July 28, 2014
Debut novelist Kepnesâs seriously unsettling depiction of stalking nevertheless manages to invoke glimmers of sympathy for its perpetrator. Joe is working as a clerk at a bookstore on New York Cityâs Lower East Side when M.F.A. writing student Guinevere Beck (known as Beck) saunters in. Joe knows immediately that theyâre meant to be together. What follows is a chronicle of Joeâs psychotic preoccupation with Beck, told in Joeâs relentless, alternately passionate and vitriolic narration and addressed to Beck as âyou.â Astonishingly enough, his fixation materializes into a relationship of sorts. Joe, who is well-read but never attended college, has a chip on his shoulder about his education and class status and the assumptions people make about him. Beck, for her part, prefers to stir up dramas rather than seriously work on her writing. Whatâs most chilling about this novel, besides its plausibility, is the way in which Kepnes makes the reader empathize with Joe during the journey into his troubled mind. Her book will have readers looking over their shouldersâand examining their own motivations. Agent: Jennifer Rudolph Walsh and Claudia Ballard, WME Entertainment.
August 1, 2014
When Joe Goldberg meets Guinevere Beck in the East Village bookstore where he works, he instantly knows that she's the one for him. Sure, he thought the same about Candace, but Candace is no longer in his life and he's sure that Guinevere is the one. The only problem is Guinevere doesn't seem to know it yet. So Joe gives her some time. Time he spends watching her, hacking her computer, and even saving her from her mistakes. When she drunkenly falls onto the subway tracks late at night, he's there to offer her a hand. And when he realizes her boyfriend Benji is cheating on her, Joe gets Benji out of the way. In fact, Joe will do pretty much anything, including commit murder, to make sure that Guinevere becomes his. VERDICT Kepnes certainly has the creepy factor down in her debut novel, taking readers deep into Joe's thoughts and feelings, to extremely suspenseful effect. And Joe is entirely believable as the stalker from hell. Though there are no ghosts and the only thing that goes bump in the night is Joe, this will appeal to fans of psychological horror.--Jane Jorgenson, Madison P.L., WI
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