Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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I brung Pedro home for Thanksgiving break and tomorrow I have to bring him back to school.

Providence by Caroline Kepnes

Flight from the Enchanter by Iris Murdoch

High Crime Area by Joyce Carol Oates

Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell

The Real Sherlock by Lucinda Hawksley

Agent 355 by Marie Benedict

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Providence: 2/5 Stars The newer novel by Caroline Kepnes of YOU fame. It’s…well, it’s not great. There’s so many of the same pieces that made You a good, if goofily rehashed novel, are there, but serving this story they just don’t work as well. The plot here is that a young boy is kidnapped by a former substitute teacher. While he’s missing his best friend grows into her adolescence and loses touch with that connection, but she’s haunted by images of his eyes, his presence, […]

I buy violets for Amy.

Hidden Bodies by Caroline Kepnes

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The sequel to You and continues much of the good work from the first book, as well continuing some of the silliness. While the first book felt like a funny takedown of East Coast Ivy League elites, this one takes on Hollywood. This would mostly be ok and work, but it can’t quite tell if it wants to say something or tell a story at various turns. So I spent a lot of time thinking about what this book is. It’s got some Boogie Nights wrapped […]

You don’t wear a wedding ring and I go on.

You by Caroline Kepnes

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I think this book is really successful (not supremely — despite what the cover tells you, it’s not Gone Girl but more so than I would have suspected). But what this really means is that the audiobook is really successful. The narration of Santino Fontana really works here because instead of the deadpan of the show (mimicking Dexter) we get more life. Joe, we realize, is not a sociopath unable to feel anything or even a psychopath unable to empathize whatsoever with his victims. Instead, he is […]

Damn.

You by Caroline Kepnes

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I don’t know how to rate this book because surprised Pikachu face isn’t a star value.  I think I liked it in that it’s really well written, but damn if it isn’t scary as hell to read as a woman. Especially because Kepnes makes Joe, the narrator, too believably charming. It’s so much easier to think of predators as someone you’d cross the street to avoid, but the creep who’s only a creep once you get to know him has got to be a lot […]

“It is my destiny to know people who abuse punctuation.” Same, Joe. Same.

Hidden Bodies by Caroline Kepnes

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A few weeks ago, I reviewed the utterly bizarre You, by Caroline Kepnes. I wasn’t quite sure about the story, but I adored the narration of the audiobook (BEST GREG 4EVA), and immediately wanted MORE. So, here I am, doubly confused after having listened to Hidden Bodies, the sequel to You. Joe is terrible, and I kind of love him a little bit. For the first part of the book, Joe and his new girlfriend, Amy (who he started dating in You, after murdering Beck […]

I always feel like somebody’s watching me/ And I have no privacy/ Woah, I always feel like somebody’s watching me

You by Caroline Kepnes

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I binged You on Netflix after reading an article about how Penn Badgley was imploring that young women stop romanticizing his character, Joe, and see him for the psychopath he is. You by Caroline Kepnes is the novel the first season of the TV show is based on, there is a sequel that the upcoming second season will cover, about a book store clerk named Joe Goldberg who develops an unhealthy obsession with a young woman, Beck, who comes into his shop. You didn’t walk in here for books, […]



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