I really struggled with the first half of this book but I trusted my Goodreads friends who told me to push through, that I would be rewarded, and indeed I was. My meh 2-star rating which at least gave me insight into the publishing world turned into an addictive 4-star favorite. Addictive, escalating tension and the clever' novel within a novel' got me hooked. Great ending, the icing on the cake.

Okay I know I am in the vast minority here, but I do not understand the hype AT ALL... A book that takes 50% of the pages before things even really start to happen is simply not something I can consider a compelling thriller. This one brings the concept of slow burn to new heights. The concept is a great one, and I do think there was potential here - but when you set yourself up as containing the plot to end all plots, you set yourself up to a pretty high standard - and I just don't feel that it delivered. I found the writing unnecessarily complicated and the story not complicated enough. It felt too predictable and the characters were utterly unlikable. This one just wasn't for me...

Wow! What an amazing tour de force it was! So addictive that I couldn't put the book down. This is the kind of story that you share with your significant other while having dinner and can't stop thinking while you are doing mundane chores like shopping or dusting.
I highly recommend it!

In The Plot, a struggling author working as a teacher hears a story idea from a student. The story is so good, that it is destined to be an instant hit and shock the nation. A few years later, the teacher looks up the student and the book to see if it was ever published, but the student died shortly after telling him his great (and secret) novel idea. Since no one else knows about it, the teacher decides to write the story himself. Everything is going well until he starts receiving anonymous notes threatening to expose him.

I really liked this book! I've been reading a lot of thrillers this year that have a perfectly fine story but average writing. This book was clearly very well written. I also thought it was pretty ballsy of the author to have a book-within-a-book described as a hit that rocked the book world because: then you actually have to write that hit book! And we have to believe it! The good news is that I actually did buy the book as a hit and was totally on board with that aspect of the story.

I would describe this book as a slow burn because it does start off pretty slow. But the writing is still good enough that it kept my attention and I never felt bored. The second half of the book is where most of the action happens. I would recommend this book for anyone who enjoys a good thriller. (And the ending was great!!)

Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC of this one!

Picture this: You're whole life your only dream was to become an author, every move you made in life calculated to bring you to the moment you get to hold your own book in your hands, with your picture on the dust jacket. You're beyond high on the attention and knowledge that you've made it; that is, until it's time to write your next book. Now you're a struggling one hit wonder with the chance to write a hit novel, the only problem...it's not your story.

WOW. I Loved this book. The Plot begins by focusing mainly on Jacob Fitch Bonner mostly wallowing in somewhat self indulgent bitterness over the decline of his literary career. Just when you think it's going to be one of "those" books, you turn the page...and you don't stop. This twisty, unsettling, captivating narrative has gone straight to the top of my favorite books about books. Outstanding depth and the ever pressing question of human moral with leave readers craving more.

A HUGE thank you to Netgalley, publishers, and Jean Hanff Korelitz for providing me an advanced digital copy for me to review unfiltered and unprompted. This is honestly the best book I've read so far this year.

Jacob ‘Finch’ Bonner – the affected middle name adopted due to his love of Harper Lee – is a struggling writer. After the modest success – in literary circles – of his first book, he’s in his thirties and finds himself ‘sent to the special purgatory for formerly promising writers, from which so few of them ever emerged’.

Failing to come up with any new ideas, and feeling left in the dirt as the stars of his contemporaries continue to rise, he takes up a position at a small MFA program, teaching creative writing. Among his students is the insufferable narcissist Evan Parker, determined that writing is not something that can be taught (leaving Jake questioning, understandably, as to why Evan has bothered to attend the program). But despite his personal faults, Jake can’t deny that Evan has achieved that elusive goal – he’s got a damn good plot.

A few years pass, and Jake expects to hear about Evan’s book as it is undoubtedly picked up by a big publisher. But nothing happens, and a Google search brings up Evan’s obituary – his debut unpublished, confined to the recesses of history. So Jake steals the plot, and it catapults him into the hallowed halls of success he’s always dreamed of. Soon, he’s selling out thousand-seat concert halls and is plagued by adoring fans at book signings. He justifies his plagiarism to himself, of course:

‘Every single work of art was in conversation with every other work of art: bouncing against its predecessors, drawing form its contemporaries, harmonizing with the patterns… And that was a beautiful, thrilling thing.’

But he can’t quite shake his guilt and fear that the past will come back to bite him – and his worst fears are confirmed when he begins to receive anonymous, threatening messages.

In an interesting (and effective) structural choice, Korelitz weaves passages from Jake’s bestselling novel into the pages of the The Plot, running concurrently with Jake’s own narrative. Far from feeling disjointed or disruptive, this adds an extra dimension to the story.

I picked this one up because I loved the HBO adaptation of The Undoing, based on the book You Should Have Known by Korelitz. I also read John Boyne’s A Ladder to the Sky earlier this year, and really enjoyed it in all its wicked psychological drama and wit – and sensed immediate comparisons with the themes of literary theft and fame. The Plot isn’t as good as either of the above – but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have merit. It begins as a slow-burn psychological drama, which feels consistent but plodding throughout – the pace hardly picks up even when it really needs to for the sake of the plot. The twist is pretty easy to see in advance, even if we’re not quite sure how we’ll get there. But the story really shines as an exploration of the torturous nature of writing and elusive pursuit of success, and the nebulous ownership over the stories we tell.

‘The superstition held that if you did not do right by the great story that had chosen you, among all possible writers, to bring it to life, that great story didn’t just leave you to spin your stupid and ineffectual wheels. It actually went to somebody else. A great story, in other words, wanted to be told. And if you weren’t going to do that, it was out of here; it was going to find somebody else who would.’

With thanks to the publisher for the advanced copy. The Plot will be published on May 11th, 2021.

The Plot is a fantastic thriller. The writing is really compelling, so even before the plot gets going, I enjoyed reading it. I did guess one of the reveals early on, but the other was a surprise. I don't want to reveal too much with a summary, but the book basically tells the story of a struggling writer who stumbles upon a great plot and writes that novel. Great for fans of Gillian Flynn, Anthony Horowitz...

When I first read the synopsis of The Plot by Jean Hanff Korelitz I immediately thought that she had borrowed the story of a book I had recently read and loved: About The Author by John Colapinto.
But as noted in The Plot, “People don’t realize you can’t copyright a plot.” It’s correct, but is it ethical?
Clearly the main character Jacob, a failed writer and anhedonic MFA-writing-program visiting teacher thinks not.
Jake struggles with his conscience after appropriating the captivating plot shown in a few pages to him by one of his arrogant students Evan.
When Jacob learns of Evan’s death some time later, he rationalizes that it is a writer’s duty to tell the story once a plot has been unleashed.
Yet he is unable to live with his guilt and sense of imposter syndrome, especially when a mysterious “TalentedTom” starts leaving online messages and letters accusing Jacob of plagiarism.
Part of me grew frustrated with Jake’s sense of guilt, as the quoted statement about copyrighting a plot is accurate.
However *spolier* as we learn, he did not appropriate a plot but someone’s horrific real-life experience.
The book kept me reading, dying to know how it would wrap up.
Though I figured out the twist before the end it in no way decreased my reading pleasure up until the very end.
I also love books about the writing life, successful and unsuccessful. This provided both.
Thank you to NetGalley and Celadon Books for this ARC.

This was an enjoyable read but it’s hard to sustain a book that revolves around an amazing, blockbuster plot. It’s a lot to live up to a I don’t think it manages to. I think a great deal of the story was pretty predictable including that the wife could not be trusted. Don’t regret reading it but was a bit underwhelmed.

The Plot was such an interesting and unique book. I would classify it as a mystery thriller, but I also learned so much from reading this book about publishing, writers, and reviewers. While the beginning was a bit slow and kind of a lot to take in, after a couple of chapters I was super intrigued. Once I got hooked into this book I did not stop until I was flipping the last page. It kept me on the edge of my seat and the way it was written had a big sense of thrill throughout the book.

This follow Jacob Finch Bonner who is struggling with his career. He wrote a somewhat good book that became a best seller and now has no motivation to write. He is currently a professor teaching at a university to aspiring young writers on how to write successfully, only he has no motivation to teach these kids anything as he is facing that he will never be a big-time writer. One of his students perked Jake’s interest when he said the plot of his story is mind blowing and once he finishes the book it will be the best book ever written. Jake is very intrigued and sits down with Evan Parker and gets him to spill the plot of this soon to be famous book. Jake agreed it would become a best seller and everyone would be talking about it. Two years later, Jake is now doing random side jobs and remembers Evan Parker, but can’t recall ever hearing about his book being published. He googles Evan and realizes he died a couple of months after they met, and he never did publish his book. It looks like no one even knew that he was writing a book besides Jake. Jake ends up stealing the plot of Evan’s book and becomes an international best seller. Only is it too good to be true? Someone seems to know what really happened and starts accusing Jake of being a thief.

I am so glad I picked up this book because it was so amazing. We get a story within a story because we get chapters from Crib, the book that Jake wrote that was based off on Evan’s plot. It was very chilling to read the chapters from Crib because it was a seriously messed up book. It is definitely a superb psychological thriller that has you glued to the pages wanting to find out more. While I did kind of figure out who was blackmailing Evan early on, I think the author wanted readers to find out. It made it kind of eerie to read this and know who the bad person was. I was still very shocked by the ending and had chills reading the epilogue. I honestly just really enjoyed the entirety of this book and it was kind of crazy knowing Jake stole someone’s entire idea for a book, but yet I was rooting for him. He wrote the book himself, he just used someone’s idea. If you’re looking for an exceptional thriller, pick up The Plot it will not disappoint.

Thanks to NetGalley and Celadon Books for an opportunity to read this book. I agree with others reviews that the story begins a tad slow but certainly picks up into an engaging read that sucked me in all the way to the finish. I love the idea of a literary thriller completely with blackmail and stolen manuscripts. We've seen this plot line played out so many different ways and it never gets tired. Readers and writers of the world can't get enough of lengths an aspiring novelist will go to for notoriety. I'm positive this will be a big hit!

Thank you NetGalley and Celadon books for the chance to read and review The Plot from author Jean Hanff Korelitz. I really had fun reading this engaging, fast paced, and fun thriller. I think this would be a perfect summer thriller as it was a great escapist read, a book I did not want to put down, and had a compelling plot (indeed The Plot!) that kept me wanting to know how the story would resolve. The story revolves around a struggling possibly has been/never made it author, Jake, who has the chance of his career it seems to take a plot idea from a former student (Evan) who dies before he can write what becomes a huge bestseller. As Jake's success following the publication of this story and its big twist..., someone starts to threaten him and call him a thief. If Evan is dead (?) then who is making these claims? The story unfolds via Jake's determination to understand what is going on, how is threatening

The story within a story plot can sometimes work, sometimes not and in this book it WORKS! At times I actually found myself more interested in reading the parts of Crib that were woven in as compared to the main story but I think that was because the author did such a good job early in the narrative creating intrigue around the plot and the big twist. I appreciated how the book in the book merged with main story and offered a way to understand how the plot and characters Jake drew from were themselves possible clues to what was going on. I thought this was a great way to make the book in the book approach work and not become distracting, it invited the reader into the world Jake had created while also keeping the reader present in the main story at the same time (well done!) and I am glad I got to read the plot twist in Jake's book and not have it be simply told to me.

When I read a thriller I am a reader who wants to allow the author to tell their story at their pace and in their way, I try to avoid making too much effort to figure out or guess twists (though impossible to not try to see what is happening) and I though the author kept the book moving along at a good pace, the twists were not too much and not done for the sake of just throwing in twists, and I found the resolution of the mystery to be fun, satisfying, and worthy of discussion with fellow book lovers. A good thriller is as much about the whole plot, I think that is somewhat the point of this book, and for me the story, not just the resolution, is what made the book a good, fun, and binge worthy read.
I would love a sequel as I think the end also felt like an interesting beginning and I want to know what happens next!

I definitely recommend this as a great summer beach read, a fun thriller, and just enough moments in the plot worthy of a reader who loves a good thriller and mystery. It's been a while since I could read a book in two days and just enjoy the story and the plot (pun intended).

The slow-burn suspense of this book was executed SO perfectly (as someone who is usually too impatient for a slow-burn). Jacob Finch Bonner is a one-hit wonder novelist who eventually finds himself teaching at a third-rate MFA program. He stumbles across an incredible plot for a book via one of his arrogant students that is sure to be a huge success, and when he finds out that student has died, he decides to write the plot himself. A cat-and-mouse game ensues when a mystery someone begins to accuse Jacob of theft. It's fascinating to watch Jacob waiver between the success he desired so much and his inner turmoil over whether he's really "stolen” the plot. Jacob's story is suspenseful, while the story within a story really keeps the book rolling until it reaches such a perfect, perfect ending.

"Stories, of course, are common as dirt. Everyone has one, if not an infinity of them, and they surround us at all times whether we acknowledge them or not.. Stories are the wells we dip into to be reminded of who we are, and the ways we reassure ourselves that, however obscure we may appear to others, we are actually important, even crucial, to the ongoing drama of survival; personal, societal, and even as a species."

Thanks to Celadon Books via NetGalley for the advance digital copy, I'm happy to provide an honest review!

https://onereadingnurse.com/2021/04/30/arc-review-the-plot-by-jean-hanff-korelitz-and-a-word-on-author-bullying/ *blog post*

Thank you so much to Celadon Books for the ARC of The Plot by Jean Hanff Korelitz! I participated in the Little Free Library drive and then requested here so I could finish reading!

This is a slow burning story that starts out detailing Jacob's sad writing career and his cynicism towards it. I think his ranting about student writers was hilarious and probably pretty accurate, I can't even imagine.

As we start learning about "The Plot", the mystery develops when Jacob loosely steals an idea from a now deceased former student. The book then took on a bit of a tribute aspect to the greatest plot ever written (cue Tenacious D music) *THIS IS JUST A TRIBUTE* heh heh.

But...then... A troll attacks Jacob, benign at first then getting more serious. Thus begins my favorite aspect of The Plot which is a conversation about the publishing industry and people trolling authors, the damage it can do (even though it really shouldn't), and how the legal team handles the issue. I dropped the book and clapped when the publicist was ranting about GoodReads trolls, because someone finally said it.

Seriously though, who is this upset about the book? Who has access to Jacob's house to leave threatening letters? What ... Really ... Happened... In the fictional plot? Read to find out, it's a slow burn but I promise it's worth ir

First, thank you to Celadon Books and Netgalley for the advanced readers copy of The Plot.

When I first read the plot line of The Plot (haha), I was hooked! A story about a writer who steals a storyline? That’s just Inception-like! I knew I needed to read this book for myself. I requested a copy, and after being immediately approved (thank you again!), I dove right in.

Okay, I have to admit. The beginning is so slow. I almost DNFed this, especially when I saw that others felt the same way. But I knew that I couldn’t do that, and I forged onward. By Part Two (the book is divided into 4 parts) I was dedicated. The writing improved greatly for me. The beginning was kind of droll, and there wasn’t enough dialogue to keep me interested. As the story goes on, the dialogue gets much heavier, which I needed and thus appreciated.

Two of my favorite parts about The Plot were, one, the play on words. You don’t realize it til nearly the end, but the title holds a double meaning. Two, I loved seeing another book in this book (Crib). Little excerpts of the book Jake wrote are scattered between chapters. It made the book that much better.

Seeing as I don’t want to give too much away, I will admit that I guessed a lot of the ending. Did I see it right from the start like some readers are claiming? Not at all, but there were several clues that informed me of the person behind the anonymous attacks Jake receives after stealing this plot line. I was actually a little ashamed of myself for not reading the very obvious clues sooner!

All in all, stick with this book! Even if you feel like the beginning is much too slow for you, I promise it gets better. In fact, the second half of the book doesn’t feel remotely like the first half. It becomes a true mystery, complete with plenty of travel and dialogue.

I loved The Plot, and I think you will too! 4/5 stars

A novelist turned writing teacher at at third-rate MFA program plus an arrogant student with a book idea that can't miss... Throw in a murder (or two), a stolen idea, and lots of twists and turns and you've got the formula for The Plot. I think it's best to go into this book not knowing too much so you can enjoy the ride. All the makings of a perfect summer read!

I alternated between the print version and the audio. Both were highly entertaining and the print version makes you want to keep turning the pages.

Thank you to Celadon Books and NetGalley for this ARC.

Lots of twists and turns in this thriller. This was just the book I needed to get me back into a reading groove. I must say I suspected the outcome early on but the story was so compelling I stayed with it and I am glad I did.

Yessss I needed this book. I didn't know it but I needed this book. It has a premise that has been done before. Or rather it feels like it's been done before, no specific examples come to mind. That's not a critique, I mean that in a good way. A teacher reads a book from a gifted student of his. That student dies. The teacher publishes it as his own. He gets rich and famous. All is good, and then.. Someone knows what he did! And that someone is taunting him...dun, dun, dun! Tell me that isn't suspenseful? It certainly is, but what really makes this book is how well written it is. The characters and their motivations are all fleshed out. The resolution was perfect in my opinion, though I have the feeling that it will cause some debate. 5 out of 5!

It is hard to write a "review" without giving away something that might spoil it, Suffice it to say I was blown away by this one, and will recommend it to one and all.

Great thriller from the author of You Should Have Known! Jacob "Finch" Bonner is a bit of a failed writer. His first novel was notable but since then he has failed to produce anything of worth. He starts teaching at an MFA program in the mid-west. One of his students is ridiculously confident that he has "THE STORY." In a conference w/ Jake, he outlines this amazing story and Jake is blown away. He can see all the accolades, and the movie, and Oprah interview playing out for this guy. Jake is jealous but moves on with his life.
Years later, at a different writers' retreat, Jake is reminded of the amazing story his student shared with him. Wondering why that novel was never published, he starts digging around for the author. Who has since passed away. Because Jake remembers the plot of this story, he writes it himself. And receives all the accolades, etc. Except, someone REALLY didn't want this novel published. And the more Jake is trolled and the more he digs, the more he discovers why.

* Special thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the early e-ARC of this novel."