Book: “You Love Me” (You #3) by Caroline Kepnes
Publishing Info: Random House, April 2021
Where Did I Get This Book: I received an eARC from NetGalley.
Book Description: Joe Goldberg is done with cities, done with the muck and the posers, done with Love. Now, he’s saying hello to nature, to simple pleasures on a cozy island in the Pacific Northwest. For the first time in a long time, he can just breathe.
He gets a job at the local library–he does know a thing or two about books–and that’s where he meets her: Mary Kaye DiMarco. Librarian. Joe won’t meddle, he will not obsess. He’ll win her the old fashioned way . . . by providing a shoulder to cry on, a helping hand. Over time, they’ll both heal their wounds and begin their happily ever after in this sleepy town.
The trouble is . . . Mary Kaye already has a life. She’s a mother. She’s a friend. She’s . . . busy.
True love can only triumph if both people are willing to make room for the real thing. Joe cleared his decks. He’s ready. And hopefully, with his encouragement and undying support, Mary Kaye will do the right thing and make room for him.
Review: Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with an eARC of this novel!
Long have I waited for Caroline Kepnes to continue the story of Joe Goldberg, my favorite literary psychopath/hopeless romantic/obsessive stalker. When I first encountered Joe back in 2016, in which I read “You” and “Hidden Bodies” almost in direct succession of each other, I was hoping we’d get more, but didn’t want to hold my breath lest I be disappointed. Well thank you, Netflix, for picking up the show “You” starring Penn Badgely, and making it a bonafide hit. Because now we are DEFINITELY getting more Joe stories, and the newest one is “You Love Me”. When I saw that I was approved to read it, I could have cried I was so happy (I may have a little bit, actually). I waited for five years, and it was pretty much worth the wait.
I missed Joe. And diving back into his mind was both fun and a bit jarring. “You Love Me” has similar traits to the previous books; we still have Joe obsessing, we still have a cast of over the top scumbag characters he encounters, and we still have the eerie and voyeuristic sensation of watching him as he stalks someone and worms his way into her life. But we also get some more complexity to Joe, complexity that certainly doesn’t let him off the hook for his misdeeds, but makes him a bit more semi-tragic than he was back in the early days of “You” and “Hidden Bodies”. Kepnes really dives into the darkness of his character here, and keeps mining out disturbing things, though at the same time she’s letting him grow in other ways that I found really interesting. I suppose it would be too repetitive to just keep him static, and that’s kind of a ballsy move given that this is a man who victimizes basically everyone he encounters. Even when he doesn’t mean to.
Since it’s from his POV again (and we’re back to the second person perspective in the unique way that Kepnes does it, in that it actually WORKS), we have to surmise that a LOT of what we’re getting from him is unreliable. But at the same time, I felt like that I did get a sense for many of the new characters this time around, from Mary Kay to her daughter Nomi (or “Meerkat” as Joe calls her), to Mary Kay’s obnoxious friends, to other thorns in his side. While I don’t know if anyone was going to live up to Love Quinn in my mind (more on that in a bit…..), Mary Kay felt like the exact kind of nuanced and complicated person that Joe would be drawn to. Kepnes manages to make all of these characters feel real, even though they are all a bit exaggerated just because of who the narrator is.
The story itself has some of the same stumbling blocks that the previous books have. There are some moments or arcs that feel a little hastily tacked on to keep Joe a few steps away from his ultimate goal. There are a couple deus ex machinas. There are a couple of REALLY nutty moments of peril for Joe. My biggest issue was how the story wrapped up the L.A. storyline, as while I know we had to have Joe be able to move on to a new object of obsession, it felt VERY rushed. When we did revisit Love she felt a little stilted and out of character for my tastes, which was a shame because I felt like there was a FOUNT of depths, mostly dark, that we could have explored, so that was a disappointment. But ultimately these shortcomings I can pretty easily put aside, because it’s Joe. I read these books not for the believability of them, or to see how a plot will keep itself together, or to avoid over the top craziness. I read them because Joe Goldberg is scary, hilarious, and in some ways (not the killing ways) very relatable.
I don’t know where we’re going to go from here. I do know that a fourth book is going to happen. “You Love Me” is a welcome return to Joe Goldberg and his twisted obsessions. I’m happy to see him again.
Rating 9: A soapy, creepy, and funny return to one of my favorite series of all time, “You Love Me” brings Joe Goldberg back to freak us all out, and it goes splendidly.
Reader’s Advisory:
“You Love Me” is included on the Goodreads list “2021 Horror Releases” . That said, this is not a horror novel but it’s the ONLY list that is at all specific to theme. I may add more if more pop up that are more specific.
Find “You Love Me” at your library using WorldCat, or a local independent bookstore using IndieBound!
Previously Reviewed:
The Library Ladies 
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