The Plot
by Jean Hanff Korelitz
Celadon Books
You Are Auto-Approved
General Fiction (Adult) | Mystery & Thrillers
Pub Date 11 May 2021 | Archive Date Not set

I started reading this book because I had seen it on several lists of "books to watch in 2021". I found the first 15 % of the book really slow going, and in fact, I almost stopped reading it. My belief is that there are so many good books out there and I do not stay with a book long if I don't like it. Luckily, I was drawn into the book and really enjoyed the plot. Very interesting problem. Thanks to Celadon Books and Netgalley for the digital ARC.

4star

This was great! Super meta with a book within a book, and a ton of insider information on the thoughts and feelings of writers. Aside from that, this book had dare I say it, an amazing plot! It better have with the actual title being The Plot. Ha! I really don’t want to give much away, and you can read the setup in the books synopsis. I will say that I did predict what was going on so I wasn’t surprised, but I’m sure many of you will be. Don’t try and figure it out, just go along for the ride. You will not be disappointed! I would have given this 5 stars had I been shocked, and the other thing preventing me from giving it 5 stars is that it took way too long to get the story moving (about 50 pages or so). I thought the first third of the boom could have been shortened to really get the story going. I didn’t love the main character Jake at all, especially in the beginning, but he did grow on me a bit. Read it!

Thank you to the publisher, Netgalley, and the author for the advanced copy. All opinions are my own. :)

The Plot starts off a little slow and kinda boring but then it sucks you right in. Jacob Finch Bonner is kind of a washed up writer and then develops a plan. This is suspenseful in its own way. I did enjoy it. I figured out some of it but the ending was chillingly pleasant .

The Plot (Jean Hanff Korelitz) is the story about an author and a best seller he writes, so Ms Korelitz really gives us two books in one. I would have rather read the story her main character wrote. To me that plot held my attention more than the fictional author's life. I want to thank NetGalley and Celadon Books for an early copy to review.

What a different, yet interesting ‘Plot’!

Jake is a creative writing teacher who feels that his own career has tanked. He meets an arrogant student who says that he has the most unique, incredible, never done before plot for a best-selling novel. Over the next few years Jake doesn’t see the novel ever get published and, after doing a bit of investigating, determines that his ex student is dead and he decides to take the plot concept and write the book himself. It becomes a smash hit but then he gets an email letting him know that someone knows that he stole the story..

I loved:
📖 the writing! amazing, it pulled me in and I got lost in the pages! I knew Jake’s character like a real person when I was done
📖 the concept and her use of the inner story, reading about Jake with chapters from his novel spliced in was so interesting and engaging!
📖 the pace! even with Jake’s novel woven in, it began incrementally to quicken and build until I couldn’t put it down
📖 the discussion of stealing a plot, I was on edge about this one since we all know you can’t steal a plot? We would have very few books in the world! But this was handled so well and as the story unfolds, and the layers are uncovered, it worked so well!

The only challenge in this read for me was the falling action/denouement, I struggled with this today after finishing the read last night because it may have been a ‘me’ issue! was it because I guessed what was happening too early? Did I love it so much that I was just upset the action was over? Was I unhappy with the resolution? I’m not sure but what I do know was it got me thinking 🤔 and that’s awesome when a book leaves you with that feeling.

The Plot publishes on May 11th and I thank Celadon Books and NetGalley for the advanced peek! 📖

Thanks to Celadon and Netgalley for providing the ARC. Good mystery which kept me turning pages. Eventually I had a pretty good idea of where it was headed, but I wasn’t 100% sure until the end (and yes I had figured it out). I also didn’t think the narrator’s “sin” was as bad as he made it out to be, seemed a little overblown, but I’m not a writer, so what do I know? Overall, worth your time if you like mysteries and thrillers.

I thought this book started out very slow, but with promises of a psychological plot twist, I was sure that things would pick. Did they ever!

The characterization was excellently portrayed—even down to gestures, actions and things the characters said. The settings were also nicely done. I especially liked the main character, Evan; the author did an excellent job of portraying him in such a way that I felt sorry for him and his struggles. I also, more or less, wasn’t sure that what he did was bad. Many authors have such similar books that picking up the plot someone else had, and writing it differently, as well as better by the way, doesn’t seem to really matter. Does it?

Okay, so I did guess the plot twist early on. Little clues made it obvious to me. But sometimes, when you know who the bad guy is, and the main character is clueless, it adds a tension that you may not otherwise feel. I wasn’t surprised by the ending—and I really wished the book would have ended differently.

Overall, this is another nice addition to the psychological thriller market.

Holy WOW did I enjoy this book! With a little more than half to go, I literally could not flip the pages fast enough and stayed up way past my bedtime to finish!

Jake is a struggling author trying to reclaim the small amount of fame he felt from his first book. Problem is, he can't seem to write anything and his lackluster ideas take years to get down on paper and fizzle out before they even start. Teaching a three-week, immersive creative writing course for Ripley College, Jake feels burnt out and underwhelmed with his life.

When he meets student Evan Parker, Jake is less than impressed with Parker's arrogance and overconfidence. Parker claims he has the next big American novel on his hands and isn't shy about letting people know. However, he keeps the plot close to his chest. In a constructive session, Jake is able to get Parker to open up a bit about the plot and he's dismayed when he actually agrees that there's no way the book won't be a hit.

Years later, stuck in another dead end job and working on a novel going nowhere, Jake thinks back to his old student Evan Parker, wondering why he never saw the great American novel hit shelves. Turns out, Evan Parker died shortly after the creative writing class. Is it really stealing if Jake writes the whole book on his own and just uses the basic plot line designed by Parker? Can Jake live with himself if he does?

This was such an interesting novel about morality and right versus wrong, how to live with guilt, and the impact of our decisions on ourselves and others. Additionally, it discussed some very relevant topics such as cultural appropriation and the impact of social media, bloggers and early reviewers on authors and literature. Being an early reviewer, blogger, and Goodreads user, I loved the references to those platforms and the viewpoints from the publishers and authors.

I couldn't give this one the full five stars because admittedly I found the first chapter to be a slog (it was all dramatically uphill from there) and I figured out the basic twist less than halfway through (this did not in any way slow my reading down and actually probably sped it up because I HAD to know if I was right!).

I really loved the format of this book with the novel within a novel. I was totally enthralled with Crib and loved the snippets we got. I felt like Jake's ethical dilemma was fairly authentic and it was hard to watch him unraveling as he let his guilt eat away at him.

I really loved this book and it's definitely one I will recommend. It's my first by Hanff Korelitz but certainly won't be my last!

Thank you to Celadon and NetGalley for a copy of this novel.

Thanks to Celadon and NetGalley for the advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review. I'd read about this book in several publications as "one to watch for" in 2021. It lived up to the hype! It was a really interesting premise for a story and I liked the book within a book concept. Well done!

Would you all be ok with a 3 word review? Clever, Clever, Clever!! Just kidding, but wow that’s exactly what this book was and the audiobook (narrated by Kirby Hayborne) really enhanced my reading. We are introduced to Jacob Finch Bonner who alternates between being a down on his luck struggling writer who “teaches” creative writing and a narcissist who’s completely out of touch with those around him…I have to say, I was intrigued about him from the get go.

Jacob has a student, Evan Parker, who shares his future best selling story idea which he’s currently writing that Evan says is guaranteed to top the charts, be picked by Oprah’s bookclub etc… and Jacob agrees, it’s a genius idea…and believe me I was dying to find out what that story idea WAS…don’t worry, you’ll get that story in bits and pieces which was a great way to tease out not only Evan’s work in progress but also Jacob’s “success” story. Fast forward 2 years later and Jacob finds out that Evan’s story never got published because he died shortly after he shared his idea with Jacob…what’s a narcissist blocked writer to do…well steal that idea of course…and what follows is one of the most intriguing, clever (sorry for the word repetition but it IS) plots I’ve read/listened to in a long time!!

I thoroughly enjoyed alternating print & audio but you should know, this is not a fast paced story (although the last 40% flew by)…this is a character driven, subtly plotted puzzle that the author dishes out in a very deliberate way that had me guessing, thinking, and rethinking what I “thought” I knew.

3.5 stars. The Plot was a slow starter for me, and I considered bailing out after just one chapter. The writing favors very long, drawn out sentences which I found tedious and challenging to read and absorb. Sentences of 70+ words, with some over 100 words. That stylistic choice, plus a rather uninteresting main character had me wondering what all the hype was about, and when would this book get on with the good stuff? It takes a beat, but did improve. The long sentence style faded away, the story moved on from its somewhat boring start, and the pacing picked up. The excerpts from the character's novel were often more interesting to me than the main story. A little over halfway through, everything clicked and I knew where it was going (I was right). Not that tough to figure out. Overall, I liked the plot (no pun intended) more than the characters, who were under-developed. I did enjoy the ending and added a half star for that.

The Plot was a really good read - particularly the middle part of the book. The first 15% or so of the book moved too slowly, though. So slow, in fact, that I was getting ready to put the book down when it started to get good. I'm glad that I kept with it because it did pay off in the end.

After the initial pages, I found myself not connecting with the story or main character, so I decided to pass on this book. Did not finish.

I’m between a 2.5 and 3 star rating on this book. The storyline was intriguing (a has-been writer uses a plot presented to him by his late former student and writes a literary bestseller) and I enjoyed the book within a book concept, however, the execution fell flat for me. The Plot is marketed as a thriller which is misleading in my opinion because it was such a slow burn and the incessant detail and explanation points made it difficult for me to stay interested. Thrilling it was not.

What I did enjoy was trying to guess what this mysterious “plot” of Jake’s novel was going to be. I liked the excerpts and the reveal of the story and it was an interesting twist. The mystery of the menacing “Talented Tom” was predictable in my opinion and I was able to guess the culprit from the get go. Although I guessed this, the ending was great.

Thank you to Netgalley and Celadon books for the advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

The Plot by Jean Hanff Korelitz is a highly recommended novel of psychological suspense.

Jacob (Jake) Finch Bonner is a writer who has had one well received first book and that has been it for years. He teaches creative writing at a third-rate low-residency MFA program at Ripley College in Vermont. His self esteem and self-respect are low and he really hasn't written anything for years. When an arrogant student, Evan Parker, claims he needs no help writing because his novel is so unique it will be a best seller, Jake doubts this until Evan tells him the plot of his novel. Jake spends several years bracing himself for the publication of Parker's novel - which never comes. He looks into it and discovers that Evan has died and never finished his book. Jake decides to write the novel himself and it is published to critical acclaimed and becomes a phenomenal bestseller.

Jake is now wealthy and a lauded novelist for the novel Crib. He is traveling on a book tour and speaking to packed crowds when he receives an email saying, "You are a thief." Concerned and increasingly suspicious that Evan told someone else about the novel he was writing before he died, Jake begins to look into Evan's life. It is clear that Evan told no one about his novel. It is also clear that Evan's plot wasn't his idea, he actually took it from someone's life story. As the emails and accusations slowly ramp up, Jake becomes increasingly desperate and paranoid

The narrative follows Jake's story with excerpts from chapters in his book Crib interspersed, which gives the reader an idea of the plot of the novel Jake wrote based on the plot Evan told him. Korelitz leaves enough clues that it is possible for astute readers to figure out what is going on. This reader was not shocked by the twist. I knew who was threatening Jake as soon as it was possible to figure it out. That is not to say that the journey reaching the big final denouement wasn't worth it, but it wasn't a shocking twist. It's also surprisingly, for a novel about a unique plot, not a unique plot.

The story of The Plot starts slowly and Jake is a commonplace character at the start as his struggles as a writer and his self-doubt is established. This is contrasted later with his success after Crib is published. He becomes more interesting at the point because that is when the guilt over the purloined plot enters the picture. Basically, The Plot is much more compelling in the second half of the narrative, after he marries and is filled with tension. Jake is a sympathetic character, but not very distinctive, and comes off as a conventional caricature of a man filled with guilt over his actions.

Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of Celadon Books in exchange for my honest opinion.
The review will be submitted for publication on Amazon, Google Books, Edelweiss, and Barnes & Noble.

Hands down one of the best books I have read this year. I am floored, rendered speechless. I totally underestimated just how much I would love this book. Yes, it was that good.

A book within a book! Very interesting, well written! The Plot is about an author, Jacob Finch Bonner, down on his luck who is teaching at a community college. One of his students, Evan Parker, talks about 'the plot' for his book. Well, student dies and Jake as Jacob is called, takes it and runs. There are many twists and turns. I love that this is a book within a book, really suspenseful. Read to the very end! Thank you, Netgalley, for the opportunity to read this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This book is a train wreck and I mean that in the most complimentary way possible. Reading it is like watching a watching an out of control train speeding down the track - you know that it is going to end badly and, part of you doesn't want to watch, but you can't help yourself. The author does a masterful job of building tension in the first third of the book. You'll find yourself willing the main character to not go down a path he is clearly going to go. I would love to have seen more of a backstory on the main character, but, leaving that aside, my main regret about this book is that I wish I had read it with my book club as there are lots of themes to discuss. Is it possible to have an original idea? What constitutes plagiarism? How and why does fear of failure drive us to commit potentially amoral acts? How have our lives turned out differently than we had imagined they would be in our youth? How do we think and feel about mother/daughter relationships that do not fit our working models of what those relationships should be?

Thank you to NetGalley and Celadon Books for the chance to review an ARC of this book!

• Thank you to Celadon Books, a division of Macmillan Publishers, and NetGalley for providing this Advance Reading Copy. Expected publication date is May 11, 2021.

Jacob Finch Bonner is an author who wrote a semi-one-hit-wonder then hit a two decade writer’s block. To make ends meet, he teaches writing at Richard Peng Hall, on the campus of Ripley College, in northern Vermont. Enter a student professing to possess the ultimate book plot — a plot that him famous: NYT best seller, a movie starring mega-stars, even picked for Oprah’s book club. $$ BIG BUCKS $$ Then this wannabe writer disappears from Jacob’s world for years never to be heard from again. What could it hurt if Jacob himself brings this unbeatable plot into the world. Bonner writes the book and beyond his wildest dreams. That is until someone accuses him of plagiarism....

Described as "breathtakingly suspenseful,, Jean Hanff Korelitz’s The Plot is a propulsive read about a story too good not to steal, and the writer who steals it'." And, yet, how many original plots exist?

Every writer, published or not, knows there are only a limit of storylines. Writing is HARD and Jean Hanff Koreltz takes the reader inside the mental and emotional state of a character whose only dream and ambition is to write.

After minor success with his first novel, Jake -- the author -- spirals downward in his dream career until he remembers a "can't miss plot" sketchily told to him by a former student. But the book apparently was never written, the braggart had died before making his claim come true. However, Jake used what he knew of the plot and made his own dream come true.

Then someone begins calling him "a thief'".

The tangled twists and turns of The Plot, including the emotional and mental trauma that Jake endures, is brilliantly shocking. I confess to not having read a book in almost a year. The reality of life had captured my attention and escaping into fiction could not entertain me. Yet, here I am, telling you this book has brought me back to my love of reading!