I. Adore. Caroline. Kepnes.
Let me backtrack. I read You a few years back and was enthralled by it. I have a soft spot for crazies, what can I say. The more fucked up, the better. I bought Hidden Bodies soon after, and there it sat on my bookshelf for years. It was one of the many that gathered in the to be read pile that I kept pushing back for one reason or another. I loaned it out, and a few weeks later, I took up the series on Netflix. I tried to space it out, as I do, and I had to binge it, as I do, and I needed the book before I could continue on to season two.
So I did what any other rational adult would do. I went all the way to the nearest Barnes and Nobel, which is a whole four hours away from where I live, to buy another copy. I let the person I loaned it out to keep it, both to be nice and because when I get fixated on something I become the most impatient person on the planet. Whoops.
An Excuse to Gush
Why do I adore Caroline Kepnes? Motherfucking runon sentences. They sound crazed and desperate and that’s my favorite type. Most books I read, whenever the POV gets handed over to the bad guy, that’s the way he thinks, he rationalizes. In my own writing, I have thrown it in at emotional moments where the character isn’t thinking clearly, that panicpanicpanic sort of feel.
Caroline Kepnes took a whole book, a whole series, and managed to push out the entire thing with runon sentences galore. I am a sucker for it. It’s easy to read and understand. It sounds like thoughts sound. I’m in love with her writing style, at least for the You series. She has another book that is a standalone, but I haven’t been able to track it down yet. Never mind that it’s literally a click away, but when I do my book shopping, I like to do big hauls in a physical store so I can smell them (don’t pretend like you don’t), and it doesn’t have the same rush online as in person. When I find it, I want to grab it and be like “Fuck yeah, I’ve been looking for this forever.” Online is too easy.
That’s enough rambling. Moving on:::
The Briefest Spoiler-Free Overview of Your Life
Hidden Bodies is not like season two of You. The show and the book exist in alternate realities. The book follows Joe as he moves to LA in search of his ex. Instead, he finds Love, a rich girl with a psychic twin thing going on. The two are from two completely different worlds, both financially speaking and upbringing, but they find a way to make their love work.
With a few bodies piling up. Naturally.
It’s truly a phenomenal book that will have you equal parts creeped out and laughing in a way that just works.
Reading Like A Writer
Back to my rambling. But it has a point. Just trust me on this.
When you read a book, you just read it and enjoy the story that plays out before your very eyes. It’s 100% enjoyment, or at least it should be as long as the book is a good one. I haven’t read a book in that way for way too many years.
I’m one of the ones who reads a book like a writer. It’s the same thing, but fine-tuned in a way that makes you zero in on things like word choice and subplots and pacing. It’s like reading, but also studying at the same time. What works, what doesn’t, all that jazz.
Do I read like a writer right? No idea. Is reading like a writer honestly different than reading like a reader? I think so. I mean, I also sort of think that people who focus too much on it ruin the fun of reading the damn thing and come off as snobbish, but hey, I still think it’s a thing. Am I trying to come off as snobbish? Nope, but I have a point to this whole thing, this whole post.
You ready?
Okay. Two words:
Author Envy
I read like writer because a writer is what I am (or at least what I want to be if the query gods wish it to be true). I pay attention to what works and all that bullshit because I’m researching ways to be better in everything I do. When I find something that works on all levels, I am elated, because that rarely happens where literally every single thing is on-point. Or maybe I’m just picky.
That’s not the point.
The point is, I found these books (there is a third one that I literally just finished before writing this post up that I still can’t stop thinking about), and they work SO DAMN GOOD. It’s the run-ons. I’m confident of it. And they speak to my black little heart. And on one hand, I’m in love. And on the other hand, I’m fucking depressed. It’s not because I’m caught up and I have to wait around for the next book and the next season. It’s because I don’t think that I can ever create something half as good as what she has built up to be one of my favorite (if not the absolute top) series of all time.
This is embarrassing to put out there. It feels petty, and if anyone I looked up to read it, I would roll in a hole and just die. But, I feel like it’s something that doesn’t get talked about enough. So here I am to try my best to justify my feelings.
You work hard to create whatever it is you want to create—it doesn’t have to be writing—and you put your everything into it. Then, when someone else comes along and brings it harder, creating perfection…do you know what I mean? It’s like one-upping without one-upping because what the two of you came up with are completely different things, but the bones of it are the same, but they just look better. It’s like having a sibling that wins beauty pageants while you’re shoved to the background for family photos. It’s like getting a C on a test and you’re stoked for the professor to grade it on a curve but your classmate got a fucking A++. It’s like the statue of David next to a stick figure drawing.
It’s exactly like all of that, but it’s not like any of it at all, because creating isn’t supposed to be a fucking contest. The rational part of me knows this, and knows that there is nothing wrong with my own voice when I dabble in that tip-tap-type way of life. But when I read something perfect, not perfect to the world, mind you, but perfect to ME, it’s hard not to get down on myself.
I can’t be the only one who does this. I have this overwhelming need to justify myself and overexplain and everything else, but this is running long as is. You don’t want to read it, and I am just going to talk in circles.
Finding the Will to Overcome
Getting back into the swing of things is hard when you’re down on yourself. I have found that acknowledging what is going on in your brain helps speed up the process. I felt myself drop into low territory on and off throughout the book, and it hit harder on the last page. My emotions are a mystery to me on the best days (you’d think I’d have this figured out by now), so just vocalizing (quietly) that I feel bad because I feel like my work is shit, while it didn’t make me necessarily feel better, it did put my feelings into perspective.
Distance is another something that helps move it along. Not in the sense of getting rid of the books, because um, hell no. More in the sense of time. More time passes=more time to process=less owie feelings. Almost like when someone dies, but less serious.
I’ve also found that acknowledging that while your feelings are real and valid, you’re freaking out over absolutely nothing. It’s a weird realization to come to, since it should be obvious, but it’s not always obvious in this brain of mine. Am I or will I ever be on the same level as another famous author? Statistics tell me hell to the no. But does that mean I should just give up? Hell to the fuck to the no. And neither should you. It doesn’t matter what you’re doing, whether it’s writing or drawing or singing or anything at all.
So you found someone you admire, someone you envy just the tiniest (or biggest) of bits. So what? Use that as inspiration. It’s okay to enjoy someone else’s work. You can allow yourself that enjoyment without making it all about you. At the end of the day, it’s not a competition—unless you entered into a competition with them, which hey, good on you for taking the initiative—and you should quit acting like it is—unless it actually is, but whatever, you get what I’m saying.
Grant yourself permission to enjoy the things you love, and stop fucking trying to be the best. It makes life a helluva lot easier. I promise.
As for me, I’m going to stop killing myself over not being good enough, and start reveling in the fact that someone else out there loves run-on sentences and crazy people just as much, if not MORE, than I do.
I’m also going to post this embarrassing trash and hope the right people read it and the wrong people don’t. Um, that’s right people=like mindset dealing with writer’s envy and wrong people=literally anyone else.
Final Thoughts
This is where I leave you, Void. But not without my arbitrary rating system, obviously. Hidden Bodies gets a fucking 15/10. It’s off the charts for me. Joe is a maniac, and I am here for it. Supercunt is my new favorite word, and you have him to thank for that. Just read it. Read You, then read it. You’re not going to be disappointed.
Annnywayyy, comment section. Have you ever read or seen something so good that it just made you mad? Let me know so I don’t feel so alone in this bubble. Until next time…
Manda Kay Writes 