Chapters 35 to the End (SPOILERS)

[Debra]

Put your comments about this section here.

[Sarah]

Joe goes to see the shrink. Even though he discounts Dr Nicky and Beck are having an affair, I had my suspicions still. Those tapes were illuminating both on their growing relationship but also his original view on Beck's mental state.

Is everyone in this book messed up?

This book is not a romance. obviously. but I'm getting fed up with all the focus on love, lust, sex, relationships and obsession.

I have less than a 100 pages to the end now.

[Sarah]

I've just finished the book. I'll come back later and comment. I'm pleased it's done.

[Debra]

I just KNEW Joe would discover Nicky and Beck were having an affair, if you can call it that.

Lots of meaningless sex in this book and lots of masturbating. Everyone's obsessed and sick. Joe sometimes seems healthier than those around him.

A very strange, but entertaining read.

[Sarah]

Yes definitely lots of sex and public sex at that. The language was crude but I guess it was being told by a stalker. I can't really call him a psychopath as he did have emotions and cared what others thought to some extent.

I felt sorry for Karen - she seemed sweet and her and Joe had a pretty normal relationship on the surface. Very unprofessional of her brother to beat on Joe.

I thought I might be sick when I was listening to Beck and Joe and their "everythingship". I wanted to kill them both myself.

I didn't expect Beck to find his Beck stash considering it was hidden in the wall. I wonder what made her look there and what gave her suspicions.

So the bit in the cage was unbelievable to me. When in a state of fear, we go in to the fight or flight response. In addition to flight and fight, there is also freeze (or hide). In humans (particularly females) there is a fourth response which is befriend. Beck chose that option to help her escape the situation. Very clever and that is believable. But I don't believe she would (or could have) taken it as far as having sex with him (and being that in to it) and then falling asleep afterwards when she feared for her life. I know that they have history and I know that Joe is an unreliable narrator and may have only portrayed to us what he wanted to see himself. But still.

A lot of reviews state that it was a creepy read. I found the first 10% perhaps creepy while getting used to being in Joe's head but then that went away and just became annoying instead.

I rated this 3 stars.

This looks like it is book one in a series. So I'm guessing Joe strikes again?!? I won't be continuing on with the series that's for sure. I liked the author's writing style - she did weave a good story it was just not really for me.

[Debra]

Yes, that whole part about Beck being in the cage was hard for me to believe, too. She became a really good actress. Too bad she couldn't hold on a bit longer until there were people outside!! She really screwed up with her escape attempt.

[Janice]

I didn't read the cage part, just the escape part. I think I would have been like Sarah, and been annoyed overall.

[Larissa]

So was Nicky just another sorry sap who fell for Beck (who, granted, did cross the therapist-patient line in a huge way) and not really the manipulative puppet master that Joe imagines him to be? For a few pages I really started thinking the author might really cure Joe in therapy!

Boy, Beck really leaves a path of destruction, doesn't she? The narrative device makes her reckless actions seem the most hurtful (of course to Joe, they really are). I like how the author gets the reader to experience that skewed perspective, where we feel the betrayal of Beck more keenly than the murder of Benji and Peach.

But what the heck is Beck doing digging in his wall???

And how dumb was Joe to "joke" that if she screams he'll kill her???? Until that point, Beck just thinks he's a creepy panty-sniffer!

The cage scene: weird, but I kinda liked his tests and reading The Da Vinci Code together (or did she?). In the end, he had to admit that he likes mass market, moneymaking bestsellers too, and not just smart literary fiction.

But delusional dummy has to tell Beck how he killed Benji and Peach??? How does he think that's a good idea??? Really makes me wonder just what she was communicating with all those wows.

I did start feeling that Joe's increasing violence did not quite equal the intensity of his feelings or the level of his delusional thinking. Certainly, his thoughts do become more and more unreal--look at how many songs and poems start creeping in. But his near attempt to kill Nicky and especially the "double-murder" of Beck seemed like we skipped a few steps, but of course, it felt inevitable. I was just really thrown off by how he chokes her to death (almost) when she says she'll leave forever, but then he gets all distraught when he thinks she's dead. But then a minute later, when she comes to and tries to get away again, he's back to blithely killing her. But then again, he's all ohhhh I love you I miss you I wanna make you pancakes.

I was most surprised that he gets away with it, yet again, in a bookstore with glass windows and later disposing of the body with a wedding party going on. And this Amy Adam character (seriously, did Kepnes try to use as many big names as possible?)--she seems like a big ball of crazy. I guess that's fine since they "only hire lunatics."

[Larissa]

Also I agree with some of you about the sex in the cage. I don't think Beck was that good an actress. Or maybe his reading of all her responses was very delusional? But it really reads like Beck is enjoying the hell out of that ice cream and then him. But maybe the author is trying to add to Beck's complexity by having her simultaneously turned on and scared or horrified. She does have her issues with sex.

So what are we to think is the reason Joe has become obsessive and homicidal? There was a little bit about his mom, right? Did I miss something?

[Debra]

Very insightful posts, Larissa. I don't seem to recall finding out exactly why Joe is a psychopath. But it's been a while since of read the book now and parts are fading from my feeble memory banks.

[Linda]

Just finished Chapter 37 - so now Beck is in the cage, and Joe has found out why she pulled away from him - Dr. Nicky! Beck was right to be afraid of Joe, I wonder if Dr. Nicky told her to scope out Joe's apartment, she should not have done it on her own. I would like to think that Joe will not hurt Beck, but I don't know - he hurt Candace - so it is possible for him to do the same with Beck. What is going to happen now..........

[Linda]

I think Beck went in search of the hole in the wall, I don't think she just stumbled across it. If you remember the part when Joe found the Mac Book, there were emails between Dr. Nicky and Beck that Beck thought Joe was reading her emails, I'm thinking there were other conversations between the 2 of them that discussed Joe, and Beck decided to search the apartment, Beck purposely didn't tell Joe that she was out of school, she came to the book store to get the key from him to get into his apartment, maybe she found something another time that she was there which made her curious.

The part with Beck in the cage was a little bit out there at times. But Beck befriending Joe was also planned out. She did have sex with him, but I think that was just to get him to let his guard down - and he did - I don't think she was sleep, I think she was pretending, she found the opportunity to try to escape since he left the cage open, unfortunately the timing was not good and no one heard her scream

[Linda]

I like Larissa's idea about the author "curing" Joe in therapy - he got really "normal" even went out and got a girlfriend - little did Karen know that she dodged a bullet, but Joe didn't have the same feelings for Karen as he did for Beck.

I also thought telling Beck that he killed Benji and Peach was not a good idea, but I think that was when Beck figured out that her fate was in her own hands and she needed to do something to get out of the cage if she was going to survive.

[Kelly]

I think Joe got screwed up when Mr. Mooney locked him in the cage for so long after he was responsible for that stolen book. Plus, with the bad family home life. He learned from Mooney that you need to "teach people a lesson."

[Linda]

I had that thought as well Kelly, and I also thought it was interesting that Joe felt like Mr. Mooney was like a "father" to him - more than his own - I think it was because Mr. Mooney put Joe in that cage to teach him a lesson - Joe felt that he cared about him enough to punish him for doing something stupid,

[Kandice]

I don't remember reading that Mr. Mooney put him in the cage as a punishment! I was so surprised about the comment Joe makes near the end about Mr. Mooney feeding him through the bars that I felt I must have missed something. I read an ebook.

Does anyone remember when the Mooney Caging story was told? I'll have to go back and read it, but that has to have something to do with Joe's wack-a-doo-ness. I wonder if there was more than one time.

[Linda]

Kandice, I want to say it was around the time that Joe put Benji in the cage??? I'm not 100% sure though. I want to think Mr. Mooney put Joe in only the 1 time.