Hidden Bodies

I just finished reading Hidden Bodies by Caroline Kepnes last night.

Hidden Bodies by Carline Kepnes

Like most fiction I read, I checked this one out from the library.  I knew I had read Caroline Kepnes' last book, YOU when it first came out.  I know I really liked it, but I didn't remember the plot or anything else about it when I first chose this book.  But once I started reading Hidden Bodies, it was very familiar.  I slowly began to realize that not only was it similar in style to the previous book (...which makes sense, right?  Both books were written by the same author after all!) but I figured out, the narrator was the same person.  It was a continuation of the YOU, which I had to really reach to remember at this point.

YOU was just so cleverly done and different than the other books I have read in that genre.  The narrator, Joe, is a sociopathic murderer... but somehow funny, and even occasionally sympathetic and someone you can kind of identify with.

There was a point about mid-way through Hidden Bodies when I grew a little tired of it and started skimming.  I was having this feeling of, "This is so similar to the previous book, and I already read that one!" BUT fortunately, I got sucked back in soon enough and it was a fast page turner up until the very end.  And guess what?  There's going to be a third book of Joe. I heard the author interviewed on a podcast and she confirmed that to be true.

Honestly, just one book of Joe would have been enough for me.  And although Hidden Bodies is a continuation of Joe's story, you could read either book without reading the other and it would still feel like a complete and satisfying thriller.  If you just can't get enough of Joe's story, you can read the next one.  And eventually the next.  But don't wait as long as I did in between or you'll forget the previous book anyway... ;)

I'm even more interested to read what comes after this three part book series for Caroline Kepnes. 

For now, it's on to the next book- by an author I have never read before.

The Good Neighbor by A.J. Banner

(Dammit!  I just made the mistake of reading some reviews of it on Goodreads that weren't that good.  Well, it's less than 200 pages, so I'll find out for myself soon enough!)