NetGalley Top Reviewer

NetGalley Top Reviewer
NetGalley Top Reviewer

Tuesday, May 25, 2021

The Plot by Jean Janff Korelitz

 "And that's where the dividing line is...between something any of us might do under the circumstances and something only a truly evil person would do."

Psychological and domestic suspense about a writer who publishes a book based on an idea that he just might have stolen/borrowed from another would-be author. Who owns the idea for a story? If there are only a limited number of basic plots in the literary world, how much of anything is really ever totally original? Depends on the story. Jacob (Jake) Finch Bonner is about to find out how far someone is willing to go to protect the plot when he receives the first email: "You are a thief." NO SPOILERS.

This was a bit of a slow starter for me and didn't really capture my interest until well after the halfway point. Since I had pretty much figured out the big "twist" early on, the rest of the narrative was just confirmation. The writing was good, but I never really felt that Jacob was much of a protagonist and he was far too reserved and timid in his reactions to what was happening. I didn't really relate to any of the secondary characters either. The focus of the novel seemed to be more about writers and feelings about being an author despite a part of it actually being the excerpts from Jake's bestselling book. It does take a long time to get to "the plot" and thus it is less compelling than it could be. Even though this is touted as being suspenseful, I never really felt the tension until the last dramatic scenes when I was actually surprised by the ending. Because of its overall tone and homage to authors and the craft of writing  in a way, I am thinking that group will be the main fans and target audience.

I previously read YOU SHOULD HAVE KNOWN by this author and rated it 5 stars, so it may just have been that I was less interested in this premise than I was for that book. Thank you to NetGalley and Celadon Books for the e-book ARC to read and review.

This is a standalone and is not part of any series.

Genre - psychological and domestic suspense

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