Hidden Bodies: A Novel

“We all get our hearts broken. We get f-ed up, and throw up, and we cry, and listen to sad songs and say we’re never doing that again. But to be alive is to do it again. To love is to risk everything.”

In YOU, Joe’s obsession with Beck ended in an accumulation of corpses. In HIDDEN BODIES, Joe follows the object of his new obsession to Los Angeles, where he finds Love.

There’s no shortage of murder in the second installment, but LA and Love change Joe, as well as the trajectory of the series. As in YOU, Joe risks everything for his own twisted version of love.

I would like to thank Simon & Schuster for the e-book “Hidden Bodies” by Caroline Kepnes. The genres of this novel are mystery,thriller, and fiction. One main character,Joe Goldberg is a sociopath who has killed at least four people. I found him to be amusing and a sort of nice guy for a sociopath. Joe has no patience for cheating girlfriends and liars. This is the second book in a series and it seems that Joe made a slight mistake, and left a mug of his urine in a closet, while he was stalking the place. I guess no one is perfect.

The characters in this novel are complex and deeply flawed. Some are not likeable.We first meet Amy, one of Joe’s loves.He is really smitten with her,until he realizes that she leaves him and steals thousands of dollars of books. This does not go well with Joe,who now decides that Amy doesn’t deserve to live. He goes on an adventure to find Amy, and meets quite a cast of characters.

This is a mystery and at times there are twists and turns. There are surprises, and an ending I did not expect. I would recommend this novel for those who like a mystery with quirky characters.

Oh, I love a sick, twisted guy and Joe definitely fits the bill. In this second book in the series, Joe has fallen for Amy as Amy is the girl of his dreams; she is everything he has ever wanted. She played the part well, she had him were she wanted him, he was like butter and she was molding him. They were too much alike, he should have seen this as a warning sign but Joe was in love. Now it’s back to reality, back to their normal lives and Amy makes her move, she skips town with items from his store and reality slaps Joe in the face. She leaves a note, sorry? Who will be sorry one when Joe brings her down for he’s on a mission, and people die when they get in Joe’s way. It’s about murder, revenge and sex, did I mention there is an abundance of sex occurring in this novel. Joe likes attractive woman and with his numerous desires and uncontrollable thoughts, Joe never misses an opportunity to act. He stalks, he plays his part and he tries to find someone to keep him entertained. Joe is a thinker; he tries to think ahead of any possible scenario. People should learn to leave Joe alone, they should know that Joe likes to be in command and that he doesn’t like to be messed with but sometimes people don’t know this until it’s too late. This novel is just as intense as the first one in the series and I suggest you read the first novel before you read this one as there are references to some of the characters in the first novel in this one. It’s a twisted, thrilling novel that I’m sure many individuals will be glad that they picked up.

Do you think it's true that love is all you need? Can love transform you? Change you? Alter your psyche?

Can love save you?

When last we saw Joe Goldberg in You, he had dispensed with Guinevere Beck, a young woman he believed he loved and whom he believed loved him, too. Or he believed it until he discovered that she was "cheating" on him with her therapist. That sort of betrayal must be punished, so Joe kills her, just as he killed her weirdly obsessed best friend Peach. That therapist? He's currently in jail, charged with murdering Beck.

Joe Goldberg is very, very good at what he does.

Still working at the bookstore, Joe meets Amy, who of course comes to the shop because of him. She begins working for him, and they embark on an affair. Joe falls in love. (Of course he does.) This time, though, the object of his affection seems equally besotted. He's happy. He's in love again.

Amy, though. Amy disappears.

Joe quickly susses out where she went. Her disappearance will not be borne, so Joe packs up and moves from his beloved, familiar New York to the hellish environs of Los Angeles.

Joe's search for Amy takes him to a quirky bunch of characters, each, in his or her own way, a performer. There is the struggling comedian, the struggling filmmaker, and the struggling arm candy. His new neighbor, Delilah, the one who does not aspire to filmmaking as much as to filmmakers, observes, "You can't live here unless you believe.'

Joe Goldberg needs to figure out what, exactly, he believes.

He seeks refuge in a grocery store, an upscale chain called the Pantry, a place Joe likens to a "modern art museum." He likes the kitschy aisle names (the baby food aisle is called "semi-unconditional love") and the music. Through various convolutions of fate, the sort that only happens in Hollywood, Joe meets Love Quinn, the daughter of the Pantry people.

Their connection is immediate, and Joe even almost forgets about his vendetta against Amy. This is the restorative power of Love.

Joe repeats the mantra, "All you need is love; love is all you need," trying to understand what is happening to him in this relationship. For the first time, Joe finds himself giving. This is Joe, though, so the giving is not done without expectations. But he gives. He befriends Love's twin brother Forty. He accepts her lavish lifestyle. He plays tennis!

But wither his bloodthirsty tendencies?

Love may be all you need, but that doesn't mean that Joe stops being Joe. You cross him, and he makes you pay.

This time, though, Joe's vengeance does not erupt from a place of rage, but rather a place of fear. Joe is terrified of losing Love. Now that he has experienced what it's like to truly have love, he won't lose it - or her. It isn't as if Joe knows how to be in a real, loving relationship. Unlike Love, who grew up with parents passionately in love with each other, even thirty-plus years into marriage, Joe grew up under the critical lens of his mother. He has no idea what love looks like, much less how to accept it and exchange it.

Unlike You, which was Joe's love letter to a woman he murders, Caroline Kepnes makes this the story of Joe's rebirth. Not his redemption, mind you, but his reinvention. Joe lets Love in his life, which fundamentally alters him. He is around a family that cares about and supports each other. He's with a woman who accepts his quirks and adores them. As Joe points out, Love is patient and Love is kind.

Love is everything Joe didn't realize he needs. Love is not proud or boastful, Love is not easily angered, and Love does not accrue grievances. Love protects, Love trusts, Love hopes. Love perseveres. Always.

What will Joe Goldberg do when he has Love?

And what about his pursuit of Amy?

Kepnes keeps you furiously turning the pages. You are certain that Joe will find a way to blow this relationship, and you fear for him - and, let's face it, you fear for Love. An angry Joe is scary enough; a frightened Joe is terrifying.

I am so utterly captivated by the way Caroline Kepnes writes. She will make you laugh, she will make you think, and she will make you squirm with fear. Her words will haunt you as much as they will make you giggle. (Exhibit A: Joe says, "I wish it were socially acceptable to brandish a knife.") That she created a character like Joe Goldberg is equal parts impressive and ... concerning. He is one of the most intriguing, captivating (no Joe pun intended), and compelling characters I've encountered. I never thought I'd root for a serial killer, but here I am, firmly on Team Joe.

Is Love all Joe Goldberg needs? Read the book, and then come back and let me know what you think. Is Love enough to save Joe?

I bet you didn't think Caroline Kepnes would make you ask these questions after You, did you.

Disclaimer: review copy provided by the publisher in exchange for an unbiased review.

Published on VoxLibris.net
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Will Joe ever find LOVE? That is the ultimate question in part two of the series that had me obsessed with this psychotic man.

Joe is so wrong, yet so right. His commentary on everything from pop culture, to human behavior, to FB, had me laughing and highlighting the heck out of the book.

The story takes flight when Joe goes to LA to chase one girl, and not for good reasons. His search changes and obstacles are eliminated in true Joe fashion. But his reasons for staying in the land of vapidness, morphs during one stalking adventure.

Nearly every encounter Joe makes in LA is filled with lies and deceit, all aimed at making that person like/love him. But when that person lies back to him, or deceives him, WATCH OUT. Better prepare their will and say goodbyes. Joe doesn’t forgive or forget.

I’m not going spoil things and give you a kill count on this book, but yes, there are multiple casualties, hence the plural title. In addition, some bodies from book one, just won’t go away.

This book follows a similar path as the first book, with Joe trying to find his life purpose with love. And it’s hilarious as to who that girl actually comes to be (yes, I’ve edited my review to take out her name). My initial thoughts on her were not good. She seems the exact kind of girl that Joe would loathe, but the connection formed nevertheless. On occasion I thought Joe was getting played once again, however, she was a huge surprise. It turns out that she is exactly what Joe needed. She not only gives him the love and devotion he’s craved for so long, but she also becomes his savior, or at least tried to be.

Joe’s delusions throughout this book will have you shaking your head repeatedly, but his inner monologue is what has me buying into his madness. For a guy who never went to college, his reflections and critiques are the type of things no one wants to admit out loud, but are spot on. While Joe is not smart enough to quit repeating his mistakes, particularly when it comes to trusting women, he always has a plan for revenge. Is it a legal plan? No, Joe’s not big on what is morally right. At least to most people’s interpretations. He often views his kills as a contribution, doing society and that person a favor. And the way he lays it out for you, I usually couldn’t help but agree with him. Not only that, I found myself cheering for him at times. After chatting with other Joe admirers, I’m not alone in that thought.

Other than Joe, what I love most about this book and this series, is how the author weaves the story from coast to coast. How little moments like a warning about jaywalking in LA has multiple implications to the story-line.

Is this book a romance? The author tackled the idea of the romance genre in an article on Huffington Post, so it’s up to interpretation. I personally tell all my friends to read this book, and then quickly point out that it is not a romance, although there is LOVE in it. I saw one too many reviews that slammed You, book one, because they thought it was a romance genre. Shame on the reader for not doing more research or not having an open mind, but it happens, I get it. With the title of this book, there should be no illusions about what you are getting into.

Will this be the end of Joe’s journey? Hopefully not. This story leaves the reader wanting more with its ending. It’s not a traditional HEA, and I wouldn’t expect one. Joe has finally found his peace and is determined to do better, be better, from here on out. However, there is definitely room for the author to continue this wickedly good series.

In this age of social media, Kepnes writes Joe Goldberg sort of like someone who can't help himself and post all the things he shouldn't on his twitter or instagram. Stuff that should wait a day to consider maybe.

But the thing here is that as readers we are inside Joe's head. There is no filter. It is immediate and full and yet wonderfully disturbing in that way in which you might see or feel when someone implodes in public (and now most often via social media).

If you haven't read You, the first book in which Joe makes an appearance this review and this book is not for you. Yet.

For the rest of you, Joe Goldberg is back. And while some of the initial shock value that was so compelling and creepy in the first book is a little lost with familiarity; the weirdly engaging and yet scary Joe is back and he is just as fascinating as ever.

What might even elevate this book over the first is that Joe is a bit smoother as a character. There is less abrupt effort to shock here for me. I instead get the sense that Kepnes relaxes a little bit and lets Joe be Joe because she knows I, as reader, probably know Joe. He is less shocking. But still incredibly affecting as a creepy disturbing and yet ever so interesting lead character.

Here Kepnes raises the stakes even more as Joe fits right in in a culture we admire and perhaps find vapid and vacuous and even a bit loathsome. The perfect landscape for a vicious and yet charming misanthrope who has more to lose than ever. Gripping and funny and disturbing and entertaining it even makes me wonder at the end, why do I like this so much? Should I? Well I do.

It drives me crazy when I read a book so good I just can’t put words to paper to review it. Hidden Bodies is one of those books. How do you review something so incredibly diabolical and delicious? Beware, this could be incoherent.

In Caroline Kepnes’ You, I first met Joe Goldberg and couldn’t believe that she made me fall in love with this character. He was everything that I feared in the night and would never, ever want to meet in a crowded mall let alone a dark alley. Yet, there I was, rooting for him. Rooting. For. Him. What the hell?

Joe is back in Hidden Bodies, having made it safely through You, and he’s in love again, this time with Amy, the blueberry eating, won’t-shave-her-legs girl who walked into his bookstore and stole his heart.

“…she claimed she was looking for a job but you and I both know she was looking for me.”

Ah, Joe. Still delusional. Or is it narcissistic? Or just plain self-confidence because he's Joe? Either way, he was right, Amy was looking for him but only to steal from him and anyone that knows Joe knows that he’s unforgiving. Using clues she left behind, Joe follows Amy out to California from New York, promising himself that Amy would pay for breaking his heart.

This story is so appealing, yet so insane because Kepnes convinces you that Amy needs to pay for what she’s done to Joe. This handsome, charming, sociopathic killer has left hidden bodies behind him and plans to add more to the count. Not because he wants to, but because it’s the best thing for the inhabitants of said bodies. I’m sure of it because he told me so.

This is the beauty of Caroline Kepnes. She’s so brilliant that for the first 20% of Hidden Bodies I’d decided that You was really a one-hit wonder. I didn’t like Joe anymore and he was starting to scare me and I wanted him to get caught. He wasn’t changing or learning from his mistakes and then he finds Love when he least expects it. And I’m right back in Joe’s corner and his biggest cheerleader.

Love Quinn is Joe’s redemption and as he falls in love with her (it takes only a few minutes because it’s Joe and he’s always all in, no matter what he’s doing) he starts to change and forgets about finding Amy. Sure, he’s still quickly irritated with the ridiculous people around him that are uneducated and so shallow that they don’t deserve to live, but when you’re in Love, somehow these things just don’t matter as much. He swiftly becomes part of her Hollywood royalty family the same night he meets Love:

“I am born again a Quinn, unofficial son-in-law of Dottie and Ray-the Dottie and Ray who send me their love at the Pantry!-and they know how to hug, how to talk.”

And Joe’s life is changed.

Yet, there are things he left unfinished on the East Coast, and as he gets more involved with Love he starts to make mistakes and he encounters people who have nothing better to do but involve themselves in his business and before long he’s falling back into old habits. And the reader understands, because Joe just wants to be loved and in love and he’s changed.

As Hidden Bodies races to a heart pounding conclusion that finds Joe fighting for everything he ever wanted you find yourself wondering how you ever disliked Joe and how you’d forgive him everything if he could just be happy.

5 Stars for Hidden Bodies which is a witty, laugh-out-loud, testimony to our culture and frightening enough to leave your heart racing. Heat level: 3

I received this book from NetGalley in exchange for honest feedback.

How often have you wanted to kill that douchey celebrity just because he’s rich and famous?

How often have you wanted to erase people’s existance because they’re annoying and fake?

If there’s anywhere a stalking psychopath could fit in, it would be Los Angeles with other stalkers, psychopaths and outlandish personalities. That’s why Joe Goldberg makes it his home in Hidden Bodies, where he’s in pursuit of Amy, a girl who left him and fleeced him. While he lets revenge take him there, even Joe can’t escape the glamour and glitz of LA with celebrities walking the streets and movie making on everyone’s mind.

It’s as ridiculous as it seems, and I loved seeing Joe in his element.

Joe pulls out his murdering streak whenever he feels like it. And with all the personalities in LA, he feels like it a lot. At times I did feel like it was the easy way out for Joe – someone annoys him, he decides to kill him with no repercussions whatsoever. A tiny part of me wanted him to be punished for what he had done, but another part of me relished in the nonchalant killer that he was.

And that’s what makes this series so compelling– it’s sickening following a psychopathic killer around, as he plans, stalks and justifies killing people. But it’s also so outside of your usual comfort zone that there’s something slightly gratifying about it, because Joe is not your usual everyday bloke. He’s charming, interesting and builds a repoire with people without even trying. I enjoyed his narrative; his sarcasm and pessisism weaved in with humorous and dark thoughts at the same time. It’s disturbing but also engaging, and you can’t help but symphathise with Joe at times.

I did at times find Hidden Bodies to be frustratingly inconsequential, especially with how the storyline kind of veers off course for most of it. Joe gets drawn into film making, script writing and engaging in a cheesy romance with a rich starlet called Love. She’s the love of Joe’s life, and somehow the bond between them becomes unbreakable.

It then becomes overwhelmingly focused on Love’s family drama, on her rich and wasteful lifestyle and the movie making business. I wanted to know when Joe was going to focus again on finding Amy, which is what he came here to do.

Thankfully, it all wraps up towards the end and there is a point to it all. I just wish it didn’t take so long to get there. Hidden Bodies is as engaging and disturbing as the first book, but it feels long winded and over dramaticised as well.

Check out happyindulgencebooks.com for more reviews!

I listened to the audiobook version of this after it kept popping up in my recommendations. The book is narrated by Santino Fontana and he has the perfect voice for the character of Joe. He sounds good looking and self-assured, but he also nails the complete and utter narcissism and ego.

This book is satire at its best. The book is a wonderful skewering of the bizarre way of life in Los Angeles and the millennial generation. I appreciated both because I was just in LA at the end of December and observed some of it first hand and as I was reading this book, I also read this article in the New York Times[...]
Kepnes is spot on. She has keen observational skills and does not miss a beat. Joe notices it all too, eviscerates everyone and everything around him, unless it suits him otherwise, and is completely lacking in self-reference. I suppose this is exactly why he is a sociopath. It makes for a somewhat humorous and entertaining story.

The book was a solid 3.5 stars for me. It is very well done. Satire that makes me smirk like this (I sound like a self-satisfied millennial myself) is refreshing. But the book is also profoundly disturbing. Murder, hatred, indifference and the ability to justify it all just leaves a hole in my heart. Reading reviews of the first book "You" makes me think that there was something very likable about Joe in that first installment. I was amused by him. I could appreciate the very well-crafted picture that Kepnes drew. Ultimately, however, I was glad to leave Joe and Love behind.

Joe Goldberg is back from Caroline Kepnes's previous book "You," and he's just as sociopathological as ever. He's creepy, he's sick, he has serious issues with love - or what he interprets as love. As in "You," Joe falls in love with someone he thinks is perfect for him...until she's not.

Joe reminds me of Dexter Morgan from Jeff Lindsay's Dexter series, in that he's a killer that you can't help rooting for. The difference, however, is that where Dexter killed only those "deserving" of death - like rapists - Joe kills for purely selfish reasons - self-preservation. As I found myself rooting for Joe, I had to stop and ask myself why. Joe has no redeeming qualities except that he is on-the-surface charming and handsome, but everything he does in life is strictly for himself. He thinks he's doing things out of love for so-and-so, but he's not. I should not be rooting for Joe. And yet, when he comes oh-so-close to getting caught for one (or more) of the murders he committed in the past, I found that I was holding my breath, hoping that by some miracle the evidence of his murders would not be found or verified.

In "Hidden Bodies" Joe attempts to track down a past love, for reasons I will not discuss so as to avoid spoilers. In his efforts he finds himself falling in love - again. But has he finally found his forever mate, someone who understands him for who he is, someone who accepts him for who he is and what he has done?

I’ve been sitting in front of this blank white document trying to come up with the words to describe how I’m feeling after reading Hidden Bodies. It’s hard to come up with words when my brain is still buzzing with Joe in it. I loved YOU so much.. and Joe was one of those characters that just never left you… So I’ll be honest when I say that I was super freaking excited to read Hidden Bodies but I was also a little apprehensive. Joe is magic, in a scary thrilling sort of way… and I didn’t want my feelings about him to change. But rest assured, once I put my big girl panties on and cracked open this sequel I was immediately transported back into the fascinating world of Joe and his rambling mind and it felt just like home.

Often, you find that a sequel just isn’t as sharp as the original, but in this case, Hidden Bodies is not only as good as YOU but it’s better. I want to give you examples of why I think this, but in order to do that, I would have to give you spoilers. We all know how much I hate spoilers, so I won’t do that… but I will say that Joe grows throughout Hidden Bodies. His views on society and the world and love are the same… but they also change. Joe gets to travel and meet new people and suddenly he’s in this new world with a different kind of life and the things he sees and how he views them… well I just don’t think there’s anyone else out there like Joe.

I often found myself so on the edge of my seat that I was taking sneak peek looks at the bottom of the page because I was just so anxious about how a particular situation was going to play out. Sometimes I was right… and it was bad. So very bad. And other times, I was surprised and I could see growth in Joe as a human. Is it odd that I was sort of disappointed when he didn’t take that final step that we all know Joe is capable of? What the hell does that say about me?

The cast of characters in Hidden Bodies are just as colorful and fascinating as Joe is. They didn’t just support Joe in this roller coaster ride, they made everything sparkle in a how-effed-up-is-society kind of way. They allowed Joe to be Joe in all of his neurotic, creepy ways. And let me just tell you this… Love is my favorite. You’ll understand once you’ve read it.

This is one of those rare instances where I don’t think I’ll ever tire of a character. When I got to the last page, I didn’t want it to be over. I love living inside Joe’s warped sense of right and wrong. I still want to be besties with him. I’m still scared to death of him. And I wouldn’t change Joe one bit. 5 hoping for another Joe book stars

Author Caroline Kepnes introduced readers to the comical and likable stalker Joe Goldberg in her debut novel, YOU. The book is told from Joe’s perspective and begins when he meets the love of his life, Beck, while working at a rare book store in New York City. Despite Joe’s unstable behavior and propensity to turn to murder in order to solve problems, it is difficult not to like him. And while it may say more about me than the book, YOU left me empathizing with Joe more than I probably should.

HIDDEN BODIES picks up where YOU left off. Joe has moved on, and the new love of his life is Amy. When he feels Amy betrays him, he follows here to Los Angeles, hurt turned to anger, in search of revenge. But despite some ups and downs in the beginning, he finds a new love in Love Quinn. He soon forgets about Amy and forges ahead with his new life and Love. Of course he can’t leave all his old habits behind, and kills a few people, but real growth can be seen in Joe, as demonstrated here as he worries about the murders of two women New York:

“I think the justice system should see where I am now, how far I’ve come, all the good I have to lose. They should stop prodding into my past. It’s so vengeful, so middle school, the way they want to boil my entire life down into these two dead girls.”

HIDDEN BODIES is a solid follow-up to YOU. All of the best aspects are there, along with some genuine growth in the Joe Goldberg character. The story is also told in the first person, from Joe’s perspective, and provides dark humor in the ramblings and ups and downs of an obsessed madman; maybe a JD Salinger meets Carl Hiassen, am I right or am I right? (Sorry, HIDDEN BODIES inside jokes…)

In addition to a good story, Kepnes seems to enjoy poking a little fun at the fine people of Los Angeles and their aspirations, which at first offend Joe before he realizes he has some of his own.

Just as soon as you might think Joe has forgotten about his mission of finding Amy and seeking his revenge, she is delivered to him, fate, as it were. Will his new life, success, and realized dreams be enough to save her?
A good measure of an author’s talent is how well readers can relate and empathize with characters, especially those that are bad, broken, evil. In both YOU and HIDDEN BODIES, Kepnes did that, and I often found myself torn between Joe and his victims, who are also presented as real people, lost and damaged, and wanting them both to live happily ever after. On second thought, what fun would that be?

This is a novel that gets under your skin, in a good way. I'm a tough audience in that I'm tired of the "unreliable narrator" trend (hated Herman Koch's "The Dinner‬," for example) and even more tired of hearing that this or that novel is the next "Gone, Girl." What made this novel different? In part, its protagonist, who's a very original character, and somewhat sympathetic despite being a psychopath. I also fell in love with some of the other characters, especially Love's shambolic brother Forty, and the plot moves nicely, so the story escapes the depressing tedium of similarly narrated novels, where the interior monologue is too intense and one-dimensional. There's plenty of comic relief in the story, and Joe's observations are not only hilarious, but dead-on. Finally, the sendup of LA and celebrity worship really works. I live in New York, but I'm a sucker for a good satire soaked in SoCal scenery and culture seen through NY eyes. (Hidden Bodies reminded me a bit of Bruce Wagner's early novels in the way it takes on the entertainment industry.) I didn't read "You," though I'll probably get around to it, but I did sample it after reading "Hidden Bodies," and it seemed more of an interior rant from the chapters I read. "Hidden Bodies" has the same quality, since it continues Joe's story, but it seems lighter and a bit more entertaining overall. I read it a few weeks ago and still "miss" it. That's the sign of a good book.

A special thank you to Atria and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review. 4.5 stars

Carolyn Kepnes returns following You (You, #1, her sensational debut, where we met the famous obsessively dark serial killer, Joe Goldberg—the bookstore manager. In HIDDEN BODIES, (You #2) Joe is back, after his breakup with Beck, now with his sights on someone new.

He tells himself he will do it right this time around. He thinks he is a good boyfriend, and will choose well. He is committed to the details.

Amy Kendall Adam is a sharpie. She is passionate, with an imagination, good sex, and she has a heart. She is anti-Beck. Amy goes to work for Joe at Mooney Books. He cannot stalk her online. She is off the grid. No Facebook, no Twitter, no Instagram, not even an email address. She uses burner phones and Joe has to program her new number into his phone every couple of weeks. The ultimate analog—his perfect match.

Just when Joe thinks all is going well, the next morning Amy has disappeared and there is a gaping hole where the yellow wall of Portnoy’s complaints used to be. She stole every last copy and did not leave one for him! She also took the Yates first edition (holds memories of their sexual history).

She has left him and stole from him. He had bought the crap about her wanting her own bed. She has left a note saying they both have secrets and are really the same. $23,000 in rare books. She came here to trick him, to rob him—he is angry. We all know what happens when Joe feels betrayed. Look out!

Joe soon realizes she is in Hollywood and has signed up for acting classes. He will make her pay. He is on his way to Los Angeles. He is determined to find her. The road from here is witty, crazy, and wild with an array of quirky characters.

How can Amy be pursuing an acting career in LA without the Internet? A girl like Amy, a new sociopath with no agent, no connections, would start looking for work on Craigslist. Anyone can post a casting call on the site, and actors submit their photos and resumes constantly, according to Calvin. So he writes a casting call, specifically designed to appeal to Amy’s overweening ego.

He tries everything from hiking, breaking into data bases, Pilates, and Craigslist. He hates Amy for not being on Facebook and no email. He has a plan; he wants revenge. He is obsessed. Joe world is expanding in Hollywood.

However, Joe did not imagine meeting Love Quinn. (he thinks she may be a pervert too). He is pulled into the Hollywood lifestyle. The Quinns are rich, and Love is older, having been married previously, and has been around the block. We also meet her twin brother, Forty. Love does not believe in bad or good people. She believes in people.

She loves eccentric people. She loves a good story. She does not care about age. He is caught up in the pop culture and the dazzle. Soon, Joe forgets about Amy. However, in his past he still has to worry about the little thing called murder: Peach Salinger and Guinevere Beck, and the mug of urine. Can he tell Love the truth? Can he change? Can he trust Love?

Maybe Facebook is not his best friend. Killer Joe. However, Joe is determined to not allow his past to dictate his future. Women leave him. Can he stop lying and killing?

The stuff he writes to himself is hilarious! He is a sociopath, dark, disturbing—and man Kepnes is creative, imaginative-- touching on each naughty, wacky, and evil thought. Once you have gotten over the shock factor of book #1, with book #2, you can enjoy the wild crazy ride.

Entertaining, clever, quirky, and witty psychological thriller.

Fans and new readers will savor HIDDEN BODIES. It is YOU with the whipped cream and a cherry on top. Highly anticipating #3 to learn Joe’s fate.

Currently listening to audio Santino Fontana (swoon-sexy) narrating. Need to experience "Joe" in audio, as well as digital, to get the full experience.

I liked this book so much better than I liked the first book in the series, You. I went into You with really high expectations. I had expected to fall head over heels in love with it and maybe even offer to have Joe's babies. I liked the book well enough in the end but it was really just okay for me in a lot of ways. I started this book unsure if I would really like it or not. Would Joe's rambling drive me crazy this time? Would he spend another whole book describing minor details about his newest victim? I really didn't know what to expect.

Joe didn't seem to ramble like he did in the first book. It could be that I went into the book expecting some rambling but I actually liked the time spent in Joe's head this time around. Joe's thought processes aren't really healthier in this book but he seemed to make a little more sense to me. His goals were different and his thoughts seemed a bit more logical in a serial killer sort of way.

I really liked the fact that the action in this book seemed to start earlier. I liked You a lot better once Joe started actually acting on some of his impulses. In this book, Joe takes action a lot sooner in the story and I was never quite sure what he was going to do. It seemed that the pacing was a lot better with some lead up then action repeated throughout the book. The excitement really kept me hooked this time around.

I liked the characters in the book a lot better. I am starting to really like Joe a lot. I am not willing to have his babies just yet but he is growing on me. Love was simply awesome. I loved everything about Love. Forty was a loose cannon and added a extra element because you never knew what he might do. Amy made me a little mad and I wanted to help Joe plan his revenge on her. There were so many wonderful characters that fit into this story. I even really liked all of the celebrity name dropping and thought it added a fun element to the book.

The writing in the book was well done. The book had a great flow with the story moving seamlessly from one location to another. There was just enough description to paint a completely vivid picture throughout the book. I like the way that the characters' emotions really came across. This was book that completely pulled me in and was hard to put down.

I would highly recommend this book to others. I am so glad that I decided to go ahead and continue with the series despite the fact that I wasn't blown away by You. I definitely plan to read more books by Caroline Kepnes in the future.

I received an advance reader edition of this book from Atria Books via NetGalley.

Joe Goldberg is back, and he’s just as charming and obsessive as ever. Now he has a new love interest, Amy, and he vows not to make the same mistakes he made in the past with Beck.

Amy seems perfect for Joe, and he tell her so. But the feeling isn’t mutual, and when she steals from him and runs off to Los Angeles, the stalking, murderous instincts re-emerge in Joe. He discovers that she has left New York for Hollywood and has signed up for acting classes. Joe is soon on his way to California to find her and make her pay for what she has done to him. But things are never simple for Joe. He soon becomes involved in a new relationship — Joe may have finally met his match.

The story begins right where the first book, You, left off with the same fast pace and quick wit. It is written from Joe’s point of view so we are always aware of his thoughts and motivation. And that is what makes this such a great book. When we get into Joe’s head, he becomes likable, literate, and seductive in spite of all his faults. Yes, literate, he loves books. He works in a bookstore and appears to lead a normal life. Until you get to know him.

There was a bit of a slow spot in the middle of the story after Joe moved to Los Angeles and we meet a new group of characters, but it soon picked up again with the same dark humor, murderous thoughts, a few bodies, and a quick pace. The plot makes frequent changes in direction and just when I thought I knew where it was headed, we were off on a new course — and ultimately headed for a surprising ending.

Joe is one of the most compelling characters I’ve ever met. I wasn’t so much horrified by what Joe was thinking and doing as I was at the thought that there are people like him walking the streets and appearing normal. Joe was so needy and charming that I came dangerously close to rooting for him. Well, at times I was rooting for him! And then it was back to feeling creepy.

As in the first book, there is some explicit sexual content and more than a few swear words. It fits the character of Joe and his warped thoughts, but I felt it deserved mention. There is satire and social commentary accompanied by some biting dark humor. This isn’t for everyone, but it’s one of those books you won’t know you like until to try it.

While there is enough explanation of events in the first book to make this readable as a standalone, I don’t recommend it. And once you read the first chapter, you are completely spoiled for book one. Read You first! Even better, listen to the audiobook, it’s fantastic.

Although this was one of my first reads of the new year, it has definitely made it on to my 2016 favorites list.

[Advance reading copy was provided by the publisher]

You, a debut novel by Caroline Kepnes made my top eight books of 2014, but I didn’t love it as much as some. I certainly enjoyed it and a book written from the viewpoint of an almost-sympathetic psychopath really offered something very different.

Kepnes reintroduces us to Joe – the psychopathic bookseller – in her second novel, Hidden Bodies.

Nearly six months have passed since the concluding events of You and when we meet Joe he is smitten with his new love. Amy Adam.

We (along with Joe) are alerted to Amy’s duplicity quite early in novel and it almost seems as if Joe’s torn between being kinda impressed someone could 'play' the ultimate 'player'; and needing revenge on the woman who toyed with his affections.

He tosses in his job and tracks Amy to Hollywood where he comes across an interesting array of locals.

Again it’s hard not to identify with Joe – despite his proclivities. We’re in his head and the book’s told in first person from his point of view. He’s again witty and intelligent, so... frustratingly engaging.

After his arrival in LA, Joe's sidetracked by the wealthy and eccentric 'Love' and her brother 'Forty'; and suddenly he's hanging with celebrities and traveling by private jet.

Joe's great and (again) well-written. Indeed, I (again) found the prose compelling and clever - though it's fairly explicit at times.

However... the plot felt a little 'all over the place'. The ending felt very rushed and came (a little) from left field.

So, I was ultimately a tad disappointed. It won't keep me from reading more however - if there are future instalments - because I have a soft spot for Joe.

Read the full review on my blog: [...] 3.5 stars

Caroline Kepnes’ You utterly creeped me out when I read it last year. I wasn’t expecting such a vivid look into the mind of a psycho stalker. I also wasn’t expecting there to be a sequel until I saw someone else review the follow up Hidden Bodies. This wasn’t something I picked up lightly, but I was very curious to see where else this story would be taken.

I was worried that Hidden Bodies would just re-tell the same story from the first novel, same guy, different girl, another stalking gone wrong. But it’s clear very early that, while our psycho stalker is still pretty psycho, there’s a whole new spin this time around which shows a more vulnerable and unprepared Joe, which was a nice change from the first novel. I liked this fresh look at the familiar character and I liked that it put him totally outside of his comfort zone.

Joe is the kind of narcissist who thinks everyone wants to sleep with him, but reading how he justifies every movement, how he reads too much into every little detail, everything just aligns so properly that it makes you believe that the twisted way he sees the world really is how it is. And his opinions are so curt and exact, I loved some of the comparisons he makes between what he’s witnessing and pop culture. The descriptions are purely soaked in bitterness, especially when he’s in Hollywood. Not to mention how he can act like such a jerk, and still get people to do exactly what he wants them to do. He is good, he is real good. But actually, it’s Kepnes that is good. Kepnes that is genius. This is so cleverly written, so smart. All the pieces seem to fit together so easily, yet at the same time, it makes the story more complex, so much thought must have gone into some of the finer details.

I don’t know how this happened, but this strange and twisted story about a lady-stalking serial killer actually turns into quite the love story. And you actually root for them! You get warm and fuzzy when she accepts him for what and who he is. Love wins!

The title of this book is one of the most accurate titles I’ve seen in a while. The body count is astounding. And it’s kind of great. I got so wrapped up in Joe’s twisted way of thinking, eliminating his problems and obstacles by bashing their heads in and disposing of their bodies. There are some pretty trippy twists, a story that seems almost unbelievable, and you’re kind of in awe and charmed by the way Joe handles himself, the way he justifies and gets away with what he does. He has a very Patrick Bateman vibe about him and I loved it. I feel guilty for loving it, but I loved it.

Originally posted on citygirlscapes.com

“There is no such thing as a one night stand. Sometimes, what you do for one night destroys your future.”

Ooooh! The hunt is on! Joe is on fire in this book. Poor, poor Joe. So blinded by love every time.

“Because the real horror of my life is not that I’ve killed some terrible people. The real horror is that the people I’ve loved didn’t love me back.”

We see different sides to Joe in this book. In the first book Joe was obsessed. He was a hunter. In this book, he’s in love. We see Joe’s vulnerable side many times. He’s on the hunt, but he’s sidetracked in different ways. It’s amusing how he goes around killing people who get in his way or “hurt” him, yet he makes it out to where he is the victim. He’s entertaining, full of life. It’s also interesting how, when he goes to kill, he finds a reason why what he is doing makes it okay.

“What I am doing is a kindness, a mercy killing. I am putting her out of her misery.”

Seeing Joe’s “normal” side throughout the book messes with you. He worries about what he’s done and will it come back to haunt him. He is constantly worried about “the mug of piss.” Will he be held accountable for those bodies or will he get to be happy for once? Sometimes, the writing makes it hard to not want to see him get his happy ending.

“It would be nice to have something alive to hold on to right now, something to love me, something with a beating heart that I can feel, something to be with me as I sit here, in hell, trying to figure it out.”

I enjoyed the dynamic between Joe & Love. This where you really see and feel Joe.

“I’ve never loved her as much as I do right now and I want the chance to be the good guy, the best guy, the talking guy. I want to clean my dick and scrub my skin and start over.”

After a certain kill, from here Joe really starts to spiral. With the events that keep happening, he’s getting out of control. I was dying to see how this was all going to end. And then things keep transpiring. A certain event had me shocked.

And then it’s all coming to a fold. All unraveling, and oh…just wait and see what happens!

“The key is not to just continue believing, after all, but the key to life is to believe in something that matters, something big and beautiful, something more profound than fame, money.”

“HIDDEN BODIES” by Caroline Kepnes, is the follow-up to her debut novel, “YOU”, the continuation of an evil serial killer …Joe Goldberg.

I have to say that I enjoyed this book so much better than book 1. I had a hard time reading YOU, book 1, a dark psychological thriller that is not a book for everyone. "You" is not the book for you if you are easily offended by coarse language or scenes of a sexual nature.

In "YOU", we see Joe's involvement with Beck and later ended with Amy. But Amy is nothing like Beck. Amy doesn’t use social media which means he can't keep tabs on her like he could with Beck.

“I buy violets for Amy. Not roses. Roses are for people who did something wrong. I have done everything right this time around. I’m a good boyfriend. I chose well.”

But one day Amy steals from him and disappears. And Joe is right on her tail! He leaves New York and moves to Hollywood to track her down. He wants ...revenge!

Here in Hollywood, Joe works in a bookstore, and keeps a low profile. He is still haunted by his past.

But would his past secrets remain buried? What if she finds out?

I stood through it to see where the sequel, "Hidden Bodies" would take Joe. Maybe we had to see the bad to appreciate the change in the character. When I first started reading this book, I found it so different…but in a good way! Joe wants to change his life for the better, so he puts his past behind him, his buried victims, and moves to Los Angeles to start a new life. He is looking for a new start and true LOVE.

There is still plenty of foul language and explicit scenes that may disturb some readers in this book, but I didn't actually find this sequel quite as dark as the first book, Joe seemed more human in this book, and more likeable...if you can like a serial killer!

I voluntarily reviewed an Advance Reader Copy of this book.Many thanks to the publisher for providing me with an ARC via NetGalley.

I loved You and Kepnes did nor disappoint with Hidden Bodies. I am hearing there will be a third installment to this series and I hope that is the case.

You know that feeling when you want to dislike someone and you really should but you just can't help rooting for them? This is Joe. 

I love how he works out things in his mind and how he decides what "needs" to be done. His character is complex and has a lot of depth. Kepnes really allows you inside his head and inside all his different emotions.

He is still taking people out and covering his tracks, even going as far as to leave New York and follow his ex to Hollywood in order to have his revenge but then finds himself in love and wants to be different and change for this love. There are some loose ends he has to keep tying up and ends up digging himself deeper and deeper.

He is so clever with how he keeps getting himself out of scrapes. His new love is quite the character too - a perfect fit for him

Joe Goldberg. Man. He’s a character that I will never, ever forget. In You by Caroline Kepnes (the prequel to HIDDEN BODIES ), we first met Joe Goldberg.

When I wrote the review for YOU, this is what I said, “So for all of you who want to read sick stuff about twenty-something’s, this book is for you. And if you think you’re too normal to read this book, well, I used to be normal too.”

So what do I do? As soon as I can, I get my paws on the follow-up to that psychological trip down a dirty rabbit hole and read until my eyes bulge out of my head.

See, I told you I wasn’t normal anymore. Besides, who quotes themselves in a review? I think that these books have made me a narcissist.

Anyway, enough about me.

HIDDEN BODIES picks up right where YOU left off. Joe just met Amy. And, well, without giving too much away just in case you haven’t yet read YOU (why in the world haven’t you read YOU yet?) things are going pretty much like you’d expect them to be. Joe. Is. Insane. He’s a psychopath. Maybe a sociopath. Just look at the name of this latest book HIDDEN BODIES . THINK ABOUT IT!

Why in the world can’t I make words bigger? I want the words “think about it” to be huge. So in your head~~SHOUT THOSE WORDS! Never have I read such alternately scary and entertaining books. How this author was able to almost accidentally make humor in serial killing is beyond me. But she did it. And even more~~she made these absolutely horrible characters likable. Actually likable. In the end, I really almost wanted to side with the psychopath. Or sociopath. Whatever.

5 Stars

I wasn’t really sure where Caroline Kepnes was going to go after You…it felt like a pretty complete ending…but I was happy get get more Joe. Sounds crazy!

Considering that the first time I picked up You, I DNFed it at less than 10%!

After I got over my initial case of “the willies” Joe really grew on me…sort of like that crazy horrible reality show that you can’t stop watching despite the fact that you’d never admit to enjoying it in public!

Hidden Bodies picks up right where You left off and boy has Joe changed his stripes after everything that happened in the first book. ;-p

Ok, maybe Joe hasn’t changed at all…you’ll have to pick this one up to find out!

Suffice it to say that Hidden Bodies adds a whole new cast of (screwed up) characters and Joe doesn’t disappoint.

Joe is his usual sensitive, vulnerable, witty, intelligent sociopathic self!

I really have to give Kepnes credit. She took me from creeped out to fascinated. Joe is an amazingly compelling guy and the secondary characters in Hidden Bodies are even better than those in You.

THE VERDICT -If you liked You…you’ll love Hidden Bodies.

NOTE: Review copy rcvd from publisher, All thoughts and opinions my own.

You was one of my favorite (audio)books last year, so I was super excited to read Hidden Bodies, but also slightly apprehensive whether Joe's return would live up to my expectations. I needn't have worried. Joe has mellowed a bit, in my opinion, but his lookout on the world is still as entertaining as ever. "Humans. I will never understand."
I love how his mind works (I know I shouldn't), he is a depraved serial killer after all. But he is really trying hard to fit in this time. For Love ('Love' would have been the perfect title, shame it was changed). He even joins Facebook. Some of the references to social media and popular culture were hilarious. If you didn't like You, you probably won't like this, as there is still plenty of foul language and explicit scenes that may disturb some readers. I didn't actually find this sequel quite as dark or twisted as the first book, but I just love Joe. It'll be a long, desperate wait for book 3.

Santino Fontano narrates the audiobook and once again his performance is stellar. The way he delivers some of the one-liners and Joe's internal monologue is out of this world. On Audible, there's also a free interview between Caroline Kepnes and Santino Fontano. It gives some background on when and how Ms. Kepnes came up with the idea for Joe, which was really interesting. I was already a fan because of her writing, I have even more respect for her now.

Very witty, clever and highly original psychological thriller. Highly recommended.

Thanks to the publisher for providing me with an ARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Need to sleep on this one. It's knocked me for six, like book 1, YOU.

Just found out that YOU has been picked up by Liftime to be made into hopefully a long series. Made right, it will be up there with Breaking Bad and Dexter imo. The books are just that good. The Producers seem on the ball too.

"She signs for the burgers and I crack up when it occurs to me that everyone knows that sex is better when you’re in Love. She sees me laughing and she writes one word: Pervert. She doesn’t look away when I stare into her eyes. Amy would have hit me or squirmed or made it all into a cynical joke. Beck would have pouted and brought up something boring like the etymology of the word. But Love’s eyes remain fixed on me and I know. She’s a pervert too."

Thanks to Maryse's Reviews for turning me on to YOU. I'd never have stumbled across it otherwise.

Joe Goldberg has a new girlfriend, and she's better than Beck. She's the best...until she steals his books and breaks his heart. Now he's on her trail and it takes him to L.A., the home of movie stars and shallow, and everything Joe hates. Until he meets his new obsession.

This is the perfect sequel to You. If you haven't read this book, you have to. So why no five star rating, you ask? Good question. There was a middle section of this book that I had to force myself through. At the time I thought it was dragging out and going nowhere, but then it went there, and then it was fine, but it still dragged a bit. Don't give up. Especially when you get deep into the character that you can't wait for Joe to kill, just so you can quit reading about him. He's an entitled, selfish jerk. The ending has me needing to discuss this book with someone. Anyone. I wish this had been a book club read because Kepnes throws us a curve that has to be resolved in a third book. Where is my third book? I'm dying here. *Changes rating to five stars.

Joe, the sociopath that we can't help but root for, is back again and continuing his quest for love. I'll admit I was hesitant to pick this book up, because I was worried the sequel would be nowhere near as good as the original. Rest assured, Caroline Kepnes is in top form and manages to take Joe on a whole new adventure, this time to sunny, star-ridden Los Angeles.

I have to say, Caroline Kepnes has created gold with someone like Joe Goldberg (yes, I went there). On the one hand, Joe is an unapologetic sociopath who can kill on a whim (always with a justified reason) and continues to brilliantly mock modern society. On the other hand, he's a hopeless romantic, the guy who just wants to fit in and find his place in the world (and we can all relate to that). Unfortunately, Joe has terrible luck when it comes to choosing women. At the start of the novel, Joe is at a low point as the woman who he currently thinks is The One betrays him. Joe stalks her to L.A. with every intention of killing her. But once he gets to L.A. he quickly gets sucked into the Hollywood scene, and then something unthinkable happens--he actually meets a girl, a girl who could very well be the One.

The pace of this novel kept moving and the author threw plenty of twists, a few of which completely blindsided me (something of a rarity). There were multiple occurrences where my jaw dropped. There were also multiple occasions when a shiver went down my spine as I watched Joe in action on the pages.

I appreciate that the author didn't just make this novel a carbon-copy of the original--this book was different, but still just as enjoyable as the first. I almost want there to be a sequel, just so there can be more Joe, but on the other hand these two books are so good I don't want to risk ruining it with a third.

If you haven’t read “You”, stop right here and get to work on that. Hidden Bodies is a direct sequel to “You” and they really must be read in order.

Here again we catch up with Joe who is as nutzo, murderous, hateful and lovable in his own weird way, as ever. He is just living his life, working in a bookstore, minding his own business and occasionally worrying about a mug of urine he accidentally left behind after doing something terrible. One fine day a lovely, leggy blonde named Amy walks her way into his life and they fall in love. She is perfect. She gets him. But then, as will happen – especially if you’re Joe, things go awry. Joe starts having those murderous feelings again and follows a trail to Los Angeles to get his murder on, sometimes succeeding, sometimes not. Somewhere along the way Joe becomes a "normie" and starts pal-ing around with some trust fund types. Here's where I got a little bored because I much prefer Joe when he is in full out obsessive mode and on a mission.

To say anything more would likely be a great big spoiler so I'll just say this book was good but it was no YOU. I'll still read the next one though.

Holy. Hell....

I know I shouldn't love Joe but I do. Like, he is me. Only he kills people. Does that make sense? Getting inside his head, seeing what he sees, it's outstanding. I posted somewhere that the author's writing is compelling and original. Caroline Kepnes is a genius and I can't wait to read whatever she writes in the future. Sure I'll love more Joe but I really want to see what else she can create. Ms. Kepnes is a favorite of mine. I will drop everything to read what she writes.

Hidden Bodies is the sequel to YOU (one of my all time fav books!) and after the events in You, we get more Joe with his new girl Amy. You can't help but want things to work out because they're so good together. Until they're not. And Amy is a sneaky little bitch who used Joe and you feel his revenge. You want him to find her. ;)

Some parts of the story dragged but knowing that Joe feels guilt and remorse over some the deaths he has caused and how different his world is when he meets Love kept me reading. Joe is a man of many talents and he is a force to be reckoned with with that brain of his.

If you're looking for a book so different than everything you've ever read, PICK. THIS. UP.

It's okay to want to be on the dark side. It is. ;)

Originally posted on The Book Nympho

Joe's story continues as he lands in Los Angeles trying to track Amy Adam, his latest lover who cleverly betrayed him.

While Joe isn't as creepy or seemingly as unhinged as he was in You, he hasn't lost his murder gene. His rationalization safe what's even scarier as I found myself often supporting his points of view. We get a much deeper sense of this man's intellect and cleverness. Joe embodies much of what we consider the human condition and it's unsettling to think how innocuously he appears to those around him. He could be anyone in our lives as no one seems to be able to see beneath the outward veneer he presents.

The narrator, Santino Fontana, is outstanding! He is Joe in every sense. He's funny when necessary and always cynical in delivery. When the character shifts in outlook, you hear that subtly. He made Joe leap off the pages.

Again, this story is profound less for the details of the story and more for how it creeps around your moral and ethical boundaries. Why in the world would I ever have a moment of sympathy and support for a character like Joe? I have no idea but, dang it all, I found myself rooting for Joe. 4.5 stars

Caroline Kepnes, I don't know if you know this or not but you are building a legion of fangirls and boys. We will follow you..........
Joe is that character that you are not sure you should admit to liking. You sure as heck shouldn't publicly acclaim just how much you adore him.
Joe falls for Amy, that chick from the end of the last book that gave him a fake credit card. She is so perfect for him. They get each other.
Then the scamming heifer takes off after robbing him.
Joe is not going to let that go. They had a relationship. It's unreal that she would do this.
So now poor Joe heads to somewhere he never thought he would go. Hollywood.
Los Angeles is full of places to hide a body, but when the person inside the body doesn't love you, it's not an easy thing, turning that breathing person into a dead one.

Joe even breaks down and has friends...and joins facebook.
Then Joe meets Love. Joe has that relationship. He has a match! Love loves Joe.
This book did go slow in places but Kepnes writes so damn well that I couldn't put it down. You have to know where she is going with her stories. Even when I figured stuff out I still wanted more.
I want more...and then some more.

So rest up Caroline Kepnes, please keep Joe going strong. Eat, rest and please keep writing.

Joe is one strange character. Do not make him mad. Don't even pretend to make him mad. Don't even look like your going to make him mad. While I did not read the first book, I got the gist of what transcended.

I'm pretty sure that there will be a third book, because it seems Joe can't go anywhere without running into some kind of trouble whether asked for or not. And he does have that cake in the oven.

This was definitely an unusual book. I'm laughing while I'm writing this. He runs into the strangest characters. The dude with the rolodex was by far the funniest.

I am now going to have to go back in time and read about Joe pre Love. Talk about weird, that it will be.

I truly enjoyed reading this book and listening to Joe reason with himself and try to figure out the world and things in front of him. He is one weird and lucky character!

Thanks to Atria Books for approving my request and to Net Galley for providing me with a free e-galley in exchange for an honest review. I recommend you pick Joe up and get to meet him. See what everyone's talking about. I think you will like him.

Just finished and my mind is still reeling after four days of digesting this seriously odd book. Having read You and trying to understand Joe I jumped in to read Hidden Bodies and still got lost in Joe's mind. He's a genius, a sicko, a reader, a lover and an all around nut job. Plain and simply put Joe is a murderer, almost serial but there is no pattern to his madness. He kills because he loves, he kills because he hates and he kills as a means to an end. The story is gripping and I kept turning the pages wondering who was next and wondering when it will stop. But it does and Joe finally grows up and is tested. There is so much to this story that will stay with me for a long time. What I enjoy about a good book is the dialogue, which is seriously lacking in this series. Joe speaks to us in a novel sized monologue with a few bits of conversation thrown around, so it makes for a slow moving book but yet it was steady. So, if you don't mind this sort of story telling then dive in and let Joe take you from New York to LA, from books to movies. My copy was given from the publisher through Netgalley.

Hidden Bodies is the much anticipated sequel to You by Caroline Kepnes. Unfortunately, it really didn’t live up to its predecessor. I really enjoyed You. It was a very unnerving book. It was violent and graphic, but that wasn’t the most unnerving thing. Joe was a funny guy. He was charming and likable. He could have been anyone. Someone you meet on the street and talk to regularly at the bookstore where he works. And you won’t find out how much of a sociopath he is until you cross him.
It started great with our charismatic protagonist Joe and his new girlfriend Amy. He describes how happy in love he is. He’s never felt this way before and Amy is the polar opposite of Beck. (Beck was Joe’s girlfriend/obsession in the first book, You.) Amy is off the grid. She has no bank account and claims not to be on any of the social networking sites.
Anyway, it doesn’t last long and Amy moves to LA. Joe follows her with the intent to kill her. For some reason, in Hidden Bodies, I can’t stand Joe. He’s finicky with girls, falling in love and obsessing. He also started to annoy me. The setting of LA was just infuriating also. All the secondary characters drove me crazy. I don’t know how much o f a stereotype this is of LA but I could not stand it.
I will be honest. I only read half the book. I’m can’t force myself to finish a novel that I just don’t like. I was really surprised that I feel this way because I expected to really like it.

I have to give this book Five Stars simply on the basis that Caroline Kepnes creates an affable serial killer.

I haven't read You, but after reading this, I really want to. Joe's internal dialogue is addicting. He's witty and can make himself charming. He manages to get himself out of scrapes and into the lifestyles of the rich and famous. He acts out on things most law-abiding citizens only think about. He's lucky as hell not to get caught. But if you're in his sights, beware.

I have never read a book where I wanted the killer to get away with it. Maybe it's because the people he kills are hard to like. He is a bit of a hypocrite. He does things that he would definitely kill others for. It is only a matter of time, though. Even if you are able to retrieve one incriminating mug of urine, there's always more out there.

I hope there is a part three.

Favorite quote: And this, this is why you have to kill people. If you don't, they don't learn anything.

Wow.
Just wow.
I’m just going to come right out and say it, and what I’m about to say some of you might not agree with or think is a bit much, but I have to give an honest review.
I’m not going to lie, I was pretty disappointed. After reading YOU and how much that book mind-blew me I thought Hidden Bodies would be a continuation of that. But I’m sad to say that this book was a huge disappointment for me.
Perhaps I expected too much from it given its predecessor but, come on now.

Joe Goldberg has moved on with his life and is now in love with Amy Adam. She’s perfect, she gets him, they do everything together and he believes this is it for him. But Amy suddenly disappears, stealing from him and that’s something he can’t tolerate. Joe flies across the country to search for her in Los Angeles, the city of Hollywood and Actors. Here he can be anyone he needs and wants to be in order to find Amy (and kill her), and it is here he learns how real and how misleading people can be, and what it means to find love – real Love.

I had very high hopes when I found out there was going to be a sequel.
Here is this perfectly normal looking man who lives a perfectly average life and you find out that he’s not normal, that he’s actually pretty messed up, and you actually find yourself agreeing with how messed up he is.
MIND-BLOW.

Hidden Bodies started out strong, started off with a sense that you were going to ease into the story and not jump right into the crazy. Then the crazy happened! Slowly but surely, and then somewhere….I don’t know what happened, it just died… I DON’T KNOW WHAT HAPPENED. I just felt that the book lost all its magic, all its crazy, all the real murderous intent and the moral conflict the reader should have or felt like in the first book.

Honestly, I felt bored, and just wanted the story to be over. I can’t explain, but there was just no conflict, no drama, Joe was just…in the background and it was just boring. He was taken advantage of, tossed aside, became a secondary character in the background, and I didn’t feel like there was anymore passion, like he would just sit there and take it – live this new lifestyle and forgo what he was supposed to be doing all along. JOE CHANGED and not for the better.

I will say that the book did manage to pick up towards the end, but even then everything felt super rushed for some reason – either because I just wanted to finish the book right away, or just the way the events moved seemed to feel really fast.
The end was the best part for a number of different reasons, because that’s when you get to see old Joe, his thought process, and then you question whether or not he’s actually sane.

All in all, this book fell extremely short for me and I would have rather that You be a standalone.

I should have listened to friends that said you have to read book 1 in this series (You) before reading Hidden Bodies. There are many situations that happen in books 1 that lead directly to this book, so I was somewhat lost.

Joe Goldberg is looking for true love. When he thinks he has finally found it, he is betrayed once again, so he travels across the country, all the way from New York to California, to find the girl who has treated him badly and kill her. Seems every time he doesn't have his way he just decides to eliminate the problem, instead of fixing it.

Though he doesn't find her, he does meet Love, who seems to be the perfect woman for him. But that doesn't stop him from leaving a trail of dead people behind him. We have a very creative killer here.

Though I did like it, I didn't love it. I have seldom seen a cast of characters so shallow and full of themselves.

I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Me thinks you should not start this one before reading the first book You .

“Love,” I say. I’ve never harmed an animal; I can’t imagine being that sort of monster. “Jesus Christ.”

'You' was a love-it-or-hate-it book, and this time you are not sure if you want to love or hate Mr. Fuckedup Stalker Joe.
Cause he finds love.
He loves Love.
And he behaves a teeny, tiny bit better. But not much.
You even start to wish him the best, that everything turns out alright. You just KNOW that will not be the case.

He is even 'on the grid', creating a FB account.

Facebook is only people trying to help each other from being lonely.

I liked the writing style better this time. There were parts that were a bit chaotic and I started to gloss over them, but still, I was completely engaged.

Now, will there be a part 3?
Please say yes!

Review copy supplied by publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a rating and/or review.

I am thoroughly disappointed in this "sequel" to You. You captivated me and held my attention, and I devoured that book, intensely interested in Joe and his obsession with Beck and what would happen to her.

Hidden Bodies started out promising. I really enjoyed the beginning and his story with Amy, and I wish that the book stayed true to its plot, but it didn't.

SPOILER ALERT**

I usually finish books in 2-3 days, and that's with having three kids and working part time, but it took me several weeks to get through this, and even then I skipped the hundred pages or so preceding the last chapter. I couldn't take it anymore, and I couldn't imagine the book getting any better. The story between Joe and Love was so unlikely and boring to me, and honestly I really did not like Love at all. There was nothing endearing about her to make me care about her relationship with Joe. Beck was one of the most real characters I'd ever read about. I felt she was developed so complexly, and even though I didn't care for her at times, I cared about what happened to her, because she seemed real, and she was undeserving of dating a killer. But Love? I was indifferent throughout the book. She's just another rich L.A. girl, and she may be a good person overall, but there was nothing special about her to prompt me to care enough to read hundreds of pages about their relationship. Joe lost me almost completely, as well, and instead of being that guy you almost sympathized with in You, I grew to hate him. I am so glad that I skipped those pages that I did, because the last chapter was disappointing, and I certainly hope there is no third book. She lost the magic with this one. I would give it one star, but I do feel the author deserves some continued credit from You, because I think it was for the most part an awesome, original book.

I would not recommend this, and that's the bottom line. You ended perfectly, and it should have died with the first book.

"It is possible to know people. They show you who they are. You just have to be looking."

What does it say about me that I was rooting for Joe Goldberg fire most of this book? In this, the sequel to You, Joe Goldberg moves to the West Coast in hopes of getting something back that used to be his. I loved how LA was portrayed and I'm pretty sure it was a pretty realistic portrayal LoL. I had to chuckle a few times over some of the LA people Joe has to deal with because they would have drove me nuts too! I really liked this book better than You, but that was partly because Beck wasn't in this book (thank God) and I also listened to the audiobook and Santino Fontana brought creepy Joe to life! This book ended perfectly and I would have never guessed it in a million years. Caroline Kepnes did a great job bringing these charachters to life and to making this story so unpredictable that I couldn't put the book down!

Holy. Hell....

I know I shouldn't love Joe but I do. Like, he is me. Only he kills people. Does that make sense? Getting inside his head, seeing what he sees, it's outstanding. I posted somewhere that the author's writing is compelling and original. Caroline Kepnes is a genius and I can't wait to read whatever she writes in the future. Sure I'll love more Joe but I really want to see what else she can create. Ms. Kepnes is a favorite of mine. I will drop everything to read what she writes.

Hidden Bodies is the sequel to YOU (one of my all time fav books!) and after the events in You, we get more Joe with his new girl Amy. You can't help but want things to work out because they're so good together. Until they're not. And Amy is a sneaky little bitch who used Joe and you feel his revenge. You want him to find her. ;)

Some parts of the story dragged but knowing that Joe feels guilt and remorse over some the deaths he has caused and how different his world is when he meets Love kept me reading. Joe is a man of many talents and he is a force to be reckoned with with that brain of his.

If you're looking for a book so different than everything you've ever read, PICK. THIS. UP.

It's okay to want to be on the dark side. It is. ;)

Originally posted on The Book Nympho

Joe's story continues as he lands in Los Angeles trying to track Amy Adam, his latest lover who cleverly betrayed him.

While Joe isn't as creepy or seemingly as unhinged as he was in You, he hasn't lost his murder gene. His rationalization safe what's even scarier as I found myself often supporting his points of view. We get a much deeper sense of this man's intellect and cleverness. Joe embodies much of what we consider the human condition and it's unsettling to think how innocuously he appears to those around him. He could be anyone in our lives as no one seems to be able to see beneath the outward veneer he presents.

The narrator, Santino Fontana, is outstanding! He is Joe in every sense. He's funny when necessary and always cynical in delivery. When the character shifts in outlook, you hear that subtly. He made Joe leap off the pages.

Again, this story is profound less for the details of the story and more for how it creeps around your moral and ethical boundaries. Why in the world would I ever have a moment of sympathy and support for a character like Joe? I have no idea but, dang it all, I found myself rooting for Joe. 4.5 stars

Caroline Kepnes, I don't know if you know this or not but you are building a legion of fangirls and boys. We will follow you..........
Joe is that character that you are not sure you should admit to liking. You sure as heck shouldn't publicly acclaim just how much you adore him.
Joe falls for Amy, that chick from the end of the last book that gave him a fake credit card. She is so perfect for him. They get each other.
Then the scamming heifer takes off after robbing him.
Joe is not going to let that go. They had a relationship. It's unreal that she would do this.
So now poor Joe heads to somewhere he never thought he would go. Hollywood.
Los Angeles is full of places to hide a body, but when the person inside the body doesn't love you, it's not an easy thing, turning that breathing person into a dead one.

Joe even breaks down and has friends...and joins facebook.
Then Joe meets Love. Joe has that relationship. He has a match! Love loves Joe.
This book did go slow in places but Kepnes writes so damn well that I couldn't put it down. You have to know where she is going with her stories. Even when I figured stuff out I still wanted more.
I want more...and then some more.

So rest up Caroline Kepnes, please keep Joe going strong. Eat, rest and please keep writing.

Joe is one strange character. Do not make him mad. Don't even pretend to make him mad. Don't even look like your going to make him mad. While I did not read the first book, I got the gist of what transcended.

I'm pretty sure that there will be a third book, because it seems Joe can't go anywhere without running into some kind of trouble whether asked for or not. And he does have that cake in the oven.

This was definitely an unusual book. I'm laughing while I'm writing this. He runs into the strangest characters. The dude with the rolodex was by far the funniest.

I am now going to have to go back in time and read about Joe pre Love. Talk about weird, that it will be.

I truly enjoyed reading this book and listening to Joe reason with himself and try to figure out the world and things in front of him. He is one weird and lucky character!

Thanks to Atria Books for approving my request and to Net Galley for providing me with a free e-galley in exchange for an honest review. I recommend you pick Joe up and get to meet him. See what everyone's talking about. I think you will like him.

Just finished and my mind is still reeling after four days of digesting this seriously odd book. Having read You and trying to understand Joe I jumped in to read Hidden Bodies and still got lost in Joe's mind. He's a genius, a sicko, a reader, a lover and an all around nut job. Plain and simply put Joe is a murderer, almost serial but there is no pattern to his madness. He kills because he loves, he kills because he hates and he kills as a means to an end. The story is gripping and I kept turning the pages wondering who was next and wondering when it will stop. But it does and Joe finally grows up and is tested. There is so much to this story that will stay with me for a long time. What I enjoy about a good book is the dialogue, which is seriously lacking in this series. Joe speaks to us in a novel sized monologue with a few bits of conversation thrown around, so it makes for a slow moving book but yet it was steady. So, if you don't mind this sort of story telling then dive in and let Joe take you from New York to LA, from books to movies. My copy was given from the publisher through Netgalley.

Hidden Bodies is the much anticipated sequel to You by Caroline Kepnes. Unfortunately, it really didn’t live up to its predecessor. I really enjoyed You. It was a very unnerving book. It was violent and graphic, but that wasn’t the most unnerving thing. Joe was a funny guy. He was charming and likable. He could have been anyone. Someone you meet on the street and talk to regularly at the bookstore where he works. And you won’t find out how much of a sociopath he is until you cross him.
It started great with our charismatic protagonist Joe and his new girlfriend Amy. He describes how happy in love he is. He’s never felt this way before and Amy is the polar opposite of Beck. (Beck was Joe’s girlfriend/obsession in the first book, You.) Amy is off the grid. She has no bank account and claims not to be on any of the social networking sites.
Anyway, it doesn’t last long and Amy moves to LA. Joe follows her with the intent to kill her. For some reason, in Hidden Bodies, I can’t stand Joe. He’s finicky with girls, falling in love and obsessing. He also started to annoy me. The setting of LA was just infuriating also. All the secondary characters drove me crazy. I don’t know how much o f a stereotype this is of LA but I could not stand it.
I will be honest. I only read half the book. I’m can’t force myself to finish a novel that I just don’t like. I was really surprised that I feel this way because I expected to really like it.

I have to give this book Five Stars simply on the basis that Caroline Kepnes creates an affable serial killer.

I haven't read You, but after reading this, I really want to. Joe's internal dialogue is addicting. He's witty and can make himself charming. He manages to get himself out of scrapes and into the lifestyles of the rich and famous. He acts out on things most law-abiding citizens only think about. He's lucky as hell not to get caught. But if you're in his sights, beware.

I have never read a book where I wanted the killer to get away with it. Maybe it's because the people he kills are hard to like. He is a bit of a hypocrite. He does things that he would definitely kill others for. It is only a matter of time, though. Even if you are able to retrieve one incriminating mug of urine, there's always more out there.

I hope there is a part three.

Favorite quote: And this, this is why you have to kill people. If you don't, they don't learn anything.

Wow.
Just wow.
I’m just going to come right out and say it, and what I’m about to say some of you might not agree with or think is a bit much, but I have to give an honest review.
I’m not going to lie, I was pretty disappointed. After reading YOU and how much that book mind-blew me I thought Hidden Bodies would be a continuation of that. But I’m sad to say that this book was a huge disappointment for me.
Perhaps I expected too much from it given its predecessor but, come on now.

Joe Goldberg has moved on with his life and is now in love with Amy Adam. She’s perfect, she gets him, they do everything together and he believes this is it for him. But Amy suddenly disappears, stealing from him and that’s something he can’t tolerate. Joe flies across the country to search for her in Los Angeles, the city of Hollywood and Actors. Here he can be anyone he needs and wants to be in order to find Amy (and kill her), and it is here he learns how real and how misleading people can be, and what it means to find love – real Love.

I had very high hopes when I found out there was going to be a sequel.
Here is this perfectly normal looking man who lives a perfectly average life and you find out that he’s not normal, that he’s actually pretty messed up, and you actually find yourself agreeing with how messed up he is.
MIND-BLOW.

Hidden Bodies started out strong, started off with a sense that you were going to ease into the story and not jump right into the crazy. Then the crazy happened! Slowly but surely, and then somewhere….I don’t know what happened, it just died… I DON’T KNOW WHAT HAPPENED. I just felt that the book lost all its magic, all its crazy, all the real murderous intent and the moral conflict the reader should have or felt like in the first book.

Honestly, I felt bored, and just wanted the story to be over. I can’t explain, but there was just no conflict, no drama, Joe was just…in the background and it was just boring. He was taken advantage of, tossed aside, became a secondary character in the background, and I didn’t feel like there was anymore passion, like he would just sit there and take it – live this new lifestyle and forgo what he was supposed to be doing all along. JOE CHANGED and not for the better.

I will say that the book did manage to pick up towards the end, but even then everything felt super rushed for some reason – either because I just wanted to finish the book right away, or just the way the events moved seemed to feel really fast.
The end was the best part for a number of different reasons, because that’s when you get to see old Joe, his thought process, and then you question whether or not he’s actually sane.

All in all, this book fell extremely short for me and I would have rather that You be a standalone.

I should have listened to friends that said you have to read book 1 in this series (You) before reading Hidden Bodies. There are many situations that happen in books 1 that lead directly to this book, so I was somewhat lost.

Joe Goldberg is looking for true love. When he thinks he has finally found it, he is betrayed once again, so he travels across the country, all the way from New York to California, to find the girl who has treated him badly and kill her. Seems every time he doesn't have his way he just decides to eliminate the problem, instead of fixing it.

Though he doesn't find her, he does meet Love, who seems to be the perfect woman for him. But that doesn't stop him from leaving a trail of dead people behind him. We have a very creative killer here.

Though I did like it, I didn't love it. I have seldom seen a cast of characters so shallow and full of themselves.

I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Me thinks you should not start this one before reading the first book You .

“Love,” I say. I’ve never harmed an animal; I can’t imagine being that sort of monster. “Jesus Christ.”

'You' was a love-it-or-hate-it book, and this time you are not sure if you want to love or hate Mr. Fuckedup Stalker Joe.
Cause he finds love.
He loves Love.
And he behaves a teeny, tiny bit better. But not much.
You even start to wish him the best, that everything turns out alright. You just KNOW that will not be the case.

He is even 'on the grid', creating a FB account.

Facebook is only people trying to help each other from being lonely.

I liked the writing style better this time. There were parts that were a bit chaotic and I started to gloss over them, but still, I was completely engaged.

Now, will there be a part 3?
Please say yes!

Review copy supplied by publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a rating and/or review.

I am thoroughly disappointed in this "sequel" to You. You captivated me and held my attention, and I devoured that book, intensely interested in Joe and his obsession with Beck and what would happen to her.

Hidden Bodies started out promising. I really enjoyed the beginning and his story with Amy, and I wish that the book stayed true to its plot, but it didn't.

SPOILER ALERT**

I usually finish books in 2-3 days, and that's with having three kids and working part time, but it took me several weeks to get through this, and even then I skipped the hundred pages or so preceding the last chapter. I couldn't take it anymore, and I couldn't imagine the book getting any better. The story between Joe and Love was so unlikely and boring to me, and honestly I really did not like Love at all. There was nothing endearing about her to make me care about her relationship with Joe. Beck was one of the most real characters I'd ever read about. I felt she was developed so complexly, and even though I didn't care for her at times, I cared about what happened to her, because she seemed real, and she was undeserving of dating a killer. But Love? I was indifferent throughout the book. She's just another rich L.A. girl, and she may be a good person overall, but there was nothing special about her to prompt me to care enough to read hundreds of pages about their relationship. Joe lost me almost completely, as well, and instead of being that guy you almost sympathized with in You, I grew to hate him. I am so glad that I skipped those pages that I did, because the last chapter was disappointing, and I certainly hope there is no third book. She lost the magic with this one. I would give it one star, but I do feel the author deserves some continued credit from You, because I think it was for the most part an awesome, original book.

I would not recommend this, and that's the bottom line. You ended perfectly, and it should have died with the first book.

"It is possible to know people. They show you who they are. You just have to be looking."

What does it say about me that I was rooting for Joe Goldberg fire most of this book? In this, the sequel to You, Joe Goldberg moves to the West Coast in hopes of getting something back that used to be his. I loved how LA was portrayed and I'm pretty sure it was a pretty realistic portrayal LoL. I had to chuckle a few times over some of the LA people Joe has to deal with because they would have drove me nuts too! I really liked this book better than You, but that was partly because Beck wasn't in this book (thank God) and I also listened to the audiobook and Santino Fontana brought creepy Joe to life! This book ended perfectly and I would have never guessed it in a million years. Caroline Kepnes did a great job bringing these charachters to life and to making this story so unpredictable that I couldn't put the book down!

John Krasinski is my Joe Goldberg. I love Joe! I love being in the mind of a smart effed up killer. I love his black humor and his annoyed thoughts.

....and this is why you have to kill people otherwise they never learn...

I love how it's just so normal for him.

I went into this book expecting it to be all about Amy and Joe. Caroline put a twist on that.. hence "hidden bodies" ... and made it so much bigger and better! Joe meets Love and Love is love.

Is Joe done? In the end I hope it was left open for more!

"You" by Caroline Kepnes was an amazing, hilarious, and deliciously wicked novel. I didn't think it was necessary when I heard a sequel was coming out. "Hidden Bodies" is that sequel and boy, what a major letdown. I think some of the reviewers who gave "Hidden Bodies" a 4 or 5 star rating are really kidding themselves. They are being WAY too generous. Caroline Kepnes should be ashamed of herself for releasing this monstrosity. It is horrible. Poorly written and juvenile at best. Joe comes off like an immature, selfish, arrogant, little brat this time around. In "You", he was so charming even though did some unforgivable things. I almost gave up 2-3 times before I was 100 pages in. That's how unbearable it was to get though. But I pushed through it and the ending was lame and lacked creativity. It's pretty obvious that Kepnes will churn out a 3rd book. "Hidden Bodies" was such a waste of time and money. I hated EVERY character, especially Love. She made Beck from "You" seem like an absolute sweetheart. SKIP. THIS. STINKER.

Caroline Kepnes's second book, Hidden Bodies has just released.

I really liked Kepnes's first book You. (my review) You introduced us to Joe, a sociopathic, narcissistic bookseller who thinks he's found the girl of his dreams. But the path to true love is a very bumpy one.....

Joe returns in Hidden Bodies. He's in love again. And again it's a bumpy road. You was told in Joe's unending, seriously disturbed stream of consciousness narrative. That narrative continues in Hidden Bodies.

Kepnes had my attention in the beginning as Joe is up to his old tricks....

"You don't go to a party empty-handed and my reusable Pantry bag is stuffed with rope, my Rachael Ray knife, rubber gloves, plastic bags, duct tape, and Percocets from Dez."

....but I slowly found my attention wandering as the book progressed. (spoiler) Joe ending up in Hollywood was just - I don't know - too much of a stretch for me. I must admit, that plots involving stars, movies, Hollywood etc. bore me.

A big part of Joe's life revolves around his sex life. In You it made sense and was an integral part of the plot. But I found it overdone in Hidden Bodies. Honestly, I just grew weary of Joe and his d**k. (His words not mine) His detailed sexual escapades, exploits and fantasies lost the sense of shock or effect with so much repetition. Again, I grew bored.

I liked Joe in You and even felt sorry for him. As I read, I saw shades of Dexter. I didn't have the same reaction this read. Instead, I found Joe to be flat and just not as interesting the second time around. I already knew who and what he was - his actions weren't much of a surprise, but simply another helping of the same. I saw the book through to the end - which finishes up somewhat ambiguously - hinting at perhaps a third Joe book - one I won't be picking up.

I think I'm in the minority on this one.

Aahhh...So. So. Good. I really like Joe! I know it’s wrong and I should hate this man but I don’t. It’s kinda twisted how I find myself rooting for him but I just can’t help it. And the narrator of this book could actually be Joe. He does a wonderful job and I feel as though it’s Joe himself. Anyways, I highly recommend this book after you read the first book in the series, You.

Just another amazing book from Caroline Kepnes. I don't even know how to describe how much I like this book and the one before it, "You". Joe is a really interesting character, obsessive and falls in love too easily with women that do not always treat him well, but he gets revenge on anyone that wrongs him through a twisted sense of justice. Something I really admire is how Kepnes writes from his perspective in the way I think most of us think- in a run-on sentence/paragraph thing that really gives you the feeling that he is crazy but it is still so genuine. So fascinating. It seems realistic enough, but also totally crazy. It's funny, but suspenseful, but kind of romantic, and sometimes you root for the bad guy and I just love it. Give it a chance if you are looking for something to read!

I began this immediately after reading You and falling in love with Caroline Kepnes and Joe. Right away I found myself a little bummed that we were no longer on the streets of New York but in LA. It seems with the location change also came a change in any sort of reality. The more I read on the more absurd most of the situations seemed. That being said Kepnes still knows how to keep a reader addicted and just like the first one I found myself unable to put the book down. Joe is so compelling and this series is so much fun and I cannot wait for the next one!

*Thank you Netgalley for this review copy

More,I need more! Devour is not a strong enough word for what I did with this book. I read both you and hidden bodies in a matter of 2 days, it's all I could think about. I was picking up my book every second of every day. I'm just about to wrap up hidden bodies and I'm mad that I have to go to work. But I also don't want to finish the book because I don't want it to end if that makes sense. I really hope there's a third.

I just figuratively can't even with Joe Goldberg. He has become, perhaps, my favorite fictional character of all time. I love him. I miss him already after putting this book down. I pray there's another book to come next. Caroline Kepnes has MASTERED the art of the likeable villain. Witty, hilarious, tortured, sexy, intelligent, I could go on forever. I never thought I'd fall in love with a serial killer; I also never thought I'd find a mug of urine romantic. But Kepnes has changed that. And for that alone, I can easily say she's become my new favorite author. If you haven't read You, or Hidden Bodies, I question your judgment on books. READ THIS.

All I can say is...OH, MY GOD!! I am such a huge fan of Caroline Kepnes! I have been impatiently waiting for the sequel to You and it has finally arrived! Hidden Bodies deserves more than five stars, but that's all I'm allowed to give. Want to know how to get away with murder? Ask Joe; a psychopath that will go to the ends of the earth to get revenge. He continues to get even with any and everyone that crosses him. But know Joe is in love. Not like the love he had before with two other women, who met their untimely deaths. This is real. And he will do everything to keep it. Even if he has to take out a family member or friend to do it.

Much like its predecessor, this sequel to Kepnes' debut novel, You, leaves me with mixed feelings. My reading experience with this one is quite different from the first novel, as I listened to You on Audible. I certainly hope that the audio version for this one has the same talented performer! While reading this one, I very often had that narrator's voice in my head! The storyline here picks up not too long after the first book's conclusion. Joe has a new love interest - Amy Adam, first introduced in You. Together, they are going back to a pivotal location in Joe's past. Though happy with Amy, Joe is haunted - not by his own violent actions, but by some loose ends from those actions.

When his new relationship takes an abrupt turn, Joe makes a move from New York to Hollywood, with dark plans brewing. Once in California, Joe makes some new friends - and enemies... Once again the body count rises - with the same touches of humour. The book ends on a bit of a cliffhanger, so I think that a third novel is planned, though I think I will return to the audio format - the performer makes Joe a bit more palatable and the humour shines a bit more. The series still feels inspired by the Dexter series, but is lacking in some of the campy fun. The plot here does have some genuine surprises, though, and it is an engaging read, though I think I personally would have enjoyed the audio version a bit more!

Apparently lightning does strike twice. Caroline Kepnes managed to craft another creepy, shocking, hilarious, and absolutely addictive read.

Right off the bat we’re thrown into the middle of Joe’s next chapter. Impressively we’re hit with a major plot twist and almost immediately taken cross country to sunny SoCal.

Just when you think you’ve got Joe and his next move all figured out, Kepnes throws you another curve ball. I seriously did not see that ending coming. HIDDEN BODIES is NOT to be missed!

What Did I Miss That Everyone Else Loved?
Evidently I really missed out on the book that preceded Hidden Bodies by Caroline Kepnes. I read this book with an open mind, thought it's difficult for me, sometimes, to switch from one genre to another. Books stick with me, as do genres. Going from family and romance to a psychotic, narcissistic murderer like Joe offered up a bit of transferal turbulence.

Hidden Bodies is about a guy who's got physical skeletons in his closet. He's creatively butchered several people and their bodies are either tucked away or blamed on another. He's good and he knows he's good, but the past won't stay in the past. He's losing it. Simple things like moving violations sends him into anxiety attacks.

All he wants is peace and to enjoy the new love of his life. She's perfect for him, so he believes. All he wants is to be with her and forget everything else, but if he's unlucky enough to be found out, he may have to do away with her too.
This review won't be very long because I didn't like it. Not to knock this author, because from what I hear, You was amazing! You is the book that Kepnes wrote before this one...
*For the full review of Hidden Bodies: (...)
**Book was provided by Shelf Awareness and Atria Books, for an honest review.

Hidden Bodies is book two in the You series. In this installment, Joe Goldberg is trying to move on from the events in the first book. Normal stuff like murdered his girlfriend Beck, and a few other people. Oh and he might have left a mug of urine at a crime scene. But Joe is trying to move on from all of that and we start Hidden Bodies with him and his new girlfriend, Amy. She works with him at the bookstore and things seem to be going great. That is until they aren't and he winds up moving to California to hunt her down.

Joe meets a ton of new people while he's in California, a new love interest, a few people he wants to kill and he also finds himself. He's discovering passions in his life he never knew existed all because he decided to chase after an elusive ex-girlfriend. That being said, I really expected the same Joe in this installment, the one full of obsession and cunning. While he does obsess about a few people, it doesn't get to that level in this book. He's still a legit crazy pants, and I kept saying just one more chapter while reading, but it wasn't the same. Our Joe is changing, and all I wanted was more glimpses of the old Joe, the crazy one that kills people. I think I'm missing the show, Dexter, too much.

I feel like this book focuses more on Joe accepting himself and the people around him. He's trying to find love and I feel his character shows major changes as the book progresses. Those changes kept me quite intrigued while reading and I kept wondering if he'd slip back into his old ways. There is a cliffhanger type ending, I want need to know what happens next. I will be reading book three if/when it comes out (no announcement yet), which hopefully isn't too far away. I'd recommend this series if you're looking for something outside of the box. I never thought I'd love reading a book about a crazy stalker guy, but it just works.

I couldn’t wait for this to be over. I liked You a lot because I thought it was so interesting to read Joe’s point of view, the way he misinterprets Beck’s words/actions to mean the total opposite of what she intended. Fast forward to Hidden Bodies and Joe is back to killing everyone who he comes across. It kind of seemed a little over the top. I get that it’s fiction, but it was just too much of a stretch to be a believable story for me. In the sequel, Joe turns into more of a killer who commits these acts when he doesn’t get his way vs in You, he was a killer who truly believed he was doing the right thing. I also felt like Kepnes was trying so hard for the story to be relevant. Hitting every pop culture reference she could think of ("guac," Reese Witherspoon, Amy Adams, Lilly Pulitzer, Taco Bell). It seemed so forced. Almost as if she was trying to convince the reader she's not a regular mom, she's a cool mom. Save your time.

Caroline Kepnes just has a way with words. This book is beautifully written. The characters are people you love to hate (or love to love?!). The tone is dark and hysterically funny at times. Kepnes has done it again. I can only hope there will be more books from Kepnes, I will read everything she writes. I received a copy of the book in exchange for my honest and fair review. All views are my own.

I've never rooted for a serial killer before, but then again, I've never read a series quite like this. Kepnes combines the best parts of pop culture and pop psychology in creating this story. Different from the first book, this is a rare sequel that stands on its own and keeps readers enthralled with its unanticipated twists and turns.

Captivating from beginning to end. I want spend any time summarizing the plot. What's amazing about this book is that it's replete with current pop cultural reference and takes place in very recognizable areas of Los Angeles. But the plot is great in its meandering story about a Dexter-type "protagonist." This book is different and well worth it.

The follow up to YOU is absolutely great! Joe is a really nice guy - smart, good looking, intelligent, and almost too good to be true. He's also a serial killer - and when he loves you, he can love you to death.
I am glad I had read YOU. I would definitely recommend reading this book first because it gives you a full background of the characters and makes Hidden Bodies more meaningful to the reader.
I really liked this one and can't wait to see if Joe returns....
RECOMMEND!

After reading You a couple months ago, then learning there would be another Book of Joe, I was very anxious to read more. I'm torn between wanting to hate joe for what he does, but rooting for him at the same time! Hidden Bodies was an amazing follow up to Caroline's debut novel. I loved every second of both books and am already hoping for more Joe!! Please Caroline! Write write write!

Hidden Bodies is Caroline Kepnes’ sequel to her smashing hit, You. In this one we see Joe trying to move on with his life from the terrible way things ended with Beck. He has a new lady love in his life and things are going really well, until they don’t. I’ll admit up front that this one didn’t turn out the way I expected. I went back and forth with wanting Joe to succeed and for him to fail. The end result was completely unexpected and it’s left me with mixed feelings! Lol.

Joe had built a new life for himself with Amy, but then the unthinkable happens and Amy betrays him. He’s now out for revenge and travels across the country to Hollywood to track her down and show her why you don’t make Joe angry! Joe is starting a new life from scratch here and has very little to go on, but he knows what to look for when it comes to tracking Amy down. The only thing he doesn’t expect was to fall in love, again.

This time the woman is different, Love—yup, her name’s really Love—is everything he could hope for in a girlfriend. She’s perfect for him and we already see him planning their life together. Love though comes with a bit of baggage, an ex-boyfriend who remains a really good family friend, a druggie brother who just wants to make it big in Hollywood. But Joe is willing to look past all that just to be with her…until things start to get in their way of happiness.

Trouble continues to brew when his past comes back to haunt him. He’s forever remembering the bit of evidence he left at Peach’s place that fateful weekend so long ago. He tries to forget, but it haunts him still. And yet more problems continue to appear and interfere with the life and happiness Joe is trying to build.

I guess when I picked this one up, I was expecting to see the same Joe Goldberg we met in You, and while we might see that Joe in the beginning, his change was unexpected. Sure, he doesn’t change completely, not right away, but I feel like the creepy-stalker-murderer Joe has turned a new leaf. It was odd in some ways because can killers really change? I don’t know what this is saying about my own morale and all that, but it was just odd to see things playing out the way they did in t end.

Another surprising turn was that his mission to hunt down Amy gets waylaid when he meets and falls in love with Love. His whole mission gets tossed aside because he’s found love, again. And that just didn’t really feel like Joe to me. I mean, he’s Joe! You don’t make Joe angry, yet this new side to him allowed him to forget his mission, his revenge.

This one doesn’t quite have the same tone as You did either. Joe is still narrating to us in his usual first person point of view, but it feels less like he’s talking to someone specific. So basically he’s telling us the story versus whoever he was falling in love with, which was kind of odd to in that sense, but it definitely made it easier to read at times! Though I did kind of miss the language that was pure Joe.

The ending was unexpected either! You kept thinking this would happen or that was going to happen but in the end, you are taken completely by surprise! It definitely wasn’t an ending I foresaw in my thought process! I can’t quite be sure how I feel about it either. I guess I don’t really know what I wanted to happen. As I said I went back and forth with this one a lot. While Hidden Bodies definitely had its merits, I found that I enjoyed You a lot better than this one! This is still a worthy read if you enjoyed the first book, because one has to know, what will Joe do next?

Overall Rating 3.75/5 stars

Joe Goldberg is back and he has a new object of obsession and affection. Amy Adam believes in living off the grid: temporary cell phones, no social media, and even no banks. She has a few weird quirks, but he's fallen head over heels in love with her. Only one thing is harshing his happiness: the evidence he left at Peach Salinger's house right before he murdered her. To kill two birds with one stone, he decides to take Amy on a road trip around there and get rid of the evidence at the same time. They have a wonderful time, but so many Salingers surround the property that Joe can't enter. He returns home a little sad, but becomes devastated when he discovers that Amy duped him. She left town with the rare books from the cage in his bookstore. Enraged, he lets go of his life in New York and follows Amy to LA to teach her a lesson.

I went into Hidden Bodies thinking it would be a lot like You: Joe would pick out a woman, employ similar stalker and invasive maneuvers to keep tabs on her, and then eventually find out she's a real person and kill her. I was completely wrong. It starts out much the same way, but he's forced to actually trust her due to her desire to live off the grid. When she dupes him, it doesn't come as a surprise since the first time he met her, she paid for books using a stolen credit card. His journey and adjustment to Los Angeles are amusing because of the disparity between his expectations and the reality of the city. Joe spends some time tracking down the elusive Amy, but once he meets Love, he ceases to care. She just so happens to be rich and opens up a whole new world to him in LA with her connections.

The rest of the novel is a mix of a Bret Easton Ellis novel, the Great Gatsby, and of course Catcher in the Rye. Joe hates fakes and phonies but he is one himself. As before, his story normalizes his insane perspective so after a while it actually seems pretty reasonable until the more extreme thoughts come out. His narrative is full of self doubt and leaps in conclusion. He never quite feels like he belongs because he really doesn't. His constant lies and different background keep him separate from the others plus his past sins and mistakes frequently come to haunt him as well. However, all of his acquaintances are just as hollow as he is, so he does fit in, in a way. I practically got whiplash at times because he would be completely convinced someone saw through him, already planning their murder, and the next second, it was a misunderstanding and everything is fine. He gets completely caught up in the rich Californian lifestyle, complete with aspirations to be the film writer he claims to be. The most hilarious part of the story was when a woman on his floor starts stalking him and he's freaked out that she's invading his privacy. He spent the entire last book justifying his stalker actions and when the tables are turned, he just doesn't see it the same way.

Hidden Bodies is an unexpected sequel to You that ends with a definite opening for another book. This isn't my favorite series, but Kepnes knows how to keep my interest and is willing to explore reprehensible characters in interesting ways. My only complaint would be that the Hollywood decadence and his struggle for a career took up too much of the book. Other than that, I enjoyed it and I would read the next one if there is one.

I was super late to the Joe Goldberg party when I read You. Our beloved Joe is back in the follow-up and he's just as creepy and charming. Hidden Bodies was entertaining with solid writing, but the book moved rather slowly in several parts. I found myself pressing pause several times.

Joe continues his quest for romance. He thought he'd found love in Amy freaking Adam until she steals from him, fleeing to Los Angeles with Joe's money and precious first editions. Joe leaves New York for L.A. to hunt her down and kill her. But what he finds is the one thing he's always wanted—Love.

Like You, Hidden Bodies was wildly funny. Joe's brand of humor is my brand of humor. Kepnes pens Joe's character with a sharp wit and with an equally sharp pen. I was already laughing out loud in the first few paragraphs. Those of you who appreciated Joe's character in You will find him just as amusing and fun to read in Hidden Bodies. Santino Fontana's narration of Joe supplements Kepnes's characterization and brings this disturbingly charming character to life.

I hate to say this but somewhere along the way all the things—the Joe, the hunt, the schtick—that worked in You lost its luster and and in turn the book lost its momentum, causing my interest to wane. In addition, I felt like Joe kept going through the same motions that did—he meets someone, they cross him, he kills them. There was a lot of sameness, if that makes sense.

I thought the book definitely picked up towards the end with Joe's future dramatically changed. Kepnes leaves the story in a very interesting place, paving the way for more Joe on the horizon. I can't wait!

* I received an advanced copy and an audiobook from the publisher. Receiving this book for free did not affect my opinion or rating.

I've listened to the audio book "You" and have just finished Caroline Kepnes' latest book, also on audio. The narrator is fantastic. He IS Joe Goldberg! I find myself cheering for Joe, who is such a twisted and dark character. The author's repeated use of "and" to connect multiple sentences is indicative of Joe’s manic nature. Somehow I just want him to succeed in his endeavors. Both of these books were a wild ride; wonderfully written and so entertaining -- to the extent serial killing is entertaining.

Hidden Bodies is the much anticipated second book in the You series. It is a follow-up to the popular book, You. These books are adult psychological thrillers.

There will be spoilers from the first book, You.

In the first book Joe met/dated/stalked Beck. She was his everything. It did not end well for her.

Joe is probably the creepiest narrator that I've ever read. In book one he ran a bookstore. He had a cage in the basement of this store where he sometimes kept people. He had a creepy box stashed in his wall of Beck's stuff. Basically he read her emails, killed her friends, and blamed her death on the doctor she was cheating on him with.

At the end of You, Beck is dead. But a new girl, Amy Adams wants a job at the bookstore. Joe wants her to be his new Beck...

I definitely liked Hidden Bodies more than I liked You. One of my least favorite things about You was that there was so much "you this, and you that" and that actually drove me slightly crazy. So there is none of that in this book. Joe is the narrator but it is told entirely in 1st person POV.

The story picks up where the first book left off. Joe is now obsessed with Amy Adams.

The author spends a lot of time reminding the reader of things that happened in You. The book begins with him creepily rehashing the not so lovely thing that he did in the first book. I liked this, because when you read a lot it can sometimes be hard to remember specifics.

The tone starts off so creepy. RIP Peach. RIP Beck. I actually forgot how completely crazy Joe is.

I love the title, since there are literally bodies hidden all over the place.

The book is disturbing. There is a fair amount of sex in this book. It is done in a much more crude way than I am used to.

Joe is a psychopath. I really did not like Joe at all in You. And for much of Hidden Bodies I still found him to be unlikable and evil. It is quite terrifying that someone like him could exist and be in relationships.

It is a powerful story. I did prefer it to the first book. But at times I felt uncomfortable with what I was reading. I could not relate to Joe. He is beyond creepy. A lot of readers like bad boys. But Joe takes the bad boy to a whole new level. At times he is horrible. Pure evil. It is mostly very hard to empathize with him. Although he did start to grow on me more as the book progressed.

Much of this book takes place in California when Joe moves out West from New York City. I liked that we got to see a lot of Hollywood. Joe meets twins Love and Forty. And that took the story in a whole new direction.

I felt like there was a lot happening in this book. Especially the last third of the book. There was honestly so much happening that there were new twists and turns practically on every page. And I really was not expecting much of it.

The book was disturbing. But I was sort of mesmerized by it. I was happy to get resolution to some things that I wasn't sure would be resolved. And I feel like we sort of saw Joe grow a bit as a person. I just wish that the ending had been a bit more clear. Definitely an intense read!

Thanks to netgalley and Atria books for allowing me to read this book.

So, I was somewhat mixed on You, though I ended up giving it 5 stars. I found it to be an exhilarating thrill ride. The author’s 2nd person present point of view was utterly unique. I did, though, find it to be a book by a millennial, for millennials. And I found the graphic nature of the book past my comfort point. Still, I found it compelling.
Hidden Bodies… meh. As I predicted in my review of You, the sequel was, equally if not more, by a millennial, for millennials. And it was if anything far more graphic. And there were some compelling parts.
BUT…
This book starts out as one thing: Joe’s relationship with Amy Adam, a character introduced in You. The book gets off to a great start. And then, predictably, Amy hurts Joe, and Joe wants reprisal (this is so predictable as to not warrant a spoiler alert).
Then the book shifts coasts, and rhythm, and completely goes to pot. It is exactly like those couple of weird episodes in Season 2 of Mad Men when Don Draper goes to California & hooks up with some weird rich people. The whole zeitgeist of the thing comes to a crashing halt.
Another serious complaint: wheras You was steeped in literature, this one, as the focus shifts from NY to LA, is steeped in pop culture/film. There are dozens & dozens of actor references. It goes beyond tiresome.
One of the better characters introduced is that of Forty, but even that is a mixed bag. It is unfortunate that Kepnes resorted to describing him as being a clone of Philip Seymour Hoffman. One of the great joys of reading a novel is getting to picture the character in your own mind’s eye. While PSH would indeed be a great casting choice for Forty, the author should have simply described him to us, rather than resorting to the cheap & easy way out of simply telling us, “I’d have casted Philip Seymour Hoffman for this guy (if he were alive).”
All THAT said, the book does conclude on an unexpected note. Joe’s reunion with Amy is not what you may think it to be. And, we leave him hanging. Since the author is so prone to movie references, it is sort of like how we leave Luke in Star Wars V / The Empire Strikes Back: a very incomplete ending, with our “hero” hanging in the balance, unresolved, awaiting the 3rd chapter of the trilogy. Though personally, I would rather go for the prequel, & find out what happened with young Joe & Mr. Mooney.
I think the novel paginate out to about 570 pages on my Ipad. The first 70 were terrific, as were the last 50. Everything in between was pretty much bad, even terrible. I get it, Ms Kepnes: you are satirizing the vapidity of the LA lifestyle. That hardly rates with the fresh & exciting character you created with Joe in You, or the story line that could have been here.

I loved having the opportunity to get back inside of the hilariously insane mind of Joe Goldberg. Hidden Bodies is the continuation of the story that Caroline Kepnes left off with at the end of You.

At the start of Hidden Bodies, Joe is still working in Mr. Mooney's rare bookstore when he meets a questionable but attractive young woman named Amy Adam (no "s"). After an unfortunate series of minor but angering events that prompts an extreme need for retribution, Joe is lead to Los Angeles, a city that for him, could not be more different from his beloved New York. Joe is in what he considers to be the land of the rich and pretentious and all throughout the book his inner commentary and pop culture references about the people he comes across there is absolutely hilarious!!

Hidden Bodies introduces us to a whole new slew of superficial and quirky characters. Some of my favorites had to be Joe's desperate and promiscuous neighbor Delilah (sometimes known as Don'tFuckDelilah), Joe's landlord Harvey who uses the catch phrase "Am I right or am I right?", a new love interest whose name also happens to be Love, and her drugged out pathetic poser of a brother, Forty.

As far as the story flow, this book moved a little bit slower for me. It definitely had some ebbs that I had to push through. Once I read past that middle chunk however, the sh*t really hit the fan and I couldn't put it down..

While I didn't love Hidden Bodies the same way I loved You, it was still a treat to enjoy more of Joe's amusing and psychotic antics. One of the most noticeable differences between the two books is that You is written more like a conversation where Joe is indirectly talking to Beck within his own mind. Hidden Bodies involves Joe narrating his story as its occurring. The style change seemed to take something away from the creepy mannerisms that I became accustomed to in You. Perhaps Kepnes was trying for that. I just felt slightly less connected to his character in the sequel.

It's definitely no easy feat to turn a serial killer into a likable character who root for to get away with murder, however Caroline Kepnes flawlessly accomplished it. I found myself wanting Joe to seek revenge on not only people who did him wrong but also people who slightly inconvenienced him. His frustrations made me frustrated What can I say? Joe Goldberg brought out the killer in me.

In the interest of keeping this review completely spoiler free, I wont speak to what type of ending Hidden Bodies has. I will recommend keeping an open mind as Kepnes does not tie every aspect into a perfect bow. All I'll say is, in many ways, the conclusion is open ended for the reader to decide what happens next, or wait until the next book...

I don't even know what to say. This book had me questioning myself. I couldn't stop reading. The whole book had me on the edge of my seat. While I gave it 5 stars, it's more like 4.5. The ending was not satisfying at all. But it was still worth the read.

Caroline Kepnes just has a way with words. This book is beautifully written. The characters are people you love to hate (or love to love?!). The tone is dark and hysterically funny at times. Kepnes has done it again. I can only hope there will be more books from Kepnes, I will read everything she writes. I received a copy of the book in exchange for my honest and fair review. All views are my own.

I've never rooted for a serial killer before, but then again, I've never read a series quite like this. Kepnes combines the best parts of pop culture and pop psychology in creating this story. Different from the first book, this is a rare sequel that stands on its own and keeps readers enthralled with its unanticipated twists and turns.

Captivating from beginning to end. I want spend any time summarizing the plot. What's amazing about this book is that it's replete with current pop cultural reference and takes place in very recognizable areas of Los Angeles. But the plot is great in its meandering story about a Dexter-type "protagonist." This book is different and well worth it.

The follow up to YOU is absolutely great! Joe is a really nice guy - smart, good looking, intelligent, and almost too good to be true. He's also a serial killer - and when he loves you, he can love you to death.
I am glad I had read YOU. I would definitely recommend reading this book first because it gives you a full background of the characters and makes Hidden Bodies more meaningful to the reader.
I really liked this one and can't wait to see if Joe returns....
RECOMMEND!

After reading You a couple months ago, then learning there would be another Book of Joe, I was very anxious to read more. I'm torn between wanting to hate joe for what he does, but rooting for him at the same time! Hidden Bodies was an amazing follow up to Caroline's debut novel. I loved every second of both books and am already hoping for more Joe!! Please Caroline! Write write write!

Hidden Bodies is Caroline Kepnes’ sequel to her smashing hit, You. In this one we see Joe trying to move on with his life from the terrible way things ended with Beck. He has a new lady love in his life and things are going really well, until they don’t. I’ll admit up front that this one didn’t turn out the way I expected. I went back and forth with wanting Joe to succeed and for him to fail. The end result was completely unexpected and it’s left me with mixed feelings! Lol.

Joe had built a new life for himself with Amy, but then the unthinkable happens and Amy betrays him. He’s now out for revenge and travels across the country to Hollywood to track her down and show her why you don’t make Joe angry! Joe is starting a new life from scratch here and has very little to go on, but he knows what to look for when it comes to tracking Amy down. The only thing he doesn’t expect was to fall in love, again.

This time the woman is different, Love—yup, her name’s really Love—is everything he could hope for in a girlfriend. She’s perfect for him and we already see him planning their life together. Love though comes with a bit of baggage, an ex-boyfriend who remains a really good family friend, a druggie brother who just wants to make it big in Hollywood. But Joe is willing to look past all that just to be with her…until things start to get in their way of happiness.

Trouble continues to brew when his past comes back to haunt him. He’s forever remembering the bit of evidence he left at Peach’s place that fateful weekend so long ago. He tries to forget, but it haunts him still. And yet more problems continue to appear and interfere with the life and happiness Joe is trying to build.

I guess when I picked this one up, I was expecting to see the same Joe Goldberg we met in You, and while we might see that Joe in the beginning, his change was unexpected. Sure, he doesn’t change completely, not right away, but I feel like the creepy-stalker-murderer Joe has turned a new leaf. It was odd in some ways because can killers really change? I don’t know what this is saying about my own morale and all that, but it was just odd to see things playing out the way they did in t end.

Another surprising turn was that his mission to hunt down Amy gets waylaid when he meets and falls in love with Love. His whole mission gets tossed aside because he’s found love, again. And that just didn’t really feel like Joe to me. I mean, he’s Joe! You don’t make Joe angry, yet this new side to him allowed him to forget his mission, his revenge.

This one doesn’t quite have the same tone as You did either. Joe is still narrating to us in his usual first person point of view, but it feels less like he’s talking to someone specific. So basically he’s telling us the story versus whoever he was falling in love with, which was kind of odd to in that sense, but it definitely made it easier to read at times! Though I did kind of miss the language that was pure Joe.

The ending was unexpected either! You kept thinking this would happen or that was going to happen but in the end, you are taken completely by surprise! It definitely wasn’t an ending I foresaw in my thought process! I can’t quite be sure how I feel about it either. I guess I don’t really know what I wanted to happen. As I said I went back and forth with this one a lot. While Hidden Bodies definitely had its merits, I found that I enjoyed You a lot better than this one! This is still a worthy read if you enjoyed the first book, because one has to know, what will Joe do next?

Overall Rating 3.75/5 stars

Joe Goldberg is back and he has a new object of obsession and affection. Amy Adam believes in living off the grid: temporary cell phones, no social media, and even no banks. She has a few weird quirks, but he's fallen head over heels in love with her. Only one thing is harshing his happiness: the evidence he left at Peach Salinger's house right before he murdered her. To kill two birds with one stone, he decides to take Amy on a road trip around there and get rid of the evidence at the same time. They have a wonderful time, but so many Salingers surround the property that Joe can't enter. He returns home a little sad, but becomes devastated when he discovers that Amy duped him. She left town with the rare books from the cage in his bookstore. Enraged, he lets go of his life in New York and follows Amy to LA to teach her a lesson.

I went into Hidden Bodies thinking it would be a lot like You: Joe would pick out a woman, employ similar stalker and invasive maneuvers to keep tabs on her, and then eventually find out she's a real person and kill her. I was completely wrong. It starts out much the same way, but he's forced to actually trust her due to her desire to live off the grid. When she dupes him, it doesn't come as a surprise since the first time he met her, she paid for books using a stolen credit card. His journey and adjustment to Los Angeles are amusing because of the disparity between his expectations and the reality of the city. Joe spends some time tracking down the elusive Amy, but once he meets Love, he ceases to care. She just so happens to be rich and opens up a whole new world to him in LA with her connections.

The rest of the novel is a mix of a Bret Easton Ellis novel, the Great Gatsby, and of course Catcher in the Rye. Joe hates fakes and phonies but he is one himself. As before, his story normalizes his insane perspective so after a while it actually seems pretty reasonable until the more extreme thoughts come out. His narrative is full of self doubt and leaps in conclusion. He never quite feels like he belongs because he really doesn't. His constant lies and different background keep him separate from the others plus his past sins and mistakes frequently come to haunt him as well. However, all of his acquaintances are just as hollow as he is, so he does fit in, in a way. I practically got whiplash at times because he would be completely convinced someone saw through him, already planning their murder, and the next second, it was a misunderstanding and everything is fine. He gets completely caught up in the rich Californian lifestyle, complete with aspirations to be the film writer he claims to be. The most hilarious part of the story was when a woman on his floor starts stalking him and he's freaked out that she's invading his privacy. He spent the entire last book justifying his stalker actions and when the tables are turned, he just doesn't see it the same way.

Hidden Bodies is an unexpected sequel to You that ends with a definite opening for another book. This isn't my favorite series, but Kepnes knows how to keep my interest and is willing to explore reprehensible characters in interesting ways. My only complaint would be that the Hollywood decadence and his struggle for a career took up too much of the book. Other than that, I enjoyed it and I would read the next one if there is one.

I was super late to the Joe Goldberg party when I read You. Our beloved Joe is back in the follow-up and he's just as creepy and charming. Hidden Bodies was entertaining with solid writing, but the book moved rather slowly in several parts. I found myself pressing pause several times.

Joe continues his quest for romance. He thought he'd found love in Amy freaking Adam until she steals from him, fleeing to Los Angeles with Joe's money and precious first editions. Joe leaves New York for L.A. to hunt her down and kill her. But what he finds is the one thing he's always wanted—Love.

Like You, Hidden Bodies was wildly funny. Joe's brand of humor is my brand of humor. Kepnes pens Joe's character with a sharp wit and with an equally sharp pen. I was already laughing out loud in the first few paragraphs. Those of you who appreciated Joe's character in You will find him just as amusing and fun to read in Hidden Bodies. Santino Fontana's narration of Joe supplements Kepnes's characterization and brings this disturbingly charming character to life.

I hate to say this but somewhere along the way all the things—the Joe, the hunt, the schtick—that worked in You lost its luster and and in turn the book lost its momentum, causing my interest to wane. In addition, I felt like Joe kept going through the same motions that did—he meets someone, they cross him, he kills them. There was a lot of sameness, if that makes sense.

I thought the book definitely picked up towards the end with Joe's future dramatically changed. Kepnes leaves the story in a very interesting place, paving the way for more Joe on the horizon. I can't wait!

* I received an advanced copy and an audiobook from the publisher. Receiving this book for free did not affect my opinion or rating.

I've listened to the audio book "You" and have just finished Caroline Kepnes' latest book, also on audio. The narrator is fantastic. He IS Joe Goldberg! I find myself cheering for Joe, who is such a twisted and dark character. The author's repeated use of "and" to connect multiple sentences is indicative of Joe’s manic nature. Somehow I just want him to succeed in his endeavors. Both of these books were a wild ride; wonderfully written and so entertaining -- to the extent serial killing is entertaining.

Hidden Bodies is the much anticipated second book in the You series. It is a follow-up to the popular book, You. These books are adult psychological thrillers.

There will be spoilers from the first book, You.

In the first book Joe met/dated/stalked Beck. She was his everything. It did not end well for her.

Joe is probably the creepiest narrator that I've ever read. In book one he ran a bookstore. He had a cage in the basement of this store where he sometimes kept people. He had a creepy box stashed in his wall of Beck's stuff. Basically he read her emails, killed her friends, and blamed her death on the doctor she was cheating on him with.

At the end of You, Beck is dead. But a new girl, Amy Adams wants a job at the bookstore. Joe wants her to be his new Beck...

I definitely liked Hidden Bodies more than I liked You. One of my least favorite things about You was that there was so much "you this, and you that" and that actually drove me slightly crazy. So there is none of that in this book. Joe is the narrator but it is told entirely in 1st person POV.

The story picks up where the first book left off. Joe is now obsessed with Amy Adams.

The author spends a lot of time reminding the reader of things that happened in You. The book begins with him creepily rehashing the not so lovely thing that he did in the first book. I liked this, because when you read a lot it can sometimes be hard to remember specifics.

The tone starts off so creepy. RIP Peach. RIP Beck. I actually forgot how completely crazy Joe is.

I love the title, since there are literally bodies hidden all over the place.

The book is disturbing. There is a fair amount of sex in this book. It is done in a much more crude way than I am used to.

Joe is a psychopath. I really did not like Joe at all in You. And for much of Hidden Bodies I still found him to be unlikable and evil. It is quite terrifying that someone like him could exist and be in relationships.

It is a powerful story. I did prefer it to the first book. But at times I felt uncomfortable with what I was reading. I could not relate to Joe. He is beyond creepy. A lot of readers like bad boys. But Joe takes the bad boy to a whole new level. At times he is horrible. Pure evil. It is mostly very hard to empathize with him. Although he did start to grow on me more as the book progressed.

Much of this book takes place in California when Joe moves out West from New York City. I liked that we got to see a lot of Hollywood. Joe meets twins Love and Forty. And that took the story in a whole new direction.

I felt like there was a lot happening in this book. Especially the last third of the book. There was honestly so much happening that there were new twists and turns practically on every page. And I really was not expecting much of it.

The book was disturbing. But I was sort of mesmerized by it. I was happy to get resolution to some things that I wasn't sure would be resolved. And I feel like we sort of saw Joe grow a bit as a person. I just wish that the ending had been a bit more clear. Definitely an intense read!

Thanks to netgalley and Atria books for allowing me to read this book.

So, I was somewhat mixed on You, though I ended up giving it 5 stars. I found it to be an exhilarating thrill ride. The author’s 2nd person present point of view was utterly unique. I did, though, find it to be a book by a millennial, for millennials. And I found the graphic nature of the book past my comfort point. Still, I found it compelling.
Hidden Bodies… meh. As I predicted in my review of You, the sequel was, equally if not more, by a millennial, for millennials. And it was if anything far more graphic. And there were some compelling parts.
BUT…
This book starts out as one thing: Joe’s relationship with Amy Adam, a character introduced in You. The book gets off to a great start. And then, predictably, Amy hurts Joe, and Joe wants reprisal (this is so predictable as to not warrant a spoiler alert).
Then the book shifts coasts, and rhythm, and completely goes to pot. It is exactly like those couple of weird episodes in Season 2 of Mad Men when Don Draper goes to California & hooks up with some weird rich people. The whole zeitgeist of the thing comes to a crashing halt.
Another serious complaint: wheras You was steeped in literature, this one, as the focus shifts from NY to LA, is steeped in pop culture/film. There are dozens & dozens of actor references. It goes beyond tiresome.
One of the better characters introduced is that of Forty, but even that is a mixed bag. It is unfortunate that Kepnes resorted to describing him as being a clone of Philip Seymour Hoffman. One of the great joys of reading a novel is getting to picture the character in your own mind’s eye. While PSH would indeed be a great casting choice for Forty, the author should have simply described him to us, rather than resorting to the cheap & easy way out of simply telling us, “I’d have casted Philip Seymour Hoffman for this guy (if he were alive).”
All THAT said, the book does conclude on an unexpected note. Joe’s reunion with Amy is not what you may think it to be. And, we leave him hanging. Since the author is so prone to movie references, it is sort of like how we leave Luke in Star Wars V / The Empire Strikes Back: a very incomplete ending, with our “hero” hanging in the balance, unresolved, awaiting the 3rd chapter of the trilogy. Though personally, I would rather go for the prequel, & find out what happened with young Joe & Mr. Mooney.
I think the novel paginate out to about 570 pages on my Ipad. The first 70 were terrific, as were the last 50. Everything in between was pretty much bad, even terrible. I get it, Ms Kepnes: you are satirizing the vapidity of the LA lifestyle. That hardly rates with the fresh & exciting character you created with Joe in You, or the story line that could have been here.

I loved having the opportunity to get back inside of the hilariously insane mind of Joe Goldberg. Hidden Bodies is the continuation of the story that Caroline Kepnes left off with at the end of You.

At the start of Hidden Bodies, Joe is still working in Mr. Mooney's rare bookstore when he meets a questionable but attractive young woman named Amy Adam (no "s"). After an unfortunate series of minor but angering events that prompts an extreme need for retribution, Joe is lead to Los Angeles, a city that for him, could not be more different from his beloved New York. Joe is in what he considers to be the land of the rich and pretentious and all throughout the book his inner commentary and pop culture references about the people he comes across there is absolutely hilarious!!

Hidden Bodies introduces us to a whole new slew of superficial and quirky characters. Some of my favorites had to be Joe's desperate and promiscuous neighbor Delilah (sometimes known as Don'tFuckDelilah), Joe's landlord Harvey who uses the catch phrase "Am I right or am I right?", a new love interest whose name also happens to be Love, and her drugged out pathetic poser of a brother, Forty.

As far as the story flow, this book moved a little bit slower for me. It definitely had some ebbs that I had to push through. Once I read past that middle chunk however, the sh*t really hit the fan and I couldn't put it down..

While I didn't love Hidden Bodies the same way I loved You, it was still a treat to enjoy more of Joe's amusing and psychotic antics. One of the most noticeable differences between the two books is that You is written more like a conversation where Joe is indirectly talking to Beck within his own mind. Hidden Bodies involves Joe narrating his story as its occurring. The style change seemed to take something away from the creepy mannerisms that I became accustomed to in You. Perhaps Kepnes was trying for that. I just felt slightly less connected to his character in the sequel.

It's definitely no easy feat to turn a serial killer into a likable character who root for to get away with murder, however Caroline Kepnes flawlessly accomplished it. I found myself wanting Joe to seek revenge on not only people who did him wrong but also people who slightly inconvenienced him. His frustrations made me frustrated What can I say? Joe Goldberg brought out the killer in me.

In the interest of keeping this review completely spoiler free, I wont speak to what type of ending Hidden Bodies has. I will recommend keeping an open mind as Kepnes does not tie every aspect into a perfect bow. All I'll say is, in many ways, the conclusion is open ended for the reader to decide what happens next, or wait until the next book...

I don't even know what to say. This book had me questioning myself. I couldn't stop reading. The whole book had me on the edge of my seat. While I gave it 5 stars, it's more like 4.5. The ending was not satisfying at all. But it was still worth the read.

For those who have read ‘You’, ‘Hidden Bodies’ is the sequel, read on. For those who haven’t read ‘You’, stop. Read ‘You’ first.

Still here? You remember Joe Goldberg, who manages Mooney’s Rare and Used Bookstore in New York, the serial killer whose last relationship – with Guinevere Beck – ended so badly? Well, Joe has a new girlfriend: Amy Kendell Adam. Joe has learned a lot from his relationship with Beck, he knows exactly how to make his relationship with Amy succeed. They are even collecting copies of one of their favourite books – ‘Portnoy’s Complaint’ – together. What could possibly go wrong?

‘In this bar, lying to these strangers, there has never been more honesty between us.’

Joe is devastated when Amy disappears, and he vows to find her. His search takes him to Hollywood. And while he’s there to track down Amy, Joe has to fill in his time somehow. Joe’s life in Hollywood becomes complicated. He’s still searching for Amy, but he’s found Love (and her brother Forty) and his life becomes even more interesting.

Will Joe find Amy? Has he escaped the consequences of his murderous past, or will some evidence he left behind be his downfall?

This novel moves at a cracking pace, and while every moral fibre of my being wants to see Joe brought to justice, I’m worried that I find him generally likeable. Immature and impulsive, but likeable. How does that work? Ms Kepnes has created a character who fits perfectly within the pop culture he inhabits. How much easier is it to be a serial killer in an internet-enabled world?

Note: My thanks to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster (Australia) for providing me with a free electronic copy of this novel for review purposes.

Jennifer Cameron-Smith

Disturbing, horrific, vengeful, psychotic, and foul are all words that not only describe this novel but Joe, the ultimate anti-hero, himself. And yet despite all his flaws, all of the horrors that he has done, we can't help but be fascinated by his story. By how his mind works, categories, justifies, and manipulates.

And no matter how dark a place that is, Joe's world, Joe's mind, he still manages to have some redeeming qualities and those qualities, are what keep us reading. Keep us hoping that maybe just maybe, this story, his story, will somehow be okay in the end. That there has to be some happily ever after, whether for him or for his victims.

Without going into too much detail I will say that this isn't the same Joe from You, in fact, this is a whole new Joe, good and bad and this book, shed so much light, on so many things. Once again we are thrust into a dark mind, a dark place but also a place that does have some light. Small rays that slip through here and there, those redeeming qualities that we all hope are really there, that are in all of us, good bad, evil, what have you.

Kepnes once again wrote something much different from anything else I have ever dared to read. She puts us in a place most of us would never dream to go, would never want to go, and yet she keeps us reading, keeps us turning the pages. I have to hand it to her, this woman knows how to draw us in. She knows how to write and sick or not, she does it well.

*ARC copy provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.*

I was instantly hooked by Joe in You - snarky, deviant, and ruthless. He is the anti-hero you're horrified by yet somehow rooting to get away - literally -with murder. Hidden Bodies picks up where You left off. Joe is now in a new relationship with Amy, whom he thinks of as the earthy, off-the-grid goddess antithesis to Beck's manic pixie dream girl. But of course, Joe being Joe, their relationship takes a turn for the unexpected, which takes him to Hollywood. As was in the first book, Joe's eviscerating observations and criminal misadventures make this sequel a pageturner.

In the follow-up to the twisty You, Joe Goldberg is back. Our conflicted and confused protagonist, Joe, has a history of falling quickly in love, stalking, and... murder. In fact, he's left a string of hidden bodies in his wake: four of them. After a brief romance in his native New York ends, Joe decides to head to Los Angeles. There he finds a job in another bookstore, joins Facebook (for real this time), and meets a new girl. But Joe remains haunted by his past in New York. After all, secrets have a way of catching up with you. Joe thinks he may have found real romance this time, but will his past deeds prevent true happiness?

I absolutely loved the first novel in this series, YOU, which introduced us to Joe, who is far more messed up and "stalkerly" than the paragraph above belies (if you sort of gloss over the four bodies part). I read YOU while on vacation and basically tore through it in one day. It also had me looking over my shoulder for days, feeling watched: it was that good. Alas, for me, the follow-up, while good, didn't have that same sinister "can't put down" feel as the first. It's still an intriguing book, and it's interesting to learn more about Joe in his saga, but it just wasn't the same. It didn't quite capture the same desperate yet somehow loveable nature of Joe in the first novel for me. While I didn't want him to be caught (that's how good Kepnes is at writing him), I wasn't rooting for him quite as much. There was something a little off about his loveable nature that came across so well in YOU, even as he was literally burying bodies in that novel.

In fact, in Hollywood and L.A., Joe seems a little more normal, which is laughable, since he's obviously a serial killer. The book is told in that same sort of breathless rush of words (straight from Joe) as the first, but there were parts that dragged one for me. Lots of details about Hollywood, actors, etc. In this novel, Joe has a lot of drama due to his new girlfriend's family, particularly her brother. Also, while we feel his fear as his past crimes seem to be closing in on him, he somehow seems to be able to effortlessly commit new ones: it's sort of strange. Things that seemed more believable in the first book were harder for me to stomach in this one. I'm not exactly sure why.

Still, the entire saga of Joe is fascinating, I won't lie. I'm clearly in the minority--based on other reviews--in not completely loving this book, so if you liked YOU, you should definitely pick up HIDDEN BODIES. And I did enjoy it, I just didn't adore it the same way I liked YOU. I was certainly intrigued by parts of it and quite compelled to find out what happens to Joe. He's a character like no other in fiction, and I'd definitely read a third book to find out what happens to him.

Ahhhh Joe. How I've missed thee. Hidden bodies is such a rush with so many interesting characters and you're never sure who is going to die next. It's suspenseful and funny and twisted and you laugh along at how funny all the twistedness is and the ridiculousness of people around Joe like he's the most normal human in the world and you root for him. Every time. There were also great great shining moments of wisdom and I highlighted so much of this book and cuddled it. It's just that great. Highly recommended!

Absolutely amazing! Picking up Joe Goldman's life were first book ended, you will find yourself once again in his tormented, twister mind. The anti hero you want to hate but secretly cheering on. How does he win the reader over.
Joe just wants love and in Hidden Bodies that is just what he finds. Only for Joe love is never easy. It's sick, twisted, devious and always comes at a cost.
I was all in for this book and can't wait to read what the author does next!

If you haven’t read Kepnes’ debut, You, read it first. You’ll thank me. These are perfect to blow through on an airplane, or sitting on the beach, or any time when you can say “not now, I’m reading!” to the world for hours on end. The novels, featuring charming psychopath Joe, manage to be haunting, hilarious, and moving all at once. Joe is a Tom Ripley for the digital age (exactly as scary as it sounds).

*Audiobook edition review*

Hmmm...Hidden Bodies didn't live up to its predecessor, You. I think part of the problem was the emphasis on secondary characters who weren't interesting. Joe seemed tamer this time around, and there were parts I had to listen to repeatedly because I kept zoning out leaving me to wonder if I missed something important. But nope, I never did. Those moments were mostly in the beginning when Joe meets his new girlfriend Love's family. There just wasn't enough of what made the first novel so likable for  me.

I listened to a huge chunk of Hidden Bodies in one day once I was in the middle of the story - I had to know what was going to happen! Another strange thing I encountered was some of the story depressed me, and I almost had to take a break from listening but didn't really want to stop. I became so wrapped up in it I had to remind myself I wasn't in the story, and that's likely because I spent 4 or 5 hours in a row listening to it.

Santino Fontana as the narrator was fantastic. His voice was exactly how I thought Joe would sound. I quite enjoyed his Californian accent for the local characters. There are parts of Hidden Bodies I'd listen to over again just because of his talented reading of this novel. So while the story didn't live up to the first novel, I would still recommend it because you need more Joe in your life like I did, haha! I really hope there's a third book and that it can capture the essence of the first novel!

This should have been called “Joes’s Big Unbelieveable Hollywood Adventure”. It started out ok but felt it really dragged in the middle, so I found it difficult to hang on. I actually listened to the audio version and if it were not for Santino Fontana’s narration, I wouldn’t have. I felt that the plot was completely implausible and the characters totally ridiculous. Unlike the first book, “YOU”, I was actually glad when this one was over. Joe’s fixation with sex and the author’s use of the ‘F’ word reach dizzying proportions in this, so if those things offend you, I would skip this book.

This has the same narrator as You, and I was instantly back into the creepiness of Joe when this started. I recommend reading You before reading this one, as it references Beck and other things that happened in book one. You would be a little confused on that if you did not read You first. Plus, both are so messed up that you just need to read both.

Again, I highly recommend listening to these on audiobook. The narrator just brings that extra creepy factor to Joe. I do feel that this one was a little slower in the beginning than You, but the twists and turns in the second half of this book were crazy. There are so many things that are messed up and you will think this is even more crazy than what happens in You.

I cannot believe how this ends. You will have to decide what you think happens to Joe at the end. I want more!

Overall, again this is such a creepy series but I think they are worth giving a try.

I've read several of the reviews and it seems that every person has a different opinion of this book. I thought that it made it hard to gauge if I wanted to read it or not, but I found this book and YOU on sale so I thought I would give them a try. I would say that it is an interesting read, and not too difficult, however it wasn't really my style of book. I found the 1st person point of view of the murderer interesting, yet drawn out and somewhat repetitive. He obsesses over the same things several times in the book and I found myself thinking "dude, relax" quite a few times. Although giving the reader an inside look into the mind of an obsessive stalker/murder was interesting, it had its dull points. Since the reader is privy to all of the thoughts of the lead there are no surprises when it comes to his actions. Some of the other characters did throw in a surprise here and there ( I won't spoil it for you). I also agree with other reviews that the ending was a bit dull and could have been more exciting.

I was not expecting a sequel to You. What a great surprise! I enjoyed You, but Hidden Bodies is on another level. I finished this book in two days because I had to know what happened with Joe. It's a dark, twisted book and you'll love every minute of it. I am dying to read the third book (there better be one :)).

I read YOU and loved it. Perhaps I lost my momentum with this one with this character because while this book is equally as good, I was struggling through it and also loving it. This is hard for me to explain but Joe is that guy you can’t stand to love but you love him despite that. I liked the 1st installment more but I think that’s because it was unexpected and this time around I knew Joe and expected things of Joe.
This book is fast paced and crazy. It’s fun and an easy read. If you read YOU then this one is a must. It’s more Joe…you know?

Some people yell, others hold a grudge, but not Joe. He just kills those who irritate him! This is the second of Kepnes' books about Joe, the bookseller from NYC. He hates social media, but a move to LA changes everything. HIdden Bodies is a fun read.

Alas the follow up to You is live!
Joe's sarcasm and witty humor is back and in full effect!
Oh how I missed Joe! As usual he will not disappoint.
I love that you get to see his perspective of the west coast!
Now I'm waiting and wanting more!
If you haven't read This yet move it to #1 on your TBR. Believe me you won't regret it. Caroline is truly a literary genius !

My favorite psychco is back! Joe is the character you aren't supposed to love but admit it, we all do. I listened to the audiobook for about 2 days straight and it's amazing. The narrator is one of the best I've heard.

What makes this novel so terrific is the fact that the protagonist is a complete sociopath. Not since Dexter Morgan has the 'hero' of a series be a soulless killer.

Thus is the case with Joe Goldberg. We first met Joe in the novel YOU and he now returns for another go round in this darkly comic and acerbic thriller. HIDDEN BODIES is about just that. Joe has hidden plenty of bodies in his lifetime but is now trying to lead a normal life. The problem is that the past always catches is up with you and if Joe's new girlfriend gets a whiff of any of this she may be the next body Joe needs to hide. Witty and engaging throughout.

I thought this was a great sequel to the original. I love the writing & how you feel you are in the main character's (Joe's) head the entire time. Just like the first book "You", I could not put this book down. I LOVED it!

I finished Hidden Bodies a couple days ago, and I wanted to wait to write my review. As I was reading You, I hated it. The second person tense drove me crazy and Joe was so creepy, but I kept reading. And by the end, and in the weeks following, I couldn't stop thinking about the book. Joe was so weirdly charming and psychotic, his love for Beck twisted and awful. I was excited to read more of him, but I'm still not positive how I feel about this book.

He racks up quite the body count in this book, but they lacked the emotional punch that his actions did in You. Maybe because the story felt too good to be true, in the women he has relationships with, and his story unfolds in LA. Love was a fun addition, I must admit, and she surprised me as the book progressed.

I'm not shocked that the book ended where it did, but I was surprised that it feels like it's opening for a third book.

In the end, I'll read it if she writes another one, but I doubt I'll reread HB beforehand.

The first novel, You, was a solid 5 for me, while Hidden Bodies was more of a 3.5. When I finished reading You, I was so blown away and thought I couldn’t get enough of this wonderfully original and intriguing character, Joe. I read You so many times, I know the lines by heart. That’s how much I loved You. I just didn’t get that same high with Hidden Bodies – don’t misunderstand, I’m glad I read it, but I doubt I’ll read it again…I didn’t find it nearly as clever or uniquely funny as You.

In You, the interrogation scenes with Joe and Benji were absolutely priceless. The witty humor and insightful observations were hysterical. Really some of the finest chapters in the book.

Likewise, when Joe accompanies Beck to meet Peach Salinger for the first time -- that was really brilliant stuff.
None of that level of genius was recaptured in Hidden Bodies. I kept waiting for it, but it never came.

I look forward to the third installment, assuming there will be one. Meanwhile, if I find myself needing another Joe fix, I’ll happily return to You.

CREEP! That's what you will think of the main character from the start! This guy is pathological. Enter Joe's world and hold on tight! This guy has done the unthinkable and happens to escape suspicion. You'll be holding your breath as you fly through the pages and get to the ending!

I was extremely disappointed with this book. You was refreshing and original. It was one of my all time favorite books. Joe does not even seem like the same character in Hidden Bodies. Sure, he's a nut job stalker killer in You, but he's likable. I enjoyed his inner monologues in You. He was hilarious in You. He was not likable to me in Hidden Bodies. I don't think he made me laugh at all in Hidden Bodies. The story was more about a bunch of Hollywood characters that I simply didn't really care about. Also, while You had plenty of vulgarity, in Hidden Bodies, it seems forced. It seems like the author is just being vulgar to be vulgar. I didn't like it. It was too much, over the top. You is a book that I thought I would enjoy re-reading, but now I don't know if the Joe in You is ruined for me. Maybe I'll wait a while and read it again, but if you love Joe in You, I recommend skipping this book. If this was a stand alone book, I may have given it 3 stars instead of 2. I did enjoy the 2nd half of the book much more than the 1st half.

I enjoy this authors style of writing and the way she developed this character Joe Goldberg. He's a functioning sociopaths and I just couldn't put the book down waiting to see what he did next I finished the book in less than a week

I love every min of it, her timing is perfect and I can't get enough of the bad guy, stop, I'm going straight to hell lol better be a third book coming, I am dying to know the over/under on tht happening

I live in Los Angeles. This book reads like a very unfunny member of an improv group (I know many) struggling to write a book. I can never lose myself into the story. It's supposed to be from the perspective of a man, but I never buy that for one single second. It just seems like some very untalented female writer painfully eking out words on a laptop in Starbucks. The whole time. Very poorly written. I'm astounded this for published.

A cast of characters ranging from slimy to psychotic does not make the book's happy ending one this reader could share. The author waxes on and on, verging on poetry, about the wonder of having found love at last but that boils down to how really, really good oral sex can make one feel. "Hidden Bodies" continues the story told in "You", where self-involved stalker Joe solves his disappointments in people by murdering them.

This novel lacked a little of the sinister nature to Joe that we viewed in You—with his stalking of Beck. There was so much movement and twists in Joe’s focus that it was hard to keep up and buy into the outcome of this story. I found that I wanted him to be caught—was less “conned” by him in this novel as opposed to the first.

This story is just so fascinating. Joe's complexities are so entertaining and his dry wit had me giggling throughout.
He's a character with a warped perception on life yet he can easily identify the faults in others which leads to his crazy adventure.
Love. Love. Love

I live in Los Angeles. This book reads like a very unfunny member of an improv group (I know many) struggling to write a book. I can never lose myself into the story. It's supposed to be from the perspective of a man, but I never buy that for one single second. It just seems like some very untalented female writer painfully eking out words on a laptop in Starbucks. The whole time. Very poorly written. I'm astounded this for published.

A cast of characters ranging from slimy to psychotic does not make the book's happy ending one this reader could share. The author waxes on and on, verging on poetry, about the wonder of having found love at last but that boils down to how really, really good oral sex can make one feel. "Hidden Bodies" continues the story told in "You", where self-involved stalker Joe solves his disappointments in people by murdering them.

This novel lacked a little of the sinister nature to Joe that we viewed in You—with his stalking of Beck. There was so much movement and twists in Joe’s focus that it was hard to keep up and buy into the outcome of this story. I found that I wanted him to be caught—was less “conned” by him in this novel as opposed to the first.

This story is just so fascinating. Joe's complexities are so entertaining and his dry wit had me giggling throughout.
He's a character with a warped perception on life yet he can easily identify the faults in others which leads to his crazy adventure.
Love. Love. Love

This was a great sequel! More slower parts than the first novel, but we were still in Joe's head and trying to justify all of his crazy thoughts and actions. It was cool to see him in a different environment, out of his comfort zone and how it affected him. I really hope there will be a third book! Awesome!

* I received a free galley of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

First - I loved You, the first part of this series. But God this one was terrible. It took me forever to get through it because I was just trying to finish I was not interested at all. This novel went on so many side stories that it was impossible to keep up. Ugh, now I have no interest in any future Joe adventures. Nothing was believable at all in this story and the author contradicts charactors actions.

I enjoyed the first book, and I finished in less than a week. This one took me a little longer than that. it would lose my interest occasionally, and then it would peak my interest again. It had quite a few slow spots. I felt like there were parts on throughout the book that could've been sped up. The end was extremely fast, and it should've been drawn out just a little more, in my opinion.

I love Joe but this book was about 200 pages too long. My Joe is too high brow to be sucked into Hollywood and wouldn’t care about fame and fortune. The relationship with Forty bored me and almost made me want to quit reading.

Overall, the mind of a killer is still fascinating and I would almost risk death to sleep with this man....

At the beginning, the book started interesting and was fast paced. But in the middle of the story, it got boring with the introduction of new characters and new twists which didn't seem credible enough.

HIdden Bodies was my first Caroline Kepnes novel and it will be my last. The book was semi-entertaining though if a man wrote this book I'm sure he'd be raked over the coals for the way the women characters are portrayed as cardboard figures whose only purpose was to service men. I lost count but I think the author mentioned fellatio over two hundred times - there seems to be an unhealthy obsession there! I'm no prude but I don't see how a woman writing about other women being degraded and used by men is liberation. I don't know if Ms. Kepnes has daughters, but I'll be anxious to know if this book is something she will be proud to let her daughters read when they are of age. I agree with a previous reviewer that this novel seems to be geared to becoming a Hollywood movie so I'm sure that explains the shock value and gratuitous sex scenes that add nothing to the plot or development of the characters.

I read the author's first novel "YOU" and gave it a so so reading. I started this novel and had to give up before I was half way through. I don't remember if her first novel contained so many swear words and explicit sex scenes but this book seemed to be over the top with both. Reading it made me uncomfortable and difficult to read. Why do authors feel that is necessary to sell a book? James Patterson seems to do well without using foul language.

This certainly is a promising book. The writing's good. You can't knock the book for lack of smooth narration. There are twists, yes. But where it failed with me was the cardboard characterization. This would be okay for a Summer beach read. The only trouble is that this isn't Summer.

Joe is a killer, and not one that you root for. However, as much as you may dislike him, the author somehow makes a case for him, because the book is readable. In fact, I tore through it as another reviewer did. Then wondered why I bothered. The character is flat, and while appalling, there's nothing there but a shell. Perhaps had I first read You, the other book about Joe, I would have understood more about him. But then again, I really don't think I care to.

Apparently the novel HIDDEN BODIES is a direct sequel to the previous book by Caroline Kepnes which I have not read and after reading HIDDEN BODIES have no intention of reading. It always annoys me when I inadvertently pick a book that is a continuation of another and that may be partly why I had such a negative reaction to HIDDEN BODIES. If you read and loved YOU this sequel is possibly worth your time but others will likely want to skip this as I really don't need to read any more about remorseless killers and supporting characters who are very poorly developed.

Hidden Bodies, the second novel by author Caroline Kepnes, is a disappointingly empty read. To read this novel is to be fooled into hoping against hope that something will happen to make it all worth it. It is like one of those foil-covered giant chocolate bunnies at Easter. You see it, and it looks fantastic; like it's going to deliver tons and tons of candy. When you unwrap it and bite into it, it turns out there is barely anything there. The chocolate is a thin layer. Hidden Bodies is hollow.

I know I might have done well to have read You, the author's first novel, before I read this one. However I didn't. This is not billed anywhere as a formal sequel. However Kepnes plays catch-up for readers who aren't familiar with the protagonist of that novel, Joe Goldberg, because he is the protagonist of this novel as well. Hidden Bodies is written in the first person and in Joe's voice. It follows the path Joe takes when he seeks revenge on his latest girlfriend, Amy Adam. They have been living happily in New York City until she steals some very expensive antique books from the store where she works with Joe. He figures out she has headed to Los Angeles and follows her. At this point we already know he has murdered a number of people and plans to murder her when he locates her.

The book introduces the reader to the some very unpleasant aspects of Los Angeles, through the eyes and words of Joe. The writing style is intentionally a bit self conscious. It is also up to date on social media such as Twitter, Facebook, and so on. Joe is always looking in from the outside, even when he meets his new love, "Love", her twin brother, "Forty" and her family. It is difficult not to sympathize with Joe to some degree as he peregrinates here and there, buffeted by the other characters. He is never far from being frightened he is going to be found out as the murderer he is. He is never far from feeling like a left-out loser either. Because he is one, he is a difficult hero to care about. He is also a total narcissist and a dreamer. On the other hand, Joe is just smart enough so that the reader believes that it could be possible for Joe to get lucky, realize the American dream, live the good life of a famous Hollywood writer, be absolved, and live happily ever after with his "surrogate family" and his true Love, Love. He wants the whole burrito.
Much is made of the phoniness and mannerisms of today. The drugs and alcohol (Joe's not interested) and the awesome sex (Joe loves it ) which everyone is having is described very well in Hidden Bodies. It is dead on too, as are the characters. The secondary ones from back East (New York and Little Compton, RI) as well as in LA are quite fun and interesting. However there simply isn't enough to the plot. Besides that, there isn't enough humor. An author with this much promise and potential, who is clearly talented and very smart owes us more.