I was interested in this book because Jimmy Fallon mentioned it on The Tonight Show, when he was doing 'Summer Reads' My top two choices were this and Razorblade Tears. I'm Happy 'The Plot' won, because I was definitely intrigued by the story. In a way, it reminded me of a mix between I Know What you Did Last Summer and a Stephen King story called Secret Window, Secret Garden. This is not horror, but it's a mystery/thriller. This was the first book I read by Jean Hanff Korelitz, and I'm happy I did. I finished the book in about 4 days. I thought it started out a little slow, but when I got to chapter 7, it definitely started to pick up.
Our main protagonist is a has-been author named Jacob 'Jake' Finch Bonner. Jake has written two books, but nobody really knows about his work. He becomes a writing teacher at Ripley college and one of his students is named Evan Parker. Parker is a narcisstic and full of himself. He looks down on everyone, including Jake. Jake wants his students to share their stories and ideas with each other, but Evan refuses, thinking he's writing the greatest book of all time. A book that everyone will read and a famous director will turn it into a movie someday.
One day, Evan shares a few pages with Jake. The story is about a teenaged girl who lives in a large house and wants desperately to escape her mom. Jake is intrigued by the story, but goes on to try and do better things. Over the next two years, Jake is really struggling to find work, and eventually looks up to see if Evan ever published his 'great' novel. Turns out, Evan Parker died by an overdose, so Jake, desperate to make ends meet, decides to steal aspects of Evan's story for himself.
Three years later, Jake has finally written a successful novel titled 'Crib' He's going on book tours, making television and radio appearances and even meets the love of his life named Anna. His book is so successful, that Steven Spielberg is turning it into a movie. Life is going great for Jake Bonner, until one day, he receives an e-mail from someone named Talented Tom that says "You are a thief"
Jake begins to play detective and tries to figure out who Talented Tom is, why they're sending e-mails, and Evan's family history. The e-mails keep coming and even harassment on all social media. Clearly, someone doesn't want this story to be told, but why?
Overall, I'm really glad I read this book. I was very intrigued by it, and it has a pretty cool twist. Hopefully someday, they'll turn it into a movie or tv series. I highly recommend THE PLOT!!!
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Popular Highlights in this book
Midway upon the journey of our life, he heard himself think, I found myself within a forest dark, for the straightforward pathway had been lost.Highlighted by 1,148 Kindle readers- You’re only as successful as the last book you published, and you’re only as good as the next book you’re writing. So shut up and write.Highlighted by 1,133 Kindle readers
- Good writers borrow, great writers steal, Jake was thinking. That ubiquitous phrase was attributed to T. S. Eliot (which didn’t mean Eliot hadn’t, himself, stolen it!), but Eliot had been talking, perhaps less than seriously, about the theft of actual language—phrases and sentences and paragraphs—not of a story, itself.Highlighted by 734 Kindle readers
From the Publisher
AN INTERVIEW WITH THE AUTHOR
At the risk of sounding too meta, how did you come up with the plot of The Plot?
JEAN HANFF KORELITZ: Like most writers I’m fascinated by plagiarism and the murkiness around creative appropriation: chefs stealing recipes from other chefs, comedians helping themselves to other comedians’ jokes, academic theft, and above all creative writers appropriating work by others. I’m hardly the first novelist to write about this — there’s an entire sub-genre of Stephen King work on this theme — and it’s not the first time I’ve touched on it in my own work, but it’s the first time I’ve placed it front and center in a book. I think it makes sense to write about the things that fascinate us.
While writing this book, you must have put yourself in the shoes of the main character. Do you think you’d ever steal a genius idea for a book if you knew it would never be used?
I wouldn’t, but only because I’m squeamish by nature and I’d be terrified about that degree of exposure and disapproval. But like most artists, I also understand that stories run underneath the ground of our collective experience, and we all dip into them, whether we’re aware of it or not. The real question is: At what point does a collective story become the individual property of a person or an artist? A contender for the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Drama was The Inheritance by Matthew Lopez, which openly adapts Forster’s Howards End to contemporary New York City. This is a normal, even laudatory practice, which artists fully understand. But to help yourself to the specific plot of a recently deceased author who never completed his book? I don’t know where the line is, exactly, but I’m pretty sure that’s over it.
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Reviews with images
Definitely a good read!
I've heard so many wonderful things about this book, it was all over social media and when I say all over I mean EVERYWHERE I looked, so naturally it ended up in my @amazon basket to see what all the fuss was about.I must say, I loved the concept! A book where the plot of the book revolves around the plot of a book. That's definitely a novel idea (see what I did there? 😏).Although the book had a bit of a slow start and took a little getting in to (I was expecting the slow burn and this was in a lot of the reviews for the book). Once it picked up, it was difficult to put down, it sucked you right in (hence finishing it at 4.30am when I did with red eyes and a stiff neck).The main character, although I did not love him, he was extremely relatable and would be to most people. He represented real fears and anxieties than any one of us could face, his downward spiral is one that many could understand. The inner struggles and demons he grappled with and the decisions he made because of them also felt real and reasonable. His own lack of belief in himself and self doubt playing such a large role in his life.I loved the plot twist, even though I must admit, I did see coming, to quote one of the characters in the book "cause I'm that person who leans over in the movie and tells you, five minutes in, what's gonna happen, it's like a curse".Despite that, I really loved the story, the style that it was told, its concept and I absolutely loved the ending!I could definitely see what all the fuss was about!
Top reviews from other countries
Linda Pfeiffer
An exciting yarn which will hold you captive until the bitter end
Reviewed in Canada on July 29, 2021
