Got this as an ARC and decided to read the first two books in this series even though I watched the series on Netflix. Joe is such a complex character that makes you love him and hate him at the same time. This book didn't disappoint, but make sure you read "You" and "Hidden Bodies" first. It just makes you wonder what you would do for love...

So, the first thing I noticed is that in this one we have moved from the third person limited of "Hidden Bodies" back to the second person narrative of "You." Fresh out of prison and a payoff, Joe Goldberg, our favorite beloved sociopath, has started over in the Pacific Northwest and is trying to construct a picture-perfect life for himself. He has a new "focus" Enter Mary Kay. She’s a beautiful, confident, strong librarian. She’s actually perfect for Joe and he prepares to woo her and make her fall in love with him because that's really all Joe ever wants is to love and be loved, Joe is focusing on being his best self and he's on track to get the life he has earned. He continues with his mental RIP everyone from the first two books it does seem like he's getting it right this time. No more mugs of piss. He isn't going to break the rules this time! Right? Nah, sorry, Joe. Things prove to be a little more difficult this time because (as per usual) there are people that want to stand in the way of their happiness. Those pesky people. They really don't know Joe and the lengths he will go to for what he wants. I have loved watching Joe's evolution throughout the series. No spoilers from me, but I will tell you Joe is just as "Joe" as ever and while some may find this repetitive- it is and that's exactly why we love it. We want more and this delivers. LOVED!

I've been anxiously awaiting the new installment in the You series, and this one surely did not disappoint. Joe Goldberg returns with his manipulative ways as he falls in love with our new good girl, Mary Kay. This time around Joe is presented with a new set of challenges keeping him from the new love of his life including a teenage daughter, the usual wary best friends, and a famous husband. Caroline Kepnes manages, once again, to take us inside the mixed mind of Joe as we see the internal struggle he faces between good and evil on his quest to attain his new love.

Another great You novel by Kepnes. I truly enjoyed this one. It kept me on edge and the story was a great addition to the previous books. Thank you, Netgalley for the ARC.

5 enthusiastic stars for the continued You series. Read this in one sitting because I could not wait to see how Joe's character evolved. As a diehard of Caroline Kepnes's work, I had eagerly awaited this work and it did not disappoint. Constantly the reader is left tugging with the question of whether Joe has changed or is he ultimately a creature of habit? Joe's interest in a librarian, Mary Kay, delighted my bookish heart and felt like a nod to the original book's setting of the bookstore. A must read.

Reading Notes:
- Welcome back Joe.
- I’m having a harder time jumping in for a third time. Chapter one didn’t immediately grab me. I don’t know if it’s just me but the voice feels a little off.
- I’m warming up to it bit by bit.
- A bunch of little creepy breadcrumbs already being thrown around that you just know are gonna come into play later.
- Okay, here’s something completely familiar and on-point! The character that is annoying as hell so you’re already chanting, “kill them, kill them” by chapter 4.
- Oooooo, okay. Things just got interesting. I’m fully invested now. Somewhere around 20% in.
- “And okay, so he was kinda semifamous but he would never be in a clue on Jeopardy!...” love that description. It’s like a burn and clarification all in one. (Technically not supposed to quote an ARC, so that may or may not change by pub day.)
- I want to skip ahead so bad... but I won’t. This feels like something new. I mean, same old Joe (ish), but the strategy may be different.
- I’m 40% in and nobody talk to me, interrupt me, or even look at me sideways. I can’t stop now. This is where the hook is, if you haven’t been hooked already.
- I have a couple grievances but they’re spoilers so I won’t discuss.
- Dude. Duuuuuude. That ending. I just... watch out. You don’t know what’s coming.
- Book 1 came in as something new and hypnotic, and it should be hard to replicate, but somehow Kepnes manages to provide growth and the option for change in each book, while still giving us the Joe that we expect... at least on some level. By the end of YOU LOVE ME there has been an evolution, but not so much that it alienates the reader.
- As always, the idea that we’re all the protagonist of our own life makes for a thrilling journey through Joe’s eyes. Each book has us falling further and further down the rabbit hole, being convinced that Joe’s logic is sound, even while we know it’s not. It’s terrifying and gripping. Makes me question my sanity each time.
- Overall, 4 stars. Loved it.

Another twisted look into Joe Goldberg’s life. At first it is hard to get into the style in which the author wrote this book, but as you read on you start thinking like Joe and anticipating his quirky internal dialogue. His special names for everyone made me laugh. Has Joe really changed his ways? Joe is still a manipulating narcissist, but there are many surprises for Joe throughout the book. He tries to control his world but the new people he meets have secrets he even finds disturbing. You have to read it to find out what these secrets are. I enjoyed the book and hope there is another one to come in this series.

You Love Me keeps getting creepier. I can’t wait to see Joe come to life again on television . He is such a twisted character. Caroline Kepnes leaves me wondering who his next obsession will be.

Wow! I admit that it took me a little while to get into this one and I was afraid my fascination with Joe Goldberg had found its end, but then the story grabbed me and held tight. There were so many twists and turns and I can honestly say I NEVER saw the ending coming. I will say one thing about Joe, something you don't see much in sociopaths, but he has developed and wasn't nearly as psychotic in this installment. I don't want to give away any spoilers, but there is one thing he didn't do even once in this novel and...well, that's progress! He tried so hard and I found myself pulling for him in ways that only Caroline Kepnes can achieve. I can't wait for season 3 on Netflix and look forward to You #4 from the author.

This is going to be a real, brutally honest review. So please be aware of that.

Okay, so right away I was ready to fall back in love with Joe. He's my favorite literary character of all time, and I kind of thought he could do no wrong. Okay, Caroline Kepnes could do no wrong because he was flawless in the first two books.

Well, boy was I wrong. This book was just not it. Not even close. And that breaks my heart because I can't even describe how much I love the first two. I've read them each maybe 5 times each? More?

Here's where it went wrong for me:
The beginning. Instantly I was like ummm this is the storyline we're getting? Really?
You're just going to put Joe in the middle of a new town/storyline, deciding to pave over (ignore, essentially) the previous ending that he was in jail, about to have a baby. The Quinn's paid him 4 million dollars to walk away from Love and his son? REALLY? BUT DESPITE THAT FACT, I still gave it a chance because it was Joe Goldberg. I had my reservations the entire time but I was still powering through it, even if it was missing the humor and wit I was used to. (Seriously, I expected to LOL so many times and it didn't happen.)

So despite the flawed beginning, I kept going. I learned about this new woman he was in love with, Mary Kay. She had a daughter, was the owner of a library... great. Not very exciting but okay, that's the path Joe is going down and I'll follow it.

But NOTHING HAPPENED

It's the same shit. He falls in love, there are roadblocks (friends in the way, life in the way) that make him struggle to form that love connection. The whole time I kept asking myself, "WHY THIS GIRL?" She was no one. She wasn't even likable. In fact, I hated her. I hated her daughter, I hated how she treated him. I hated that this was the woman he left Love and his son for. She was no one special!!!!!! I feel like I can't even critique this book without spoiling everything. It just wasn't good. It felt like a different author. There was no comedy, no repertoire. It was a million pages of Joe's inner monologue that wasn't even entertaining. What happened?!? This took me forever to finish. I actually put it down for a few days because I was not interested in the slightest. I didn't care what happened to Joe, to Mary Kay, to his future.

-I felt like Caroline was trying way too hard to exert her amazing writing skills. Because the gal can write. But it was too much, too long, and too boring. It should have been shorter by a good 100 pages.
-Reasons I hate Mary Kay: she's married. And hid that from Joe. He should have been like OKAY MOVING ON. This bitch is nothing special. She's a liar, she's married, let me find a new conquest. But no. He perseveres for this bitch because... why? She has a daughter? He wants a family? So what.
-To continue the "nothing happens" review aspect, I'm serious when I say nothing big happens. He does his usual stalking, he has to deal with Melanda, MK's best friend (A psycho friend? Hasn't that been done before?), and he tries to break up MK and her husband.
-The husband. He's a nightmare loser. I can't even... he's like Benji but worse. Not likable, annoying... ugh.
-The daughter, Nomi. She was just so goddamn odd.

I can't even write this without spoiling because there was so much that was just so wrong!

In a nutshell, this is what happens, and I kid you not, the first 80% is balls boring. This all happened maybe the last 25%?

Joe tries to seduce MK. She is a tease, has a husband, decides to stay with him despite him being a rock and roll loser. Joe does his best to break them up. Eventually the husband kills himself. She and Joe start dating. Then the husband's brother comes into the picture (for like a chapter), MK had an affair with the brother way back when, decides she'd rather be with the bro in law, dumps Joe. Joe miraculously finds out bro in law had a #metoo moment and puts him on blast. MK dumps him. (seriously, what was the point of that?) She gets back with Joe.

And while this is happening, LOVE comes back into the picture and tells Joe to meet her in LA. He wants to see his son, so he obliges. She is a crazy loon now, shoots Joe in the head, then kills herself. Joe lives (how????) and yet again, the Quinn's spin the ending and say he still has to walk away and won't see his son. That was the cheapest, worst thing about the book. I personally loved Love. She was a great character, and she killed herself???? That was BS. So not like her. I don't get it.

So MK hates Joe's guts despite him telling her he was shot in the head. She doesn't forgive him. But eventually does when he proposes to her. Oh and one of her friends kidnaps Joe and tries to kill him because he is ALSO in love with MK. That was just ridiculous. I was like come on. Too much was happening too fast and it was too late. This was all within the last 25% and felt rushed, especially when the first 75% was boring as shit. Joe gets out of the kidnapping and shit happens and he hides it all. Same ole shit.

The daughter, who is in love with a school shooter from Columbine (ODD AS SHIT), is actually also in love with Joe and tries to seduce him. I think she's 18 and she's bizarre. That was a bit out of left field, didn't see it coming, but here's when the story goes from worse to trash. The mother and daughter have the worst relationship in the history of books. The daughter pushes MK down the stairs when she doesn't believe that Joe was about to rape her daughter, and she inevitably dies from her injuries.

Joe moves to Florida to start a new life. That's. It.

W H Y?
Why are people rating this so high? I don't get it. I don't get it at all. Yes I'm pulling this one out of my back pocket: DID WE READ THE SAME BOOK???

This is such a good continuation of the series.
Hidden Bodies left off with such a cliff hanger; I've been anxiously awaiting the next book.

Its the same old Joe Goldberg we know and love (and we're secretly rooting for). He moves to a small island town and is struggling to find his new life. Joe is trying to figure out what life looks like after Love.

He tries his best to let go of his old, creepy stalking habit. He seems older, wiser, more mature, and maybe even a little less creepy. Joe has a new mindset and a new set of rules to go along with that.

This was a page turner and I LOVED this book. I'm also curious of how the third season of You on Netflix will look like after reading this!

Joe is back and has a moral compass...?!!!

It was fun to get back into Joes strange strange brain - the witty and snappy thoughts from him were just perfect. Even though the You series has the same general storyline for each book, You Love Me felt new and different. Definitely one to pick up on release date!! Excited to see where Joe goes next.

Thank you to Netgalley for an eARC copy of You Love Me!

Joe Goldberg is back in this 3rd installment of his shenanigans.
Is there a reader "Stockholm syndrome"? When the main character is also the villain, so to speak, do you find yourself rooting for them?
They say: Your vibe attracts your tribe. And it must be true, because Joe meets the craziest people!

Joe is going to be better this time. He's not going to be up to any of his old tricks.
That's what he tells himself when he starts over, once again, in a small town, on an island in the Pacific Northwest. He volunteers at a library (of course!), where he meets Mary Kay. But will Mary Kay survive the encounter?
This book will suck you in on a crazy ride, just like the 2 previous books. A must read for fans of You.

Thanks to #netgally for a chance to read and review an early copy!

2 stars

TW: Animal death. animal cruelty. suicide. murder. assault.

"You Love Me," is the highly anticipated third novel in the "You" series. Both "You" and "Hidden Bodies" must be read before this book. As a fan of both the first book and the show, I must say I am incredibly disappointed with this book. I wasn't super in love with Hidden Bodies, but it was far superior to this. It almost makes me wish they didn't add any more to Joe's story. This book didn't feel necessary at all.

I have this weird love for Joe, but I think it's time for his story to end. At this point, the books just seem repetitive and repeated the same song and dance. Joe moves swearing that he will change, but ultimately falls in love and something bad happens. This time it was a bit different but the results are still the same.

But this book also left me feeling confused and upset. Hidden Bodies ended up with Love and Joe seemly together only for them to "break up" in-between books. So I just feel like it didn't really make sense to just plant Joe in a new town and claim that Love and her family paid him off. And then to throw in a random phone call from Love and have her demand he returns just so she can kill him and herself. It really did feel like someone just tossed a bunch of twists into a hat and pulled them out.

Am I looking forward to the next book? Not really. Will I read it anyway? yeah. I sure will. Because at the end of the day, I need to know how Joe's story ends.

Joe Goldberg is a sociopath. But you don't want to accept that, because you are Joe Goldberg. You, Joe, understand that Joe, you, are just trying to do the right thing. No matter the cost.

Caroline Kepnes has done it again. By 'it', I of course mean, destroying your sense of morality as she drags you into the mind of a deranged man. But it's comfortable in there, and he does have decent taste in his reading habits.

Look, if you liked the first one, and the second one, you'll like this one just as much. Caroline Kepnes writes this voice powerfully (the not-actually-second person but feels like second-person voice) and stays completely in tune with her protagonist. There were things about this one that I didn't like as much as the first, but I think that's because I got weary of the body-count. We know by now that everyone around Joe dies (so much death!), but somewhere around the mid-point of this one, it turned from one genre (horror, I guess) to something closer to black comedy. I don't fault the author, at all, but I think trying to keep this protagonist rolling through three books in this vein (he doesn't want to be the killer, yet he's also the reaper) is probably unsustainable. Which isn't to say I didn't LIKE the book, I did. It kept me reading and wanting to read (which in this pandemic hasn't been easy), but by the end, I just felt a bit weary of Joe and his plight. I'm sure this book will do gangbusters and the Netflix show will be huge and people will love this. There's nothing wrong with it and so many things that are great, but my gut feeling is that if there is a fourth book, I'll give it a miss. Love to see the author do something else though, I love her voice and her work as a whole.

There isn't much I can say without feeling like I'm spoiling this book... so I'll just say A) good Joe is a strange concept B) what a daggum ending and C) I can't wait to see how this comes to life in season 3 of the show

Just when you think that Joe cannot possibly get any creepier - well, he does. Joe is trying to live the quiet life and once again, trying to find love, but this time in a small community and the object of his affection (maybe victim is a better word?) is a local librarian.

Kepnes is an unbelievably talented writer. She creates the perfect villain - he's a terrible person who does terrible things... and then suddenly you find yourself empathizing with him.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House for the ARC in return for an honest review.

I was excited to read this one because Joe is chasing after a librarian and there were tons of library references which I enjoyed! However, I found that Joe wasn’t as compelling or creepy and the storyline was rather flat until near the end where it seemed like they decided to squish in a bunch of things to make it exciting before the end. ⁣ It had a lot of potential but unfortunately it didn’t live up to what I was hoping. ⁣
Thank you Net Galley for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review. ⁣

Joe Goldberg is back with a bang. And he does what he does best... Be a creep. A creep in love, once again.

It says a lot about the author that the the same character can still incite great interest and intrigue with his actions. I was fully invested in Joe. I wanted him to succeed... Haha. IHe is still creepy. He is still disturbed and yet you feel for him.

I'm still wrapping my head around the story and will need more time to process it. That's how much i enjoyed it.

Be ready to be shocked, entertained and rattled!

Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for sending a digital ARC in exchange for an honest review.