ghostie-reads-yt

[ghostie-reads-yt]

Joe Goldberg Hate (Part One)

I HATE Joe Goldberg, with a passion- it is always something I love to rant about, because the book was trash and Joe Goldberg as a character is the worst.

I've heard people defend him with like 'no, he gave away his own son so that his son could be loved'- which like, dude... are we really congratulating someone for the bare minimum? How is him giving his son away make up for the countless amount of lives he's taken? I don't think there's anything that anyone can say that would make me forgive anything that Joe [as a character] has done.

If you've never read the book, you saved yourself from the absolutely horrendous and cringy writing in the book. If you thought Joe was horny in the show, the book is on par with 365 Days (If you've ever watched that movie/movie series, I am so sorry...). The book is like this one very LONG sexual fantasy about a specific woman (and if you're reading the later books, sometimes multiple women.). But there's also his terrible "intellectual" speak, which I always find eye rollingly bad (Onision 'intellectual' bad).

From the first page, Joe mentally undresses Beck, comparing her to multiple romantic leads from movies- but then making it sexual. It's like reading the mind of a Reddit 'nice guy' incel. At one point she sneezes and he thinks about ho loud she would be when she climaxes... I wanted to close the book then and there, and that's only on page 2, there's a lot of talk about her nipples and whether or not she's wearing a bra, which is gross. Also during this first meeting, Joe takes Beck's phone out of the basket- who does this besides a character from a Colleen Hoover book. It's creepy, and I cannot for the life of me understand why Beck didn't turn and run. It absolutely FLOORED me when I found out this was supposed to be a romance (I'm guessing like Haunting Adeline, but more cringe and less sexual sadism- because Joe only likes vanilla sex, and anything else is, to him, is gross and can "ruin" you).

Stalking aside (a fucking weird sentence to write), Joe is just... not attractive (Emotionally, not physically). The fact that any women could overlook his 'nice guy' talk is beyond me. He's oddly sexist for being a "romantic" guy who loves women, including his hot takes about women who read Faulkner (saying that women who buy Faulkner don't read it, they buy it to impress one night stands and are "insecure"... which isn't true and that's a fucking weird hot take), not wanting a woman who would dare read self help books (which, if a man ever tells you he doesn't like women who read self help, run, that's a red flag.). Not to mention his other literary references.

Some of his references don't make sense (Like in the first chapter saying her pink pants were "spun from Charlotte's Web" and then later saying she IS Charlotte's Web). He also likes to gate keep books and authors (which I never like. We should NEVER gate keep books or authors.), saying that he hopes she found out about a specific author the "right way" by reading a critical essay instead of on the internet.

He also has these little "analysis" moments, where he tries to sound smart- but they just fall flat- you could get a better analysis from Google or Sparknotes, and it makes me think that Caroline Kepnes either didn't do research, or these are her hot takes- like Bella Swan's terrible hot take about Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights. As someone who loves to read and think critically about books- this book reads more like Gothikana (in the sense that the book had a playlist, Pinterest photos, and literary references to give the VIBE of Dark Academia, without giving us academia or doing what academia literature is supposed to do, which is to critique the academia aesthetic.). It gives off "Brian from Family Guy"- seriously, if you just add the stalking and the killing, Joe Goldberg is Brian Griffin, except that he has a tamer sex life (worse sex life, if you ill). It's like Joe listened to Beethoven's Lacrimosa once and decided that he was an intellectual.