The Plot by Jean Hanff Korelitz was a pretty good read but moves very slowly in the beginning. Although I think that the plot of The Plot is a good one, it didn't grab me and keep me invested the way that I had hoped. I didn't care very much for Jake so I didn't have any investment in whether or not he could revive his career as a writer and how he handled appropriating the plot of a deceased student. It seems to me as though there could have been a way of using the plot and giving proper credit as well. I didn't connect with this story as much as I would have liked, but I encourage you to read some of the very positive reviews on Goodreads to get a fuller feel of how some other readers enjoyed The Plot.
***I received an ARC from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.***
Synopsis via Goodreads
Jacob Finch Bonner was once a promising young novelist with a respectably published first book. Today, he's teaching in a third-rate MFA program and struggling to maintain what's left of his self-respect; he hasn't written--let alone published--anything decent in years. When Evan Parker, his most arrogant student, announces he doesn't need Jake's help because the plot of his book in progress is a sure thing, Jake is prepared to dismiss the boast as typical amateur narcissism. But then . . . he hears the plot.
Jake returns to the downward trajectory of his own career and braces himself for the supernova publication of Evan Parker's first novel: but it never comes. When he discovers that his former student has died, presumably without ever completing his book, Jake does what any self-respecting writer would do with a story like that--a story that absolutely needs to be told.
In a few short years, all of Evan Parker's predictions have come true, but Jake is the author enjoying the wave. He is wealthy, famous, praised and read all over the world. But at the height of his glorious new life, an e-mail arrives, the first salvo in a terrifying, anonymous campaign: You are a thief, it says.
As Jake struggles to understand his antagonist and hide the truth from his readers and his publishers, he begins to learn more about his late student, and what he discovers both amazes and terrifies him. Who was Evan Parker, and how did he get the idea for his "sure thing" of a novel? What is the real story behind the plot, and who stole it from whom?
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