You First cover art

You First

A Joe Goldberg Prequel

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You First

By: Caroline Kepnes
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About this listen

How did Joe Goldberg become Joe Goldberg? What led to his first love…first obsession…first kill?

Find out in the highly anticipated prequel to New York Times bestselling author Caroline Kepnes’s hit You series, which inspired the blockbuster Netflix show.


Joe Goldberg is ready for his life to start. He’s seventeen years old, working in Mr. Mooney’s bookshop, falling in love with every girl on the subway all while wondering who will be the one. He knows what he needs: A woman who will force him to get his GED, go to night school, and make something of himself. But who would ever fall in love with him?

Then he spots it: MISSED CONNECTION, NYC Bookstore Babe.

Someone is looking for Joe. And that someone is Vail Gunderson, a production assistant with a passion for rom-coms. The only catch: she’s twenty-four, which means that Joe has no choice but to lie about his age…and, naturally, nearly everything else in his life. Joe thinks he’s found true love, but when Vail needs more convincing that Joe is her happily ever after, he’s determined to convince her…no matter what it takes…

With her incisive and darkly comedic prose, Caroline Kepnes captures Joe poised on the edge of manhood, entering the vicious, dog-eat-dog New York dating scene for the very first time, and buffeted by forces that will determine what kind of man he will become—and how he will write his own twisted love story.
Mystery Suspense Thriller & Suspense

Critic reviews

“Joe Goldberg at his most raw and vulnerable before love curdled into violence. Caroline Kepnes delivers a dark, disturbing, and utterly compelling origin story that feels chillingly authentic, with writing so sharp and character work so precise it makes every turn feel inevitable.”—Liv Constantine, New York Times bestselling author of The Last Mrs. Parrish

“A Y2K setting, adolescent anxiety, laugh-out-loud details, and a drum-tight, propulsive plot: This book is everything you ever wanted in a You novel and then some. Buckle up, because Teen Joe’s mind is a dark, dark place—and I loved every second of my visit.”—Andrea Bartz, New York Times bestselling author of The Last Ferry Out

“At last, we have the answers to who Joe is . . . Caroline Kepnes has created an unnerving, astounding psychological portrait, a book you can’t close until the last page is turned. Deep, dark, twisted and beautifully written.”—Catriona Ward, USA Today bestselling author of Nowhere Burning
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