You

I received a free advanced copy of You by Caroline Kepnes as part of the Goodreads giveaways.

"You" is the story of Joe who is an obsessed, deranged stalker/serial killer.  He sees Beck, has an innocent interaction with her, and becomes absolutely obsessed with her.  He goes into stalker mode.  He follows her activities on facebook.  Steals her phone so that he can read her emails.  Obsessively checks her twitter feed.  Finds her address.  Watches through her windows.  Sneaks into her house.  Kills her boyfriend....

This story is told in the first person, so the main character is relating all of these events as if they are normal which adds to the creepy factor.  It is not a romance.  It is a view into the mind of a very sick individual.  He seems normal to everyone who meets him.  A real nice guy, innocent manager of a book store.

After reading this, I found myself checking the privacy settings on all of my social media accounts, making sure my curtains are fully drawn at night and double checking the locks on my car and house when I go inside.  This is an unforgettable, chilling tale.  I still have goosebumps.

Dream Student

I was offered a free ebook copy of Dream Student (Dreams #1) by J.J. DiBenedetto after I had entered a giveaway for the book and didn't win.  It took me a few weeks to get around to reading it, but now that I finally have, here is my review.

Sara is a typical pre-med student, trying to balance studying, dorm life, having fun, and suffering through the most unimaginable nightmares.  At first the dreams don't seem so bad, she sees a boy that she feels an intense connection with.  They later meet at a club and it is insta-love.  But she keeps having these recurring nightmares of a man brutally murdering young girls and dumping the bodies.  She wakes up screaming and crying.  It isn't until she sees an article in the paper with the girl's picture that she realizes that her nightmares are really happening.  She is viewing someone else's dreams while she is asleep.  Sara and her friends must work together to stop the murderer before he claims his next victim.

The concept for this story is nice and interesting.  It is a cool idea that you could be a crime fighting dreamer.  I think that the author could have done a lot more with it than he did.  At one point Sara visits the sleep lab on campus and they run tests, telling her that the results don't make sense.  They hook her up to all of the probes and scanners while she sleeps, and as soon as her nightmares begin according to the tests it is like she became an entirely different person.  As soon as Sara leaves the sleep lab, there is no follow up with that.  I would think that the professors took an interest in the test results and would want to investigate more, but they don't.

Also, there is a lot of content in the book that is unnecessary and boring.  It is frequently mentioning class schedules, and minute details about how the characters are spending their days.  A lot of this could have been eliminated with absolutely zero impact to the story.  If the author had worked a little bit more on character development and a little bit less on minute details about the characters' class schedules and studying the book would have been more interesting.  As it was, it was still an interesting read, the story had a nice flow, and the pace picked up quite a bit near the end.  I'd be interested in seeing what the author did with the story line in the other books of this series.