Are You Into YOU? Here’s Why You Should Be

I’m talking about YOU, the must-see TV series, now on Netflix, and YOU the novel by Caroline Kepnes on which it’s based.  Pick one. Better still, pick both.

The writing in the novel, published in 2014,  is witty, smart and provides the sort of biting social commentary that we saw in the fabulous Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn. Coincidentally –or maybe not — Flynn and Kepnes both used to write for Entertainment Weekly.

The TV series, shot in part on location in New York City is easy on the eye, trashy, entertaining and wickedly funny. It stars Penn Badgley (famous from the TV series, Gossip Girl) and Elizabeth Lail who plays Beck, with Shay Mitchell as the poisonous Peach.

The Plot of You

The narrator and anti-hero of YOU is Joe Goldberg, who works as a manager of an independent bookstore in Manhattan. He is a stalker/sociopath/psychopath who becomes obsessed with Guinevere Beck, a writing student who walks into his bookshop one day.

The novel is narrated entirely from his twisted, dark point of view as he pursues Beck, fantasizes about their life together and occasionally spends real time with his object of affection. Along the way, he breaks into her apartment, collects and hoards her possessions, and disposes of those of her friends who he feels are not contributing positively to Beck’s development as a writer.

The TV series, while relatively faithful to the plot, hops around to different POVs so that the viewer gets to know Beck as well as her social media obsessed friends including the poisonous Peach. There is also a subplot — not in the novel– involving Joe’s young neighbor in his walk-up building, the supremely adorable, heart-wrenching, Paco (Luca Padovan, pictured with Penn Badgley as Joe)

YOU : The Sleeper

I started reading YOU last May, and then tuned into the first few episodes of the TV series, originally airing on Lifetime. I had to abandon both because of writing, revising, editing my own manuscript. And, I was obviously not in the mood since I also rejected the novel for what I feared was going to become a stalker’s relentless, futile and tedious fantasizing about a woman who is an obvious flake.

Beck lives her life as a social media floozie, doesn’t shut down her lost iPhone account, lies, lets herself be infuriatingly manipulated by Peach –and keeps the drapes open in her sidewalk-level Manhattan apartment when she goes to bed with her boyfriends. WTF???? She deserves everything that’s coming to her, I thought.

The TV series kept my interest longer. But it was airing on Lifetime on a weekly basis. So, no binge-watching. And, then I lost track of the episodes I’d already seen. The only one who urged me to continue watching was my son, Dan  who texted about Joe: “He’s a monster. But witty and disarming. I kept wanting to see how Joe would escape being found out.”

New Lease On Life

Fast-forward to this week, and suddenly the TV series is a super-hit in its Netflix reincarnation. From about a half-million viewers tuning into Lifetime (though how many “cool” viewers would admit to watching that channel?) 40 million households have tuned in to at least one episode in the series since it started streaming, according to Netflix. YOU has been renewed for a second season.

#YOU became a trending hashtag when dozens of female viewers tweeted about wanting Joe to stalk them — and Penn Badgley attempted to tamp down that fantasy!

Even the New York Times commented this week, attributing its super successful rebirth to millenials tuning into a streaming TV show about “internet privacy and youth culture.” Then, my friend and fellow author, Cathy texted ( in the middle of the night) : “You need to watch the psych thriller on Netflix called You.”

So I did.

Romantic Hero Or Psychopath?

And this time, I loved it (see, now I’ve got time on my hands!) Loved the whole idea of it, and its underlying premise. As Sera Gamble, YOU’s showrunner described it:

“Part of what makes a romantic hero is  that he’s persistent, sees beyond what the female says, into what she feels. He doesn’t necessarily take no for an answer and he might slay the beast for her. We wanted to capture those romantic comedy moments so that we could point out that they’re actually kinda creepy.”

Book Is Better (IMHO)

I went back to finish the novel, too. And, absolutely, totally loved it. Kepnes’s writing is smart, clever and biting. And so, Joe Goldberg in the novel is smarter, cleverer and more biting than he is in the TV series — and we start to despise his victims as much as he does. Which is half-way to rooting for a murderous psychopath in the same way we rooted for Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs, isn’t it?

Joe in the book has scathing views on the overchoice of shower curtains in Bed, Bath & Beyond; on Stephen King fans (“all the people who worship Stephen King bombarding the store for the Big New Stephen King Book that they all need on the same fucking day because God forbid they opened their eyes to a lesser-known author“) ; on IKEA (” a dystopian nightmare come true where all the furniture is cut from the same hunk of cheap-ass wood“); on the gigantic homes and second homes of the super wealthy ((“I fly down the hall, down the back stairwell (just for servants) that leads to the hallway between the kitchen and the great room. Fortunately, there are saloon-style doors that block this stairway because who the hell wants to look at a servant, right?))  — and the pampered, entitled children of wealthy, white elites.

When Joe imprisons Beck’s worthless boyfriend Benji he forces him to name his favorite five books. Benji includes Underworld by Don DeLillo and Kerouac’s On The Road. Benji fails a test about the books, and Joe observes: “He keeps saying he would have made a different list of books if he knew there was a test coming. That’s how privileged people think: Lie unless you know that you can’t get away with lying.”

Scary — & Funny

In fact Amazon Books listed YOU last Friday as #16 in the Thrillers & Suspense, Crime, Serial Killers category and #26 in the Humor & Entertainment category.

Here’s an excerpt that made me laugh out loud: It occurs when Joe drives in a blizzard to Peach’s Rhode Island cottage to stalk Beck — and hits a deer on the way. A cop who arrives on the scene notices the cap Joe stole and is now wearing which bears the logo of the Figawi ( an annual  Memorial Day sailboat regatta from Hyannis to Nantucket) and smiles at Joe:

“You raced in Figawi?”

“A couple of times,” I answer and now I know why Stephen King can’t stop writing about New England. I’m bleeding. A deer is dead. I’m squatting. My car is steaming in the woods. And this motherfucker wants to talk about sailing.”

Wannabe Authors Take Note

You may notice the references to Stephen King in Kepnes’s novel –of which there are more than just those mentioned above. You may wonder if that’s a wise move for a newbie author especially since the references are not overly sycophantic.

Answer: It worked for Kepnes. King reviewed the novel and provided this blurb:

“Hypnotic and scary… never read anything quite like it.”

Me neither.

 

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