You First: A Joe Goldberg Prequel

“The most distinctive voice in thrillers is back.”—Lucy Foley, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Guest List and The Midnight Feast

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.

Caroline Kepnes is the New York Times bestselling author of theYou series, which was adapted into the blockbuster Netflix hit show. You First: a Joe Goldberg Prequel is her fifth book in the series. She is also the author of Providence. Caroline’s work has been translated into many languages. She graduated from Brown University and then worked as a pop culture journalist for Entertainment Weekly and a TV writer for The Secret Life of the American Teenager. She is also the author of dozens of short stories. Most recently, “The Bad Friend” was selected for Best American Mystery and Suspense and “Room 24” was nominated for a 2025 Shirley Jackson Award. Caroline grew up in Cape Cod, and now lives in Los Angeles.