You First: A Joe Goldberg Prequel

You #0

by Caroline Kepnes

How did Joe Goldberg become Joe Goldberg? What led to his first love…first kiss…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.

Genres: Thriller, Fiction, Mystery Thriller, Mystery, Adult Fiction

416 pages, Hardcover

Expected publication June 9, 2026

About the author

Caroline Kepnes is the New York Times bestselling author of You, Hidden Bodies, Providence and...

You Love Me. Publishing in the US on Aril 6, 2021

(You know You Netflix? That's based on my Joe Goldberg books! You can read You3 before Season 3)

Her work has been translated into a multitude of languages and inspired a television series adaptation of You, currently on Netflix. Kepnes graduated from Brown University and then worked as a pop culture journalist for Entertainment Weekly and a TV writer for 7th Heaven and The Secret Life of the American Teenager. She grew up on Cape Cod, and now lives in Los Angeles.

Reviews

[Catherine (alternativelytitledbooks) - still catching up!]

“But it doesn’t come out until next June,” the bookstore employees keep telling me…but I am ALREADY seated.

[Mariah Kraus · Rating 5 out of 5]

how do I get an arc bc I need to know what happened to Candace 🤣

[BHK · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn’t think I needed a Joe Goldberg origin story, and then I read You First and immediately changed my mind! Seeing Joe at seventeen, awkward, insecure, and already deeply obsessive, was fascinating and unsettling. Caroline Kepnes absolutely nails his voice here! It’s still darkly funny and creepy, but there’s this added layer of vulnerability that almost makes you forget who he’s going to become. I loved watching Joe convince himself that his lies are romantic and that his fixation on Vail is love and not control. The NYC setting, the bookstore vibes, and the rom com references were fun, but everything is edged with dread because you know where this is headed. This was binge worthy, disturbing, and addictive in the best way!

[Muhammad]

I think its going to be a good book

[Jerry]

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