Hidden Bodies: (A You Novel)

3 out of 5 stars to Hidden Bodies, the second book in a thriller and suspense series by Caroline Kepnes. Last month, my buddy Medhat suggested a read of You, the first novel in the series. It was such a fantastic book, probably in my top 2 of 2017 to date, that I had to continue reading the series. I've heard rumors there will be a third book, but I've yet to see it confirmed. I need to check on that! I am also completely excited as Lifetime is turning the books into a television series. I can't wait... but until then, let's get on with the review of this second book. While I enjoyed several parts of it, it doesn't hold a candle to the first book and I'll explain why below.Plot, Characters & SettingWhen we left off at the end of You, our protagonist/villain, Joe, completed his vicious cycle of crossing many lines and breaking tons of laws in NYC all in the name of love, also known to most people as stalking your prey. Yet he escaped without anyone knowing of his crimes and found himself falling in love with a new potential victim, Amy Adam. Joe begins trusting Amy, realizing she's a much-improved version of his last girlfriend, Beck. Amy begins pushing him for a key to his bookstore, which we all know from reading the first book contains a few secrets Joe would prefer stay buried, like some bodies. He hides everything as much as he possibly can, caving in to his girlfriend in order to hold on to her. When he arrives for work a few days later, the place has been robbed and Amy is missing. Did she do it? Was she kidnapped as payback for his prior crimes? What does she know? You'll find out... he finds a lead that shows she may be in Los Angeles. Joe quits his job and moves cross-country, where he meets an interesting cast of characters in his typical LA apartment. He negotiates/manipulates his way into working closely with a few Hollywood type agents and producers, finding himself falling in love with a new woman, coincidentally named Love.Love is perfect for Joe. She adores him. And he soon forgets about Amy. All seems well for a short period of time. But he keeps worrying about the one piece of evidence of his former crimes back in Rhode Island... and it drives him nearly insane, especially when the case is re-opened. He knows he has to find a way to retrieve it without anyone seeing him in the victim's house. Unfortunately, he's distracted by Delilah, one of the women in his apartment complex who has the hots for him. And then there's a cop who has taken a dislike to Joe, tailing him at different parts of the day while Joe is trying to tie up loose ends. But it's when Love's ex-boyfriend and her brother monopolize all of Love's time, Joe goes off the rails. As he begins to unwind, adding more and more crimes to his list in order to cover up the past and protect himself from losing Love, Joe finds himself getting careless. It all comes crashing down in the last few chapters of the book, ending at a place where it's very clear, a third book is necessary. Readers will not be OK with this ending, as it opens more holes than the one's Joe's already had to dig for each of his hidden bodies.Approach & StyleWhereas in the first book, Joe talks to the readers almost as if they are Beck, it's quite different in this second book. It's still told in first person with the perspective only on Joe throughout the whole story; however, there's no concept of "you" this time around. It works just as well, given the title is no longer "You," which means alternative progression is an expected path.I read a large-sized soft-cover book with ~430 pages. There are 56 chapters, so each one is less than 8 pages long on average. It took me 4 days over the course of a week, as I couldn't read each day; in total, probably about 6 hours. Some sections are a bit slow-paced while others are ultimate page-turners where you probably skip every fifth word just to see more quickly what's happening.StrengthsKepnes can certainly dream up extremely aggravating and realistic characters. Everyone she incorporates feels like someone I've met before, and at times, I wish I could be Joe and punish them for the things they say and do. But I'm a good guy and I don't commit many crimes. I mean any crimes.When she's on point with a dramatic scene, the plot and action is amazing. A few scenes were just as good as the initial book, especially when Joe is dealing with Delilah and the cop. It's almost like we never left the first book.Love is a really multi-dimensional woman; she has moments of brilliance followed by sheer silliness. I want her to be with Joe, but sometimes, she seems too good for him.The settings are crystal clear for the most part. I can always tell where we are and whether it's gonna be a safe zone or all hands to the battle field.ConcernsIt was such a let-down from the first book. Joe became weak. I didn't buy his drama. He seemed to cause problems for the sake of causing problems. He had the girl. But he let himself get caught up in other areas, ones that made him a true criminal and not a man in love. That's where he becomes a bad stalker. In the first book, he loved the girl so much, you could see why he did the things he did. This time, I struggled connecting with his motivation. He became every other evil antagonist, rather than the guy you wanted to root for.The ending gets closer to the original strength, but not all the way. I was pleasantly surprised when the last 100 or so pages took the story in quite a different and unexpected direction, but it wasn't enough to turn the book around for me. If this were the only book I read, and I didn't know much about the original plot, it wouldn't have been a book I'd recommend to friends. And that's sad because Joe is an amazing villain. I toyed with giving this less than 3 stars but I know that is mostly the disappointment in ruining a good character. It's redeemable in a third book, so I will have faith things get better.Final ThoughtsThe story is still good. It's got major problems with his constant quest for sex, which is just an overused plot component in this book. Pull that out. Take out the section where he turns into a whiny mess. And maybe give him a few more close calls, and we're back in the game.About MeFor those new to me or my reviews... here's the scoop: I read A LOT. I write A LOT. And now I blog A LOT. First the book review goes on Goodreads, and then I send it on over to my WordPress blog at, where you'll also find TV & Film reviews, the revealing and introspective 365 Daily Challenge and lots of blogging about places I've visited all over the world. And you can find all my social media profiles to get the details on the who/what/when/where and my pictures. Leave a comment and let me know what you think. Vote in the poll and ratings. Thanks for stopping by. Note: All written content is my original creation and copyrighted to me, but the graphics and images were linked from other sites and belong to them. Many thanks to their original creators.

So, Joe continues to fall hard for Beck, but Beck has her issues, her friendship with Peach , that just seems to drag her down, she seeks therapy, Joe does as well, but he chooses to go under another name, to really find out what Beck is talking about. Peach gets Beck to go away,brake some time, away from NY, away from Joe. But as you may have figured, Joe follows. He hates Peach, she's gotta go! And so she does, and when Beck has her suspicion, and finds Joe stash of Beck in the wall, well, you guessed it, Beck had to go. Joe meets Amy, Amy and he hit it off, until Amy steals from the store. Joe heads to Cali to find, and end Amy. Instead he finds Love, figuratively and Literally. He and Love fall in love, share their secrets, and make a baby. But in the end, Joe's past is catching up, the cops are closing in, will they actually find all the "Hidden Bodies"

I tried, I really REALLY tried to read this book slowly but as much as I wanted to sit back a savor every single word……it just didn’t happen and I ended up reading it in just over a day, ooops!If you know me IRL or have read my blog enough, then you know that You is my absolute, most favorite book ever. I love Joe, he’s the most original, unique and fascinating character I’ve ever read about. Yes he’s a narcissistic serial killer but if we’re being honest here, he also thinks and speaks what most of us are thinking but are too chicken to admit. Needless to say but when I learned that the brilliant Caroline Kepnes was making a sequel to You, I about died!!! I honestly believed that You would remain a stand-alone novel.In You, Joe Goldberg fell for Guinevere Beck, an unassuming customer that walked into the book store he worked at. In the quest to win her heart, Joe relentlessly stalks Beck and proceeds to take out anyone who gets in his way. Written in a second-person, present tense narrative style it was as if Joe was constantly speaking directly to Beck and it was this style, along with Joe’s personality that made You so unique. When I first heard that Kepnes would not be returning to this second-person narrative I was momentarily worried that it wouldn’t feel the same being inside Joe’s head. Thankfully I was wrong and being inside Joe’s mind is just as addictive in first-person, present tense :)Hidden Bodies starts with Joe having put his past and Beck behind him, well except for the cupofpiss that still haunts his thoughts. He’s thankfully in a new relationship with Amy, the girl he met at the end of You and at first glance she seems a little better suited for Joe. They both work at the book store and seem to share similar views on life and people. Things are looking up for Joe until Amy does something really stupid (no spoilers here) which causes Joe to drop everything in New York and move to L.A. so that he can track her down and seek his revenge. Of course we all know what that means, more bodies!!!!Unfortunately, when Joe arrives in L.A. he discovers that Amy is much more difficult to locate than he had anticipated. While searching for her, Joe meets a woman named Love who works with her brother in the entertainment business and comes from a very wealthy family who like to hobnob with the stars. Joe fits in with Love’s family seamlessly, her parents love him, her brother loves him, and all seems perfect for our anti-hero…….at first. As Joe begins to fall for Love he also begins to forget about Amy (mostly) but he never seems to forget about the cupofpiss and just like in You, what starts out as a perfect (in Joe’s mind) relationship quickly goes sideways.Joe once again finds a way to get rid of anyone he feels is a threat or is getting in the way of his plans and here’s the true brilliance of Kepnes’ writing, we cheer for him to do so every step of the way! Joe points out every flaw and annoying character habit so that soon you realize that you hate these people just as much as he does and yes the world would absolutely be a better place if they weren’t here anymore so really Joe is just doing us all a very big favor by getting rid of them because they really are just a piece of wasted space, go Joe!!! See what happens there? It’s brilliant!There’s really not much else I can say about Hidden Bodies without giving away any spoilers so I’ll just say that if you loved You, then you will definitely love this sequel. It’s one of those rare occurrences where the second book is just as good as the first and I was really, pleasantly surprised by this. I’ve started to see some spoilers floating around in the recent reviews I’ve read, mostly in regards to the opening of the story but I really hate that! So please, don’t read the reviews, just dig into an evening or two with Joe and enjoy the ride :)Now for a wee bit of fan-girling!! On Goodreads, Caroline was recently asked by a fan if the rumors were true that Showtime bought the rights to turn her books into a series. Here is her answer: “You heard correctly, (…..)! YOU is in development at Showtime. We’ll see what happens this year. I love Showtime–The Affair and Shameless are two of my favorites–so this is so exciting. And I’ll keep you posted!” I had heard this same rumor in early 2015 so I’m glad to see this is still green lighted, I can’t wait for this to happen! I think a TV series based on Joe will be huge, especially with the legion of Dexter fans out there begging for something to fill that void. Joe is the perfect person to do this, as long as he’s cast well! Personally, I would love to see Jake Gyllenhaal play Joe. It’s hard for me to picture anyone else nailing Joe’s mannerisms but I know he’s played this character type a few times already so it’s probably just wishful thinking on my part. For anyone whose read You or Hidden Bodies, who would you love to see cast as Joe???A huge thank you to the publishers, Atria Books and to NetGalley for providing me with a complimentary, advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review! And a special thank you to David over at Simon & Schuster/Atria Books for recognizing my obsessive love for Joe and these books and thus rewarding my blog readers with a totally awesome giveaway, you rock!

I almost didn't purchase the second in the series due to another review, but glad I did. The writing is just so good. Read it in two days. Absolutely hated the Netflix series, though.

Joe Goldberg is honestly an awesome character I love the way the author writes the book. This is the second part so read part one. All books in the series are awesome! They have such great storytelling

A bit of a You hipster, I fell in love with Kepnes’ first book two years ago and was so excited to read the second after becoming truly enamoured with Joe’s character. However, Hidden Bodies is arguably the worst book I’ve ever read - and the only one I actually threw in the bin rather than donated/ held onto. The story is sloppy, it’s fantastical and too far fetched for words. The beauty of You is the realism. You fully believe the characters and what is happening, but Hidden Bodies reads more like a bad soap opera with too much drama and unbelievable things happening. None of the other characters have been at all fleshed out and Joe, dare I say it, is tiresome. It appears that Kepnes was writing the sequel to a tight deadline - it has none of the depth or clever, thought out plot of its predecessor - it’s just a rushed story that barely makes any sense. A real shame, and a huge disappointment as the potential for Joe as a series is staggering. I just hope that this book isn’t what Netflix are planning on basing season two of the tv series on as it’ll leave a lot of fans sorely disappointed.

Whatever 'it' is that 'You' had, Hidden Bodies doesn't have it :( 2/3 of the book feel like filler where Joe has lost his creepy edge and is just a bit of a pathetic mid twenties guy like the rest of us. Not truly creepy or all that different. I was so disappointed. Not sure if I'll bother with the rest of the series but I think Kepnes has fallen victim to the pressure to churn out books because of the Netflix series and not because the novels are organically continuing.

Ok so we all know Joe Goldberg either from the first book, You, or from the Netflix series of the same name. So we know Joe, who he is, we've lived inside his head, we know how he thinks and we've seen what happens to those around him but knowing all this doesn't deter me from wanting to climb onto his lap, Joe Goldberg is my bookworm crush.I loved this sequal just as much as I loved book one, I literally want to stand on my balcony and scream to the author to hurry up and finish book three because I just HAVE to know what happens next.I have barely put this book down the past two days, I've been on the edge of the pool totally absorbed in every thought that goes on inside Joe's head, I can not wait to meet up with this guy again.5 solid Goldberg stars.

Hidden Bodies has none of the impact that You did, but I didn't really expect to as we already know the main character and we know the style of narration already and, sadly, it was those that made You so fresh and enjoyable. Already, Joe is beginning to become an annoyance to the reader and his manipulations this time around are far less subtle and he is clearly nowhere near as clever as he thinks he is. This is in stark contrast to the first novel so it comes as quite a shock to the reader as you do expect, nay anticipate, more of the same.By moving Joe to California there was such a lot of scope to move in a different direction with him, not to rehabilitate him but just do something other than the stalker guy with a penchant for murder. About half way through it actually felt to me like Joe was suffering from locked in syndrome and that everything was merely playing out in his head rather than in reality, that somehow murdering Beck in the previous book had caused a psychotic break and now he was lying drooling in a bed somewhere and this was his fantasy. To be entirely honest this unfounded thought actually made the rest of the book moderately enjoyable and is solely responsible for the middle of the road 3 stars I have given it.The story itself is bitty and far more incredulous than You ever was. I expect to have to suspend a certain amount of belief when reading any book and although I was looking forward to this book I was not expecting it to have any real leaning on reality. Unfortunately it has no relationship to reality at all. From drugged up talk show hosts, to a pair of bizarre twins, to Joe suddenly becoming a genius in his new field it all has a sheen of surreality about it, then again the bulk of the book is set among the uber rich of Hollywood so maybe I shouldn't have been that surprised.You and Providence are great books by Caroline Kepsnes but this one definitely doesn't live up to either of them. I wouldn't advise you to avoid reading it but I would warn you that you may it find it ultimately disappointing.

Though I finished this book, and enjoyed many parts of it, it felt unconnected to the first book, and totally unnecessary.The character Joe feels like he was picked up and dropped into a different world, and not in the way intended given that he moves to LA.He comes across a number of different characters, a lot are very clichéd stereotypes of what you might expect to find in Hollywood. But this works in the books favour. They are characters that you either love or hate and in comparison, makes you want to either love or hate our lead character.One thing I will say, the writing reminds me of Chuck Palahnuik. I strong positive in my opinion, just a little long winded, with a very quick round up to the story.