Review | You by Caroline Kepnes

Rating | 3/5 stars
***MILD SPOILERS AHEAD***

Hi all!
I know it's been a while since I've posted on here but it's been a while since I actually finished a book. I'm still currently reading Crooked Kingdom (that I started in January ugh!) but I've been reading some smaller, easier books just so I don't get burnt out on the same story.
One of those books is You by Caroline Kepnes. I picked this up with 13 Reasons Why in May. I finished 13RW within about two days and I started You immediately after that.
I intentionally went into You not knowing much about the story other than it's written in second perspective, which was something I had to get used to at first but it definitely made for an interesting read. With this being one of my random reads, I didn't think to take notes or anything so I'll just review this off the top of my head (I literally finished it ten minutes ago).
The story was intriguing right off the bat but if I'm being honest, I found most of the characters pretentious to a fault. I understand you weren't really supposed to sympathize with the main character, Joe, but he was so obnoxious at points that it was hard to read from his perspective in general. It was actually mentally draining to read his thought process most of the time. Beck wasn't any better. Actually like... every character in this book was a pain in the ass.
About halfway through the book, it got so predictable I was considering DNFing it. Kepnes set the characters up in the such a way that it was not shocking or thrilling in the slightest when the 'shocking' and 'thrilling' moments occurred. This book needed a really good twist at the end to kick it up a notch. But it never came. I was not surprised at all when Joe killed Beck in the end. He'd been threatening to or actually killing people from the midway point. I think the book got predictable because I was reading every thought Joe was having so nothing was left to the imagination. He explained everything he was feeling so it wasn't shocking when anything happened that was intended to be exciting/thrilling. He literally told me what was going to happen most of the time.
There's really no point in explaining every bit that happened in the book because my attention wasn't drawn toward anything but I just need to explain why I give You 3 stars.
I understood going into this book that it was adult. There's no reason for an adult novel to hold back on any mature themes but oh, this book is on another level. There are some instances where You feels like straight up erotica. The language Kepnes uses was often vulgar and always explicit. It pulled me right out of the book because it was always just too much. I've read other adult books and I have not been assaulted with such language like I was in You. It was so sex-centric that most of the time it just didn't seem necessary to describe things in the way that Joe did. Was the description of Peach and Beck in Little Compton necessary? No. Did it further the plot? No. Did it really only serve as another drawn out erotic scene but this time between two women? Yes. I would say a good 20% of the book is extraneous and pointless sex. So before you choose to read this, be aware that there is a lot of explicit sex scenes that are sometimes described in intense detail. Like I said in my Goodreads review, you can find more tame, vanilla sex description in actual published erotica- Fifty Shades for example. I spent more time reading Joe thinking about or engaging in a pointless sex act than I did actually caring about where this story was going. I swear to god I will never look at green pillows the same way again.
That's enough. The story was decent, the writing was interesting and accomplished to hold my attention for a while. You had it's flaws but it's not a complete loss. I probably won't be reading Hidden Bodies any time soon though. I'm tired of living in Joe's pretentious head.

Once I finish Crooked Kingdom (probably in the next couple of days), I will post a short, non-spoilery review on here.