Caroline Kepnes (writer)

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Caroline Kepnes
Caroline Kepnes, 2019.png
Website www.carolinekepnes.com/author/
Born 1977[1]
Centreville, Cape Cod
Occupation screenwriter and novelist
Known for debut novel was made into a popular television series

Caroline Kepnes is an American writer.[2] Kepnes is a screenwriter, the author of several novels, and a biography of 19th century novelist Stephen Crane, and, formerly, an entertainment reporter.[3][4][5][6] Her dark 2015 novel You was made into a television series of the same name, broadcast on the Lifetime channel, starting in September 2018.[7][8] Viewership was low enough that Lifetime declined to finance a second season. But co-producer Netflix added the series to its line-up in December, where it became popular, so Netflix agreed to finance a second season.[9]

Kepnes explained the darkness of You, which deconstructs the romantic-comedy model, by making the interested male a violent stalker, saying it was written in a dark period of her life, the year her father died of cancer, and in which she experienced several other personal challenges.[8]

In 2016 Kepnes published a sequel to You, Hidden Bodies.[10]

Her third novel, Providence, published in 2018, has been described as romance-suspense-thriller, with supernatural aspects.[11][12][13] Alison Flood, in a review published by The Guardian, wrote "Providence is compelling, and Kepnes provides a sometimes piercing insight into the small, strange, sad details that make up a life, though without quite achieving the deep, dark pleasures of You." According to Cheryl Wassenaar, in a review in Cultures magazine, the novel is "a bit like Dexter meets, well, H.P Lovecraft."[14]

References

  1. Meredith Goldstein. Shiny happy people give author Caroline Kepnes the creeps, Boston Globe, 2018-08-30. Retrieved on 2019-01-22. “The book was a hit and wound up being printed in 19 languages. Stephen King tweeted that 'YOU' was 'hypnotic and scary. A little Ira Levin, a little Patricia Highsmith, and plenty of serious snark. Cool stuff.'
  2. Author Kepnes Discusses Her New Book, “Providence” on LIVE, Go Local Providence, 2018-07-07. Retrieved on 2019-01-22. “The Brown University grad has had a diverse career -- she has worked as a pop culture journalist for Entertainment Weekly and a TV writer on the show 7th Heaven.”
  3. Gwenn Friss. Cape native Caroline Kepnes’ novels explore how bad guys get that way, Cape Cod Times, 2018-06-24. Retrieved on 2019-01-22. “Back in 1991, Barnstable High student Caroline Kepnes tagged along to the Concord movie set of “School Ties” where her older brother, Alex, was an extra.”
  4. Judy Berman. The Women Behind ‘You’ on Creating This Fall’s Darkest, and Most Timely, Romance, New York Times, 2018-09-07, p. C4. Retrieved on 2019-01-22. “Ms. Kepnes, who has written for the series “7th Heaven” and “The Secret Life of the American Teenager,” wrote a late-season episode. She and Ms. Gamble both drew from their personal histories as young, female aspiring writers to flesh out Beck, and they agreed that “You” is really her story.”
  5. Caroline Kepnes (2004). Stephen Crane. Mitchell Lane Publishing. ISBN 9781584152729. Retrieved on 2019-01-22. 
  6. Anna Rose Iovine. What Other Books Has Caroline Kepnes Written? The 'You' Author Is Pretty Prolific, Romper magazine, 2018-09-09. Retrieved on 2019-01-22.
  7. Caroline Kepnes (2015). You. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 9781471137372. Retrieved on 2019-01-22. 
  8. Jump up to: 8.0 8.1 Elena Nicolaou. How Caroline Kepnes Created You's Joe Goldberg, The Man Of Your Dreams & Nightmares, Refinery 29, 2018-10-01. Retrieved on 2019-01-22. “Exactly. Now we’re living in this world where we have the unreliable narrator that is social media. We’re making ourselves crazy. We’re all reading this book. Everyone has a different version of it, but everyone has this book that never stops. There’s no mandatory day of the week where Twitter closes down and Facebook isn’t available. It’s on you to choose your relationship to it, which is more work. The burden of it all is fascinating to me. We won’t understand it until 50 years from now. This whole responsibility that didn’t exist before.”
  9. John Koblin. What Made the TV Show ‘You’ a Hit? Netflix, New York Times, 2019-01-21, p. B1. Retrieved on 2019-01-22. “Mr. Berlanti began developing “You” almost four years ago with the producer Sera Gamble. Showtime originally planned to make the series, which is based on a novel by Caroline Kepnes, before passing on it. It then went to Lifetime, which over the summer committed to making a second season.”
  10. Caroline Kepnes (2016). Hidden Bodies: A Novel. Simon and Schuster. ISBN 9781476785639. Retrieved on 2019-01-22. 
  11. Caroline Kepnes (2018). Providence: A Novel. Random House Publishing Group. ISBN 9780399591440. Retrieved on 2019-01-22. 
  12. Alison Flood. The best recent thrillers – review roundup, The Guardian, 2018-11-06. Retrieved on 2019-01-22. “In Providence (Simon & Schuster, £8.99), she takes on the story of a kidnapping and its aftermath.”
  13. Sadie Trombetta. 'Providence' By Caroline Kepnes Combines Romance, Horror, And Mystery For The Ultimate Summer Read, Bustle magazine, 2018-06-19. Retrieved on 2019-01-22. “A beautifully crafted narrative that deftly combines a sweet coming-of-age love story with elements of Lovecraftian horror and supernatural suspense, Providence is Kepnes at her best. A rich novel brimming with as much heartfelt emotion as genuine thrills, it will keep readers flipping the pages at a rapid pace, searching for answers to their own questions about love, truth, connection, and what it means to be human.”
  14. Cheryl Wassenaar. 4 reasons Providence is a perfectly strange novel, Cultures magazine, 2018-06-23. Retrieved on 2019-01-22. “The action is all set in New England; Kepnes is from there, and it shows in her work. The inside flap calls it “part love story, part detective story, and part supernatural thriller,” and the best way I can describe it is that it’s a bit like Dexter meets, well, H.P Lovecraft.”