Jake Bonner was once a moderately successful author, but when he appears to be a one hit wonder, he’s reduced to teaching in a small college. His arrogant student, Evan, insists he doesn’t need any instruction, he already has the perfect plot line for his book. And Jake reluctantly agrees. When Evan dies within ever publishing the book, Jake sees an opportunity to revive his career. When the book becomes an enormous global best seller, Jake seems to have succeeded beyond his wildest dreams. But someone knows the truth, and it becomes obvious that Evan was no ordinary student. Just what has Jake done and what ultimate price will he pay? This is a heart pounding thriller that I stayed up well into the night to finish. Highly recommended

"THE PLOT" was 'NOT" for me.

I prefer "insanely readable" and "breathtakingly suspenseful" reads (as promised on the "THE PLOT's book jacket) and THE PLOT was just too slow-burn and laborious for my discerning palate.

I felt that the author's premise was compelling: a "has-been" novelist is currently teaching in a third-rate MFA program. The novelist steals a too-good-not-to-steal story idea from one of his fourth-rate students. The stolen story gets published and the novelist's fame and wealth soar. The novelist's "perfect world" starts to fall apart, however, when he receives an anonymous "I know what you did" email accusing him of stealing the story.

It's important to note the novelist wrote his best-selling "stolen story" book in its entirety by himself. I have read many books with very, very, very similar plots and even though I agree that stealing an author's idea for a book does not comply with "best practices" and is WRONG, it happens all of the time.

I listened to the audiobook and perhaps the reason why I was unable to connect with the book's protagonist (and had trouble staying awake while listening!) can be blamed on the book's bland narration by narrator Kirby Heyborne. I was waiting for the narrator to give me some jolts and those jolts never came!

The book only had one narrator and almost 11 hours of straight book narration did not bode well for this narrator or this listener. I checked Kirby Heyborne's credits and he did a great job with the narration of "GONE GIRL" and 'THE WIFE UPSTAIRS" but it's important to note that in those books, he only narrated portions of those audiobooks and not the entire audio.

Author Jean Hanff Korelitz has had great luck with film and television adaptations of her novels and if the author secures a screen deal for THE PLOT, I will definitely be watching!

4 stars

Definitely more of a literary fiction novel than a thriller, I really enjoyed the dark tongue-in-cheek humor about writers, academia, artistic egos, & that pesky crippling fear of failure. Good prose, a slow burn build up of guilt & dread, & a lot of deviousness that comes out in the end.

[What I liked:]

•I found Jake a relatable character. Not a massive failure as a person at all, but carrying around those feelings because he hasn’t found the motivation to live up to his potential. Not someone who goes out of his way to help others, but still a decent human. His moment of ethical weakness that comes to haunt him is very human.

•So—the best plot ever invented? Maybe not. But it was twisty enough to pass as a potential best seller. The bits of “The Crib” inserted between chapters were fun to read, as well.

•Ooh, the villain is one of those you just love to hate. So gross & hypocritical & devious, but they still had depth & plausible motivations so their villainy didn’t feel over the top or unbelievable.

•A very solid ending. Did I figure out who the villain was pretty early? Yes. But it was still worth it to read to the end to learn all the motivations & see how the subtle details played out.

•The epilogue is so good! & I really, really wonder how the writing career of Candy’s guest will turn out.


[What I didn’t like as much:]

•The villain’s identity isn’t exactly obvious, but they are very suspicious from the moment they show up. Jake, for all his research, is very gullible. It’s a little hard to believe he didn’t verify the backstory the villain fed him.

CW: mentions of drug abuse/drug overdose, underage sex, murder, suicide

[I received an ARC ebook copy from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. Thank you for the book!]

The Plot completely blew me away! It was so artfully crafted and layered. I really did not see many of the twists coming. I also love the idea of a "novel within a novel" that the author used. This was such a fun concept, especially for writers and book lovers. I'll be recommending this one a ton!

This was a very good book! Different than what I expected but still kept me wanting to read more. I couldn't put this one down until i was finished. I loved the thriller aspect of it and I highly recommend.

This was a fun, interesting, and great story! This is a story that is told through the real timeline and also through chapters of the book within the book. I loved both portions of the story and found them to be captivating. I wavered between a 4 and a 5 star and landed at 5 stars. I thought that the beginning was a little slow, but once we jump forward in time to once he has stolen the plot, I felt like the story just FLEW! It was fast-paced and got crazier and crazier!

I alternated between the audio and the print versions of this book. The narrator did a wonderful job with this book, and I highly recommend the audio!

I think thriller readers will enjoy this one!

I was provided a gifted copy of this book for free. I am leaving my review voluntarily.

Thank you Netgalley for this ARC of The Plot by Jean Haniff Korelitz.

Even though Jacob once had a shining moment as an author for his debut novel, his fifteen minutes are up, and he is now teaching for an unimpressive program. His students treat him with apathy, and he is beginning to lose hope that he will never be a known author again.

But then Jacob meets a new student, Evan Parker, who Jacob finds completely arrogant, narcissistic, and totally unimpressed with Jacob's desire to help him. But Evan has a story, a mind blowing story, a story so good that it is practically fail proof. Jacob knows that it's only a matter of time until he sees Evan's story on the shelf. But years pass, and he never does, but more than that, he sees that Evan Parker has died. But Jacob still knows Evan's story, and he also knows that Evan left behind no one that would no his story. Perhaps Evan's story can become Jacob's...

This was a BLAST to read! So much about it to love. I loved all of the literary and author references. I loved the story within a story. The mystery was so fun, the characters were very compelling. If you are looking for a well paced, colorfully layered mystery/suspense, grab this one!

This book sounding interesting. However, I didn't care for the audiobook or the story. I was extremely bored. Not sure if it was the narrator or the writing style. Also the Audiobook book seemed to have a feedback.

This was the solid thriller I was looking for. I may have caught on part way through as to the 'big reveal', but I had no idea what kind of a ride we were going to go on to get there. I really enjoyed bouncing back and forth from the story to the story within the story. I felt equally invested in both!

Jake is an one hit wonder novelist turned writing teacher. One of his students tells him the plot of the book he wants to write and it sounds like a sure hit. Years later, Jake finds out that the student is dead and did not write the book with this great plot. So he writes the book and it is indeed a best seller and becomes the most talked about book. But Jake feels guilty for taking the plot and sure enough, someone else knows and is out to blackmail him.

I loved this idea and the book within a book storyline. It, like the book inside it, was such a good idea. It was also well written and had a steady pace (which is hard to do!) I did see the "twist" coming and many times found myself yelling at the main character for being so blind and short sighted. Despite guessing what would happen, I did enjoy this book and I think it will be, rightfully so, much read and talked about this summer. I'm so glad that a book I had high expectations for (mostly) held up! 3.75 stars

The audiobook version here, however, was terrible. It sounded like an automated voice. Luckily, I also got the print version and was able to enjoy this book that way. I would not recommend this audiobook version.

Thank you to Netgalley for the advance copy for review.

What a fun book this was! I loved the audiobook which I switched to after the slow start and I’m so glad I did! The narrator did a fantastic job, I couldn’t put the book down, I finished in a day. I loved it so much, I can’t recommend it enough!

I was looking forward to this however it’s rather slow. I don’t know if it’s the narrator or the story line itself? It’s a DNF for me.