Caroline Kepnes returns with a hypnotic third installment in the You series, You Love Me, delivering a thriller that’s slower in blood but deeper in dissection. The infamous Joe Goldberg is back, not in New York or L.A., but nestled in the wooded calm of Bainbridge Island, Washington. He’s doing things differently now—at least, that’s what he tells himself. No stalking. No scheming. No killing. Just pure, wholesome pursuit of love.
Or so he says.
But readers of the first two books—You and Hidden Bodies—know that Joe’s mind is not a safe neighborhood. In this installment, Kepnes sharpens her psychological tools to take us deeper into Joe’s psyche, embedding us in the tension of self-reinvention. This time, the monster wears a cardigan, and his weapon is patience.
Plot Summary: A Clean Slate with Bloodstains Beneath
Joe Goldberg has retreated to Bainbridge Island after being paid off by the powerful Quinn family to never see his son, Forty, again. Shattered but reassembling, Joe gets a job at the local library and vows to finally become the good man he’s always believed himself to be. No tricks, no surveillance, no body bags. He even donates $100,000 anonymously to land a volunteer gig. It’s Joe 2.0—or so he tries.
Enter Mary Kay DiMarco, a warm, smart, messy-haired librarian and single mother. She’s everything Joe thinks he wants: grounded, principled, and completely unaware of his violent history. Instead of obsessing, Joe attempts a “slow burn” courtship, believing he’s matured beyond his old ways. But when Mary Kay doesn’t immediately reciprocate—or worse, seems too busy with her teenage daughter and male friends—Joe’s carefully contained darkness starts to simmer.
What begins as a charming workplace flirtation evolves into a psychological slow dance of manipulation and misread boundaries. The plot swerves unexpectedly, embracing new genre tropes: domestic suspense, maternal guilt, and post-trauma reinvention. Yet under it all, Joe remains Joe—his inner monologue a masterclass in narcissistic delusion.
Joe Goldberg: Rehabilitated… or Just Repackaged?
Joe, our unreliable narrator and would-be lover, returns as complex and terrifyingly convincing as ever. Kepnes leans further into self-awareness this time: Joe knows the world sees him as a monster, and he’s determined to behave. He reads Cedar Cove novels for comfort, volunteers at a library, and even plays therapist to grieving patrons. But these “good guy” behaviors feel like items on a checklist rather than genuine transformation.
He’s still possessive, manipulative, and deeply entitled—only now he masks it better. When Mary Kay texts “I love you” (a typo, she says), it becomes gospel to Joe. He cradles the illusion, refusing reality, and constructing a fantasy so dense it collapses into fatal obsession. His attempts at “normalcy” are chilling because they’re nearly convincing, and Kepnes excels at walking that razor-thin line between empathy and revulsion.
Joe doesn’t want love; he wants control dressed up as intimacy.
Mary Kay DiMarco: More Than the Target
Unlike Beck (You) or Love (Hidden Bodies), Mary Kay is not a naive girl or volatile heiress. She’s middle-aged, intelligent, a mother, and beloved in her town. She’s also emotionally unavailable—not because she’s cruel, but because she has a life. For once, Joe’s desired woman doesn’t need saving.
This creates an unsettling shift. Joe isn’t fighting her ex or a scheming family—he’s battling the mundaneness of her independence. Mary Kay becomes one of Kepnes’s most layered characters, embodying the pain of single motherhood, unresolved grief, and female friendship under surveillance. Her dynamic with her daughter Nomi is particularly compelling, as is her loyal but complex relationship with her best friend Melanda.
Where Joe sees signals of affection, Mary Kay offers friendship. Where Joe interprets boundaries as obstacles, she’s just… living her life. And that normalcy, for Joe, is intolerable.
Writing Style: Obsessive, Stream-of-Consciousness
Kepnes’s signature prose remains razor-sharp: immersive, deranged, and disturbingly poetic. The entire narrative is Joe’s inner monologue, a stylized stream of consciousness that’s both lyrical and intrusive.
Examples of her stylistic brilliance:
Joe’s observations of Mary Kay’s clothing are practically devotional, filtered through a lens of paranoia and erotic tension.
His takedowns of minor characters, like Melanda and Seamus, are scathing and hilarious.
Even mundane acts—like placing a badge on a lanyard—become loaded with emotional symbolism.
Kepnes writes like a mind unraveling in real time. Every gesture, sigh, and glance becomes a clue, a prophecy. The effect is unnerving, immersive, and unshakably intimate.
Themes: Love, Control, Redemption, and the Delusion of Reform
The Myth of Redemption: Joe believes he can “do better,” but the book interrogates whether bad people can truly change without reckoning with their past. Joe skips the reckoning and declares himself healed. The result is a performance of goodness, not actual growth.
Power and Gender Dynamics: The series continues its exploration of male entitlement, but this time, it’s less about toxic romance and more about the delusions of reform. Joe’s version of “doing better” still places himself at the center. He defines love on his terms, unaware of the consent or desire of the woman involved.
Grief and Parent-Child Bonds: Mary Kay’s bond with her daughter Nomi, Joe’s grief over losing access to his own child, and even the library patrons like Howie, mourning his dead wife, create an undercurrent of emotional loss. Joe wants to be a father again, but his motivations—like everything else—are possessive rather than nurturing.
Small-Town Surveillance: Unlike the anonymous sprawl of NYC or the shiny deceit of L.A., Bainbridge Island is intimate. Everyone knows everyone. This creates a fascinating inversion: Joe must maintain his façade while feeling constantly watched. The hunter becomes the hunted.
Strengths and Weaknesses
What Works Brilliantly
Character depth: Joe is more nuanced than ever; Mary Kay holds her own.
Prose style: Kepnes’s voice is crisp, darkly comic, and hypnotic.
Tension: Built not through action, but psychological stakes.
Genre shift: Less bloody thriller, more existential suspense.
What Falls Short
Pacing: The plot unspools slowly, and readers expecting high-octane twists may find the first half sluggish.
Repetitiveness: Joe’s internal monologue, while compelling, occasionally loops and meanders, especially in mid-book chapters.
Overfamiliar formula: By book three, readers may sense a structural pattern—Joe meets girl, falls hard, lies mount, violence simmers. The setup, though nuanced, doesn’t stray far from earlier volumes.
How You Love Me Compares to Other Books in the You Series by Caroline Kepnes
You: Joe was terrifying and fresh—a romantic turned stalker turned killer. Beck was naive, the satire biting, the format innovative.
Hidden Bodies: A broader narrative canvas, introducing Love Quinn and a dive into Hollywood’s hollow soul. More chaotic, more violent.
You Love Me: Quieter, more psychological, more emotionally resonant. The most self-aware Joe yet.
For You and Only You (next in line): Promises to examine Joe in an academic setting, further testing his moral gymnastics.
Similar Reads for Fans of You Love Me
Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn – for unreliable narrators and toxic romance.
The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith – Joe’s spiritual ancestor.
Verity by Colleen Hoover – for blurred lines between love, obsession, and madness.
My Lovely Wife by Samantha Downing – murderous intimacy done right.
Final Verdict: Can You Love “You Love Me”?
Yes, if you’re ready to sit inside the mind of a man who mistakes control for affection and obsession for devotion. You Love Me by Caroline Kepnes is not a body count thriller; it’s a character study wearing the mask of a crime novel. Caroline Kepnes doesn’t just give us Joe—she asks us to question the redemptive arc itself. Can someone like Joe change? Or is he merely evolving, more subtle and sinister?
Recommended For: Readers who enjoy morally complex protagonists, psychological thrillers, darkly comic prose, and slow-burning suspense.
Wrapping It Up
You Love Me by Caroline Kepnes is a quiet scream in a loud genre. Instead of louder, bigger, gorier, Kepnes goes introspective. The horror here is subtle: a charming man who believes he’s cured, despite the rot still festering beneath the surface. Joe Goldberg’s greatest illusion isn’t that someone loves him—it’s that he deserves it.
And that, dear reader, is what makes You Love Me by Caroline Kepnes chillingly unforgettable.