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.
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