November 1, 2022
Joe Goldberg is back again, involved in the same kind of creepy obsessing that made You a huge hit--and the basis of a Netflix series. Now he's at Harvard on a writing fellowship, enthusiastic and hopeful until he learns just how elitist the mostly published students in his classes really are. At least there's Wonder, also unpreppie and unpublished, but why can't she commit to the writing life?
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February 6, 2023
Bestseller Kepnes’s puckish fourth Joe Goldberg novel (after 2021’s You Love Me) finds the obsessive serial killer at Harvard after a fictionalization of all his “tragic, no-good love stories” earns him entry into author Glenn Shoddy’s writing fellowship. Joe assumes the other “Shoddies” will be undiscovered autodidacts like himself; instead, most are accomplished elitists. The only other misfit is Wonder Parish, a working-class Bostonian who manages a Dunkin’ Donuts and lives with her family. Joe knows he and Wonder are destined to become a literary power couple; he just has to remove all obstacles to their relationship, then convince an insecure Wonder and a derisive Glenn of Wonder’s potential—and of Joe’s brilliance. The Shoddies’ fixation on a whodunit podcast linked to Joe’s past vexes, but he knows how to handle complications: one murder at a time. Kepnes waggishly satirizes the publishing industry, and her outsized characters’ egos and anxieties lay the foundations for delightfully deranged plot twists. The book feels overlong, but Joe’s stream-of-consciousness narration engages throughout, rendering readers both confidante and accomplice. Kepnes reliably entertains. Agent: Claudia Ballard, WME
March 15, 2023
Joe Goldberg, the focus of Netflix's binge-worthy You, first appeared in print, giving readers a taste of life inside the incongruously likable serial killer's mind. After an unfortunate end to his relationship with Mary Kay DiMarco (in You Love Me, 2021), Joe moves to Boston, where he has been accepted for a Harvard writing fellowship led by Pulitzer winner Glenn Shoddy. True to form, Joe finds true love with one of his fellow writers, Wonder, who dazzles him with her talent and vulnerability. They bond over their working-class roots, united against the elites. Clocking Wonder's family's abuses of her loyalty and Glenn's misogynist bent, Joe's urges to eliminate obstacles resurface. But this time he's making big mistakes, and the release of a new podcast on his murders in Bainbridge puts him in the crosshairs of another fellow who aspires to write a true-crime best-seller. It's messy, as things can be for obsessing psychopaths, and Joe's stream-of-consciousness narration reflects his growing panic. Within this intensity, though, his snark-laden observations about ego, love, and loyalty ring true.
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Starred review from March 15, 2023
Has serial killer Joe Goldberg finally met his match--in a creative writing class? In the previous three books in this series, beginning with You (2014), hopeless romantic and occasional murderer Joe has found himself in perilous situations. But who knew the most terrifying yet would be a creative writing fellowship at Harvard? Joe has written a novel, titled--what else?--Me, and has finagled himself into a workshop headed by Glenn Shoddy, author of a critically acclaimed novel called Scabies for Breakfast. Joe discovers that most of his fellows in the workshop are real writers, not just aspiring--Ani is an Obie-winning playwright, Sarah Beth the author of a successful mystery series. Mats and Lou have both completed promising first books, and nepo baby O.K. hasn't finished writing a book yet, but her mother is an NPR star. Shoddy himself comes to class in bike shorts and talks more about his rides than his writing. But, of course, Joe finds a soul mate in the lovely Wonder Parish, who's just as insecure about her place in the seminar as Joe is. She still lives with her blue-collar family, caring for her wounded veteran dad and managing a Dunkin'. And she is, as Joe sees when he starts reading her manuscript, Faithful, a truly gifted writer. He is soon madly in love with her, and she responds, although their affair doesn't go smoothly. Joe has other things to worry about, too. One is a podcast that's the topic of lively discussion in the seminar: The Body on Bainbridge--a body Joe knows too much about. When you leave as many unsolved murders in your wake as he has, someone is bound to do a true-crime show about one of them. Another is Shoddy's wife, the aptly named Sly, who has her own secrets. When the bodies start dropping, Joe has to wonder if he's the only killer in class. Kepnes gleefully portrays the most back-stabbing seminar yet, dropping literary names with abandon as she twists the plot. Joe Goldberg might be a narcissistic, manipulative, murderous, utterly unreliable narrator, but he's damn entertaining.
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