Hidden Bodies by Caroline Kepnes

So I ended up enjoying Hidden Bodies more than I enjoyed You. I was a little worried going into it and was really only reading it because I had already bought it. But now that it's finished, I find myself missing Joe and want Caroline Kepnes to write a third one so I can learn how he is going to get himself out of what he has gotten himself into.

(Source: Kelsey Darling)

It has been a few months since Joe murdered Beck and framed the murder on Dr. Nicky, and Joe is finally ready to move on when Amy Adam walks (back) into his life. After a few months together, Joe and Amy seem quite happy together. So Joe is pretty shocked when he learns that not only has Amy stolen tens of thousands of dollars of rare books, but has up and left him with nothing but a note. Stalker Joe is back at what he does best and learns that Amy has started a new life in LA. The obvious thing for Joe to do is follow her. What Joe does not expect to find in LA is Love, both the feeling and the name of his new obsession. Joe will do anything to make sure that his past does not affect his future with Love. But the thing about bodies, they don't like to stay hidden.

The book starts off with Joe talking about his relationship with Amy, and I kind of liked them together. Both of them are shady as all get out, both have trust issues, and both are just really weird. And the fact that the synopsis on the book talks about Joe's new girlfriend, I assumed it was her. So I was surprised when she disappeared. The early chapters of Joe looking for Amy were very reminiscent of the first book when Joe would be raging at Beck, or when he was killing Benji and Peach. Because Amy is an offline personality, it is hard for him to locate her, but he tries his hardest, leading him to Love. Their relationship is even weirder if you ask me, and I didn't think she was the girlfriend referenced in the synopsis, but again, I was wrong.

"When I am done, when I have told her everything-everything but Forty, of course-she just sits there. The minutes tick by and her face gives me nothing, the way Matt Damon's face never looks all that fucked up when he's being Jason Bourne.

I think about what I've done, about how it all must seem to her. I did not do that thing where you leave out the grotesque details to make yourself seem like some kind of unstained, impervious hero. I told her how I stole Beck's phone and strangled Peach on the beach. I told her about the blood of The Da Vinci Code in Beck's mouth when she slipped away, how I buried her upstate. I told her about the mug of piss....

I am preparing for Love's face to change, for her to run out of here screaming....

'Joe,' she says, and my name belongs to her now. There's more. She says she knew when Trey died that if she ever found anyone again, it would be forever and she looks at the floor and then she looks at me." (pp. 366-370)

(Source: Giphy)

The murders Joe commits in this book feel a bit more organized. His first murder is a man he assumes to be in a relationship with Amy, which is something Joe from You would have done. His second and third murders are out of survival, which goes back to his old behaviors. Obviously, Joe is still a sociopath, but he grows in some ways, so his character development is very interesting to read. That, and the fact that his internal dialogue is less graphic and profane, made this book a much more enjoyable read.

I did find a lot of the characters annoying to some extent, but I felt that way in You also. I think it might have something to do with the amount of privileged characters that do not seem to grasp what the average human has to deal with. Joe has a habit of hanging out with the one percenters, and they have a rather annoying personality. And when he is not hanging out with the one percenters, he is with drug addicts, bums, and leaches-more people who have annoying traits. But also, you are reading about them through Joe's perspective, and he is annoyed by most of them, so it is really a hats off to Kepnes to make the reader feel what the character feels.

(Source: Giphy)

The book ends one quite a big cliffhanger. While perusing Goodreads, I read that Kepnes does know what the first line of the third book would be, but was not working on it at the time being. I am not certain of when she made that statement, but seeing as Hidden Bodies was published in late 2016, I would think we might still have a little bit to go.

I am trying to avoid some spoilers in the review, hence the lack of names of victims and the cliffhanger details. With the Netflix series being relatively new, I am sure it will drive people to read the book and discover there is more to it; that is how I ended up here. And I do try to avoid major spoilers with books less than 5 years old. 

(Source: Giphy)

Joe's Body Count: 7

Rating: 7/10

Author: Caroline Kepnes

Series: You (Book 2 of 2)

Genres: Thriller, Mystery, Contemporary

Dates Read: May 7-10, 2019