You is a dramatic series that premiered on Lifetime before being moved to Netflix, where the second season of the series was produced and premiered in 2019. The series is based on two novels by Caroline Kepnes, You and Hidden Bodies. Both the show and the book series follow a man named Joe who becomes infatuated with a woman named Beck and will stop at nothing to make her feel the same.
Even though the series is based on these two books and they follow more or less the same basic plotline, there are some major differences between the books and the TV series. The first season followed the first novel more closely, but both of them made some major changes to adapt the series to a TV show. Make sure you're caught up with both seasons of You before you continue because there are some major spoilers ahead!
To see 10 of the most major differences between You's book and novel versions, keep reading!
Beck Isn't Broke
In the TV series, Beck is struggling with money. She's living in housing given to her by the university and she's working as a TA for a totally sleazy professor in order to make some cash. At different points in the series, her best friend Peach Salinger offers her some cash, but Beck repeatedly refuses to take it - until things get pretty desperate for her.
Meanwhile, in the novels, Beck isn't having any money trouble and she's not working for a creepy professor. Beck is staying in an apartment for students pursuing a graduate degree, a position that she got after writing an award-winning essay, and her time at school is barely brought up.
Peach Never Becomes Suspicious
In the first season of You, Peach becomes pretty suspicious of Joe - not that anyone could blame her, he was pretty weird. She even begins to suspect that he is the one stalking her after she's attacked in Central Park and some of her belongings mysteriously disappear.
In the novel, Peach does believe that she has a stalker, but she never mentions that she thinks it might be Joe. She also never confronts him in a way that would imply she's onto him the way that she does in the show.
Beck Never Searches For Candace
In the TV series, the fact that something strange happened to Candace is pretty heavily implied throughout the first season. It becomes so suspicious that Beck eventually starts to try to look up Candace on social media and track her down to see what happened to her and whether or not Joe hurt her in some way.
But, in the books, it's a totally different story. Not only does Beck never try to track Candace down or find out where she went, but it's also not even clear that Beck even knows about Candace. In fact, the only thing the reader really knows about her in the book is that she was Joe's ex.
Paco And Ellie Don't Exist
Those adorable children Joe is always helping and spending time with? While they may be fan favorites in the TV show, Paco and Ellie don't exist in the books. The two of them were completely invented for the TV series, likely to help make Joe feel more personable and soft underneath his cold, creepy exterior.
Speaking of characters that don't exist in the books, Beck's friend Annika and Candace's friend Maddie were also invented for the show. There are quite a few characters with small roles like those that were only invented for the show!
Peach Died A Different Way
In the first season of the series, Peach finds Joe in her vacation home and confronts him with a gun. The two of them have a struggle and it ends in Joe shooting her. Her death is a huge deal and Joe covers it up by writing a fake letter from Peach explaining that she had chosen to take her own life, but Peach's family isn't buying it.
In the books, this goes a completely different way. Instead, Joe drowns Peach while at the beach and then puts her body into the ocean. Her death isn't discovered for quite some time and Joe covers it up by sending a vague note to Beck from Peach.
Candace Doesn't Come Back
The end of the first season of You was pretty intense. After almost an entire season of trying to figure out what happened to Candace and whether or not Joe had a hand in her mysterious disappearance, she shows back up in the final scene! It was a massive cliffhanger and had us all ready for season two.
In the books, Candace doesn't come back. Joe explains to Peach that he killed Candace after she broke up with him. At the end of the book, instead of seeing Candace again, Joe meets a new girl named Amy Adams who he ends up following to LA after she steals from the bookstore.
Joe Doesn't Change His Name
At the beginning of the second season, Joe is on the run from Candace. He locks a man named Will Bettelheim in his glass box and steals his name so that Candace can't easily track him down.
But in Hidden Bodies, he's not running from Candace since she's already dead. Because of this, he has no reason to change his name or steal anyone's identity, so he's still going by his real name, Joe Goldberg, when he lands in Los Angeles.
Forty Had An Original Film
Forty is the twin brother of Love, Joe's love interest in the second season. He's an aspiring filmmaker who decides to try to adapt Beck's novel, The Dark Face of Love, to a movie and ropes Joe into working on the screenplay with him.
While this made for some interesting tension and some really dramatic scenes, it didn't happen in the book. Instead of adapting Beck's novel, in Hidden Bodies, Forty is working on his own original film, The Third Twin. In the show, Forty had already written this movie and it was pretty successful, which is why they're working on a new project together.
Love Didn't Kill Delilah
The reveal that Love killed Delilah at the end of the second season was intense. It was after a night of Joe being with Forty in a hotel room and having no idea where he was for a few hours, leading him to believe that he killed her. But, as it turns out, Love did it to protect Joe.
In the book, this doesn't happen. Instead, it was Joe that took her life and he did it in a bathtub after he started to believe that she knew he was the one that was responsible for Henderson's death.
Forty's Death Was Different
Joe and Forty's relationship is way different in the TV series than it is in Hidden Bodies. In the show, Forty is onto Joe and is about to shoot him in order to save his sister when Detective Fincher shoots him instead.
But in the book, Joe promised to go to Las Vegas in order to bring Forty back since he's in the city partying. Instead, Joe goes to his hotel room and attempts to drown him but leaves before making sure that he's dead. Forty survives, forces Joe to write scripts for him as blackmail, and is later hit by someone who was driving under the influence at the end of the book.