Reviews

The Plot by Jean Hanff Korelitz

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bubbles_plus_lily's review

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4.0

That was pretty good

hanleyca's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

bookedandcaffeinated's review

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

This is a story of a plot so good you'd kill for it. So mysterious and groundbreaking. After reading this I feel like it's very hard to write a story within a story and have them both be good. Either the actual book is great but has a very underdeveloped story inside it - i. e. Magpie Murders- or the actual book is dull and not that good compared to the book inside it - i. e. The Eighth detective. This one falls into the first group.

The story starts quite boring and the protagonist is like a repressed Joe Goldberg who gets money whenever he uses an exclamation mark. (Kinda ironic that a writing professor does not know that using exclamation marks is a copout. Worse is that they are never used correctly.)
However, following the climax of the book, it gets way better. I was so excited to see what will happen next. The protagonist becomes more palatable and the story gets faster and faster.

The only issue with that is that the plot is too on the nose.

I'm really bad at guessing twists, which is why I enjoy mysteries so much. However, the build-up to the plot twist was so obvious way before it was supposed to be obvious, much less revealed. It was so improbable, so unnatural I could not ignore it and try to be surprised.

All in all, this book is actually good. It's a mystery book about a mystery book and one of them is good enough to keep you reading even if you didn't like the other.

robbiemay's review

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mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

abroadwell's review

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3.0

A corker of a book, with nice suspense elements, misdirection, and a twisty ending.

I do not read many thrillers, but this was fun and fast-paced.

cowboylikestoread43's review

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dark mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

Not as big of a twist as the book let on. Figured it out relatively early and spent the rest of the book just waiting to be right.

lhhrmn's review

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4.0

wow wow

Spoiler

I think I had an inkling of the twist earlier on than the big reveal, but I told myself I was probably wrong and honestly, I liked being surprised toward the end. I had a few teeny issues with the storyline toward the end (to Anna's own point - why were all these people around and so willing to talk to him? and when he threatened the GA lawyer with "his crimes in VT", what was he going off of? How did he begin to suspect him? Was it just that he had a few questionable things in his past already and felt like he could assume? IDK), but I still really liked the story and in a way, how meta it was. The plot within a plot about a plot.. I guess after reading other reviews, it's been done before, but this was the first I read of it, so it was a nice.. change of plot (;