The Plot

2 things bothered me and I just couldn't continue.  One is that plot isn't everything...Ive read books that had amazing plots but the writing was just terrible.  So that they kept being like well anyone could write this plot and it was going to be best seller bs, I wasn't buying.

Second, yes it was the student's idea but he died so....why couldn't protagonist just plop blurb in book saying student so and so told him of this idea and the he died.  He hoped he did him justice blah blah.  Then yeah, up front.  Dude still wrote the book so I just don't get it.  

A strong start and then becomes extremely predictable. I figured out what happened half way through the book and the ending was just a bond villain speech that was redundant because ironically the “plot” was so predictable it didn't require explanation.

Everybody said to read it for the ending, but even the ending didn't save it. I'm sorry, this was a slog.

Everybody said to read it for the ending, but even the ending didn't save it. I'm sorry, this was a slog.

if there's one thing about me : i'm going to guess a plot twist immediatly . still really enjoyed this!!!!

The writing style is engaging and witty. I was engrossed from the start.

Jacob Finch Bonner is not the greatest guy but easy to understand. He's a struggling writer who has had some modest success but can't get publishers interested in his subsequent work. He's working as a creative writing teacher to get by. He teaches students of varying levels of talent and ambitions but at this point he's pessimistic about the process and it affects his attitude as an instructor.

Then he meets the student who tells him “the plot.” At first it's not life changing for him; he just keeps a casual eye out to see if the arrogant kid will ever get around to publishing the book based on this brilliant idea. It gets complicated when the student dies without publishing and Bonner decides to take the plot and run with it.

We get glimpses of the book Bonner wrote based on this so-called, can't-miss plot. There could have been some potential in the idea that we never knew what the plot actually was. While what we see of Bonner's book is not bad, it can't live up to the hype created by Parker's brag and the runaway success of Bonner's book.

(I was half expecting the writer to employ a device like Monty Python's “Funniest Joke in the World” sketch, which features a joke so funny it kills anyone who hears it. Naturally the audience never finds out what that joke actually is. I'm making this analogy because there is no way the joke could live up to the myth.)

Bonner goes from enjoying life as a successful writer to frantically searching for the source of a series of anonymous threats to expose him. Once this part of the story gets under way, it slowly devolves into an average thriller. It is an important plot point that the book Bonner wrote reflects the discoveries in the investigation Bonner embarks upon when he starts getting harassed.
The final twist is predictable, made more disappointing by the fact that the premise of the entire book is about the idea of an “original plot.” Or maybe that's the point, that there's no way to be surprising and original with just a plot as your weapon. Either way, I wasn't really blown away by the revelation. Also, we get the fallacy of the talking killer.

Maybe this book was a lot funnier than I thought and the final joke on the reader was just too subtle for me. My view is the ending falls into the cheesy category.

I'm a bit ambivalent after finishing. A good one for book clubs though, as it can lead to discussion about plots, intellectual property, writers, and so on. I did enjoy the writing style and would read something else by Korelitz.

3.5 rounded up

I did listen to the whole book even after I figured out the ending, so yes, I am calling the book predictable. I was hoping for a real twist to prove me wrong. The editing could of been much tighter, parts were very repetitive and slogged it down.

Heard tons of hype about this book and for me, it lived up to that hype in every way. Great read.

conflicted

Decent story and well-paced and yet undeniably predictable. I did feel the ending was a bit rushed. Still worth a read on the beach.

Après une longue plongée dans le steampunk, j'avais envie de changer un peu d'air avec un roman totalement différent de mes lectures récentes. J'ai choisi ce roman que j'avais repéré il y a quelques mois et dont les critiques étaient élogieuses.

Je n'ai pas été déçu de mon choix, c'est exactement ce que j'attendais : un roman plutôt bien écrit, avec une intrigue bien construite, du suspense et un rythme bien géré. Un bon page-turner, très efficace dans son genre.

Je ne vais évidemment pas révéler ici le coeur de l'intrigue, c'est une histoire qu'il faut découvrir par soi-même en se demandant si on saura détecter avant tout le monde les surprises et les rebondissements que nous réserve l'auteur.

Cela a très bien fonctionné pour moi, j'ai passé un bon moment de lecture avec ce thriller autour d'un écrivain et de son roman-phare.

All through the book I had a feeling of déjà lu
A bit too slow and predictable. I guess it makes sense that both the crime and the action will be quite mild in a “literary thriller”. Add to that a hero that we can't really like. That's a lots of challenges the author set for himself.

The stealing part was not what I expected. The investigation did not go as expected, but the ending blew my mind. I can't say too much more because it don't want to spoil anything.

DNF @ 26%

Sometimes the premise of a book just vibes with you the wrong way. And the way this book talks about “The Plot” just drives me crazy. At one point, the has-been author who is teaching the student who comes up with The Plot thinks “even a person with no writing skills could not ruin a Plot like this” and talks about every single person he knows is going to read this Plot and it will be on Oprah and bestseller's lists and is a Plot that is absolutely revolutionary and has never been done before. EVEN his parents would read it, and they wouldn't read has-been author's books!! Obviously, we do not get to know “The Plot”, because then Korelitz would have to actually come up with this incredible plot. So it is left on the reader to suspend disbelief that, okay, this random narcissist who has never taken a writing workshop or tried writing at all, would come up with a Plot so spectacular that it'd be the best thing ever.

Unfortunately, I cannot suspend that disbelief. It's a short sighted way to view literature, and every book is more than its plot. There is no plot ever conceived of that could not be ruined by a poor writer. To reduce the complexity of the reading experience down to “The Plot” is ridiculous. It reminds me of Seth Rogen talking about plot vs story. The plot of Superbad is two guys trying to get laid at a party...the story is two guys who are going to miss each other after graduation. And maybe this book actually deals with a little more nuance later on....but considering I hate it already, I'll pass.

I think this might have been more enjoyable if I were part of the literary/publishing world? For me it was an unlikable protagonist doing questionably problematic things and lying to himself about them, which I guess is something we should all learn to recognize from a cognitive dissonance perspective but it didn't capture my interest. The book didn't feel super thrilling because the stakes felt pretty low and unless I missed something the multiple meanings of “plot” and book-within-a-book tropes/themes fell a little flat. I did like the ending but it didn't salvage the whole book.

The twist is pretty obvious, and you have to suspend your disbelief to buy into the whole “this is a plot that cannot fail” thing, but all of the ruminations on writing and being a writer (the moral code, the publishing world, etc.) were great and it was compelling enough to tear through in a few days. 3.5 people saying “anyone can be a writer” out of 5, rounded up for being a fun time.

I have to admit that the first part got me engaged. But then it became predictable, and the actions of the main character weren't keeping me interested. Even though the ending was easy to guess, I liked the prologue.

Pairs excellently with “Who Is the Bad Art Friend?”

Maybe I should give this more than three stars because it is well written and gripping and exciting. Maybe it just isn't my kind of book. I didn't bring me any real pleasure. I didn't want anything bad to happen to the main character, but he wasn't very likable. I was mostly surprised by the ending, which was fun .... when I figured it out. I think some people will love this book. Recommended by a smart academic friend of mine.

I struggled to get through the pretentiousness of the early chapters of this book, and once I did, it gave way to predictability. Without spoiling anything I'll just say that this book is a prime example of proving what used to be a subversion into a trope. In short, the ending is trash.

Bookworms love books about books right? Add a bit of plagiarism, threatening letters and mysterious ‘real life' connections and you have a cracker of a thriller.

When struggling writer turned teacher, Jacob Finch Bonner, hears an unbelievable plot from an asshole of a student, he is more than a little bitter about it. How could such an undeserving novice writer come up with such a sure fire bestseller plot? Years later, Jacob discovers however, that this explosive book was never published. So he decides to “borrow” the plot. He could do it better anyway right?

You just know this is not going to end well.

This book was compulsively readable and twisty. The only reason it didn't get the full 5 stars was because I guessed all the twists. That is not to say that they were predictable, just that my mind goes to dark places (lol).

Some aspects of it seemed so promising: the flawed writer to be, the pretentious candidate, the fact he decided not to act on it despite his initial will. Others were disappointing: it seemed so obvious to me that the only possible connection with the blackmail/threats was the person who eventually was revealed to be - and the story itself didn't seem so absolutely amazing as everyone seemed to think it was, although I must say the build up was such that it'd be difficult to live up to it.
all in all, it was a good book: steady, well written, solid. But I was bothered by a feeling that it wanted to be so much more.

I loved the plot, the characters and dialogue- especially the internal monologue. Only 3 stars because not quite a hundred pages in I knew who the “bad guy” was.

4.5