chance in the future.

For You and Only You is the newest thriller in Caroline Kepnes’ You series, about Joe Goldberg, that deeply twisted unreliable narrator, who just wants to find true love, even if that means a disturbingly high body count. He just has no choice but to murder anyone who interferes with his love life.

This is a thriller where the twists really make the book, so I’m just going to talk about the vibes, not about any actual plot events that could spoil it.

The reason these You novels work for me is that even while Joe is, you know, an unhinged serial killer, he makes relatable observations. Here, he’s in Cambridge on a Harvard writing fellowship, and his comments on MFA posturing and Boston namedropping are so real. SO REAL. There were some fiction blowhards in this book who could all die and it would be fine with me.

I knew the format was going to be Joe manipulating and murdering his way into his beloved’s life, and as usual, the tension comes from whether Joe’s coldhearted quick thinking will win, or if he’ll eventually get caught, perhaps with a tiny careless mistakes. By this point in the series, I was sort of wondering if anyone would notice the string of disappearances and mysterious deaths in Joe’s past. The book doesn’t disappoint, with more of angsty, murderous Joe killing his way to true love.

Still, overall I didn’t love this one because there are too many long speeches about writing and genius, and I was on Team Nobody. I would have been OK if Joe decided to off the entire cohort of writers and teachers, just to put an end to the monologuing on Fiction and Art and Creativity. I found myself skimming, which didn’t happen to me in the earlier books, and I was reading this eARC on a long train ride, so it’s not like I had anything distracting me. This skimming might just be me, because the sections on writing and creative power and process also gave me eyerolls in The Writing Retreat (and ALSO gave me eyerolls every time I was assigned a process book for my real MFA). So let me know how you feel when you read this one.

Thank you, NetGalley, for allowing me to read this advance copy.

I had a fantastic time reading this book. Caroline Kepnes, the Author of the well-known series "YOU," has never disappointed me. Being the 4th book in the series. She delivered. Joe is showing a different side of himself, and I love that little by little; we get to see that every season. Few chapters in made me LOL. I loved it. I can't describe how much I got driven, lost in the story, and saw the world in Joe's mind again.

The book gave a new atmosphere. It felt different and fresh and captured my full attention. This book delivered what you wanted for a series to continue, and I couldn't wait for what would happen next. He was more mindful of his victims and made me think about him differently. Deabtion will occur once the readers start showing up and seeing this different side of him. I'm glad this book was not close to what happened in their Netflix series. Of course, the book was better! This was amazing couldn't be more glad to receive this copy. Thank you once again!

I was a big fan Kepnes’ first two books featuring Joe and I was excited to get to read the fourth installment. However, I feel like Joe and the “You” series may be running its course. It was so hard for me to get through this book. It just missed the mark for me, but I think if you’re a fan of the series you should give it a try!

Thanks to NetGalley & Random House Publishing for the ARC!