"Hidden Bodies" by Caroline Kepnes

Hidden Bodies is a highly anticipated sequel to You by Caroline Kepnes, and was just released on February 23rd. I received an advance e-copy of the book from NetGalley and am happy to provide my honest review.

I read the first book right before I dove into the sequel and the difference between the two is quite stunning. In the first book, we basically get to experience the mind of a stalker: it is creepy, cold and at times, nauseating. Kepnes executed it brilliantly and the book deserves all the hype it's been getting.

Hidden Bodies is the next chapter in Joe's Goldberg's life. He just got dumped robbed by a girlfriend and he moves across the country to LA in pursuit of revenge. In this book, Joe is much more human. We learn a bit more about his background: his loveless childhood and struggles with poverty. We also see much more of his humor and literary talent. The first book gave us some nice glimpses of Joe's sarcasm and erudition. In Hidden Bodies, Kepnes definitely turns it up a notch. I really enjoyed Joe's inner monologues and rants about Angelinos, Hollywood and pop culture. He is wickedly funny. Kepnes does a great job of making the reader get attached to her character. At the same time Joe is still a cold-blooded murderer. He has no scruples killing people and makes great excuses to himself as to how he did the world a favor by doing away with them.

So those were the pros of the story. There are definitely a few cons for me. The first big one is that I find the entire idea of Joe's and Love's relationship completely unbelievable. The way they met, the way she falls for him and stays with him felt completely unrealistic to me. But I can roll with the story. I decided to give the author the benefit of a doubt here. But then came the ending.... And I can't help but be a bit disappointed with it. I see why she left it the way she did. The reader by now is really attached to Joe and even though we know he is a killer and needs to be punished, we also can't help but root for him. So in this sense, the author did a great job. However, she also tried to show that he changed. Joe learns humility and once he does, he no longer needs to kill people. One of his nemesis gets killed in a freak accident, and he simply lets the other one go. She also has him quoting the Bible, albeit in a very perverse way (he uses verses about love from First Corinthians to describe his girlfriend). So this development from a killer to humility to scripture is very Dostoyevsky-like. This is the journey of the main character in Crime and Punishment. However, Kepnes does not quite live up to the classic standard of course. Dostoyevky's character truly repents and knows he was wrong in taking someone's life. Kepnes' character is still a cold-blooded killer, unrepentant to the end, who feels he deserves to get away with murders and wants nothing more than to finally be loved and happy.

To be fair, the ending is a bit open-ended and it is unclear whether Joe will get away with his crimes or not. However, what matters to me is that at his core, he is still a selfish, cold psycho no matter how funny or brilliant he is. So I rated this book a bit lower (4 stars) just because I was not quite sure what Kepnes was trying to say with this book. Is anyone beyond redemption? Certainly not. But I do not believe in redemption without repentance and renewal. And Joe, even though he claims to be a new man, is completely unrepentant to the end.

"You" by Caroline Kepnes

You is a psychological thriller written from the point of view of a stalker. The entire narrative is written in the second person, i.e. the stalker - Joe Goldberg - is writing to his victim/obsession Beck. I think this book is brilliant. I could not help but wonder how somebody could create such a vivid picture of what being inside the mind of a stalker could feel like. Joe is utterly creepy. Certain parts of the book left me completely disgusted. He is a deeply disturbed individual with a lot of issues.

At the same time, Joe is wickedly smart and able to get away with several major criminal acts. He has a very dark and at times sick sense of humor, and I could not help but chuckle going through some of his rants. At some point, when I was probably about 70% done with the book, I did not think I could stay in Joe's mind any longer. It is just too lonely, dark, insecure and disturbing. But I pushed through and finished the book. It is totally worth it.

This book is also eye opening in pointing out how vulnerable many of us are. Our lives are easily accessible online (especially on social media): details about our work place, favorite places to frequent, hobbies, children, etc can be pulled up with a click of a mouse. In the wrong hands, this information can truly be deadly.

Now let's talk about Joe's obsession: a young aspiring writer/MFA student Beck. She is also a study in contradictions. She is flighty, insecure, selfish and constantly craving attention. In other words, even though Joe completely creeped me out, I also could not understand the choices Beck was making. So in a way, it was easier for me as a reader to get attached to Joe, rather than root for Beck.

The only weak point in the plot I thought was in the very end: the way Joe commits a perfect crime and frames Dr. Nicky. For a book that contained nauseating details about Joe's every thought and action, this last point was not well explained and felt a bit of a stretch to me. Even though Joe did live mostly "off the grid", Beck's friends knew about him so I find it utterly unbelievable that he was not called in for questioning of any kind. The book seems to imply that he completely evaded the radar of law enforcement.

Other than this last point that left me puzzled, the book does a great job describing Joe's sick thinking, I do highly recommend this book to anyone who likes thrillers or is interested in a study of a stalker's mind. I rated this book 5 out of 5 stars.

"Traveler" by Arwen Elys Dayton (Seeker No. 2)

Traveler is a sequel to Seeker which I read last year and had mixed feelings about (see here). I definitely liked Traveler a lot better than the first book. The story line was quite gripping and I could not put the book down. New characters are introduced in this book, and old ones go through significant transformations. One case in point is John. In the first book, he really goes off the deep end and becomes quite unstable in his actions and choices. In Traveler he is a completely different person. He continues with his training and finds new focus and purpose. My favorite character Maud had a much more prominent presence in this book also, which I was really happy about. Dayton did a good job writing from several different points of view and even running a parallel story from Catherine's (John's mother's) perspective set 20 years prior.  I sped through the book and could not believe it ended on a such a cliff hanger... I still do not feel particularly attached to the main character Quin. I find Catherine, Maud and even John much more relatable. Shinobu was also a disappointment for me. In the first book, he becomes addicted to drugs. He then kicks the habit and seems to be on the mend. Well, in the second book, he finds another way to fall off the wagon - you'll see when you read the book. I will definitely be picking up the next installment. Cannot wait to see how the trilogy ends. I am rating this book at 4 out of 5 stars. I rated the first book at 3.

"Try Not to Breathe" by Holly Seddon

WOW! What a great read. I liked this book for so many reasons, not sure where to begin.

Amy Stevenson has been in a persistent vegetative state in the hospital for 15 years. She was brutally beaten and left for dead when she was just 15 years old. Her attacker was never found and no viable suspect ever turned up.

Alex Dale is a freelance journalist and an alcoholic. She is writing an article about the work doctors are doing with patients like Amy in trying to communicate with them. She becomes very interested in Amy's story and decides to try and untangle the mystery surrounding her attack.

First of all, this novel is extremely well written. Sometimes, mystery/thriller authors make their plots quite confusing with too many suspects, leads and characters. Not so with this novel. It has a very limited number of characters and the story is told from several different points of view. Even though the suspect is not revealed until the very end, the information that is presented is never confusing or misleading. I really enjoyed that. In addition, even though there are flashbacks to 1995, the story flows on very smoothly without any confusing elements.

Secondly, I thought Seddon did a great job describing Alex's alcohol addiction. So often, drinking is glamorized in our culture. It was really refreshing to see the ugly side of the coin. Even though she struggles with addiction, she is not, what could be termed, an unreliable narrator. She does her work while sober and slips into drunken oblivion in the afternoons. If anything, Amy's case is her way to salvation, and she tries very hard to keep her head above water and not sink into a drunken stupor.

All the main characters in the book are extremely relatable, and the story moves along at a very nice pace. I literally flew through it. Even though you might be able to guess who the attacker is at some point in the last third of the book or so, it is not easily predictable. Clues are gradually fed to the reader. Nothing was jarring or out of place. A great-great read. I cannot wait to see more work from this author. I hope we'll get to see Alex in her future work also.

I got a copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. The book is already out in Europe and will be available for sale in the US on February 23, 2016.

"I'll Be Home for Christmas" by Julie L. Cannon

I've had this book on my shelf for over a year. Since the book appeared to be set at Christmas time, I was going to read it in December during the holidays. However, when I picked it up at the end of last year, I had to set it aside as the narrative was slow and I was not connecting to the characters. The only reason I went back to this book is because one of the books I have to read to complete my reading challenge for the year needs to be set during Christmas (information on the reading challenge I am doing this year can be found here).

I'll be Home for Christmas is a love story set during World War II. William Dove cannot join the military and go fight the Nazis with the rest of his friends because childhood polio left him with a disability. He feels even more crushed after his best friend and the love of his life Maggie Culpepper decides to join the Navy's WAVES (Women Accepted for Voluntary Emergency Service). Maggie tells herself that she joined the Navy in order to help her country fight the war. But that is only part of the story. What she is really looking for is an escape from bone-crushing grief she feels after losing her mother to cancer. She feels angry at God, desperately misses her mother and feels undeserving of any kind of happiness. She also does not want any reminders of her mother. So she runs. In the meantime, William is determined to marry Maggie and keeps sending letters to her, which she shoves into a footlocker unopened. You will have to read the book to find out the rest of their story.

I feel conflicted about the plot. On the one hand, I like Maggie's journey back to God and happiness. But I also felt that the way she kept ignoring William was selfish and unfair. And William himself seemed too naive and forgiving to me. So I would say this is an ok story to read at Christmas. There are definitely some nice inspirational parts in the book. But overall, it is filled with cliches and tropes that many Christian fiction novels are guilty of. 3 out of 5 stars.