Joe Goldberg is a fictional character and main protagonist of the You book series, written by Caroline Kepnes, as well as the television series of the same name, where he is portrayed by American actor Penn Badgley and by Gianni Ciardiello and Aidan Wallace as a youth. Joe is a serial killer, stalker and former bookstore manager, who upon meeting Guinevere Beck at his workplace in New York, starts to develop an extreme, toxic and delusional obsession. After moving to Los Angeles, to escape his sordid past, he meets avid chef Love Quinn, and starts to fall into his old habits of obsession and violence in order to avoid the fate of his past romantic endeavors.