Kirkus
Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

What makes a serial killer a serial killer? Here’s the rom-com version. This is Kepnes’ fifth novel about murderer, hopeless romantic, and colossally unreliable narrator Joe Goldberg, but it’s the first prequel, recounting Joe’s experiences as a 17-year-old in New York City not long after 9/11. Even at that tender age he sees books and sex as inextricably linked—he calls his penis “Portnoy.” Like the other books (which became a five-season Netflix series), this one takes us inside Joe’s head, where he addresses a running commentary to a “you” that’s not the reader but a woman he’s fallen madly in love with, which in Joe’s case means he’s stalking her. This time it’s Vail Gunderson, a classic Manic Pixie Dream Girl with the most early-2000s job ever: She’s a production assistant onSex and the City. She’s obsessed with the show and with rom-coms in general, and Joe, who practices obsession as an art, follows right along. Their relationship plays out amid a cast of sometimes wacky, sometimes disturbing characters, including Mr. Mooney, the bookstore owner who employs Joe and occasionally locks him in the basement; Angus Kaplan, a wealthy Mooney client and frustrated writer who buys pricey signed volumes by authors he envies and then desecrates them, often with Joe as an audience; and the aptly named Dick, a barista friend of Vail’s who offers Joe lots of bro-style advice. Kepnes’ trademark dark humor peppers the book, and there are some surprising twists. But the true twisted charm of the earlier installments was Joe’s unrestrained interior monologue. This time around it too often falls flat; maybe it’s because young Joe seems not quite as ferocious as the fully formed version, or maybe it’s that we’ve entered an era when narcissistic, amoral rambling seems overdone. This prequel offers entertainment for fans, but killer Joe Goldberg might have overstayed his welcome. Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Publishers Weekly
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The sociopath at the center of Kepnes’s bestselling You series gets a backstory in this addictive thriller. Joe Goldberg is introduced as a 17-year-old runaway working in a New York City bookstore, where he falls in love with nearly every girl he sees. His habitual prowling on Craigslist’s missed connections page proves futile until he comes across a post about an “NYC Bookstore Babe” who matches his description. Joe responds immediately and meets Vail Gunderson, a rom-com-loving production assistant on Sex and the City. To Joe, she’s perfect; the only problem is that she’s 24. Determined to woo her, Joe lies about his age, and then, with the help of a charming barista turned mentor, starts shaping himself into an ideal romantic partner. When Vail needs more convincing, Joe proves just how far he’ll go for love. Though readers of the You novels and admirers of their Netflix adaptations will know where the plot is headed, Kepnes has fun dropping Easter eggs into the narrative and getting creative about the precise details of Joe’s burgeoning criminality. The result is a wicked treat for series fans and newcomers alike. Agent: Claudia Ballard, WME. (June)

Book list
From Booklist, Copyright © American Library Association. Used with permission.

In this revealing prequel, fans of Kepnes’ You series will revel again in Joe Goldberg’s incisive wit and love-crossed menace. Seventeen-year-old NYC bookseller Joe Goldberg knows he’ll find love by posting “Missed Connections” ads on Craigslist when his inner romantic/stalker is tweaked. For months it’s a fruitless obsession until Vail, a twentysomething Sex In the City producer, seeks a bathroom in Mooney’s Books, and Joe breaks the cardinal rule forbidding toilet time for non-customers. It’s worth Mooney’s wrath when Vail later posts a “Missed Connections” addressed to “Book Store Babe.” While hiding his age and calculatingly morphing into Vail’s dream guy, Joe narrates a confounding start-stop first love. But when Joe learns that Vail’s head has been turned by a toxic pickup artist, he’s got no scruples about eliminating obstacles to their bliss. Joe’s all-caps commentary offers laugh-out-loud humor, and his increasingly unhinged narrative turns pages, but newcomers should start with You (2014); the suspense here lies mainly in the series’ unanswered backstory questions.