Reviews tagging 'Death'

The Plot by Jean Hanff Korelitz

43 reviews

jkononova's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-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

3.25

I breezed through this book in two days, and here are my thoughts! The Plot was firmly a three-star read for me; it was very entertaining and scratched a very specific literary itch that I was feeling, but not a book I'm likely to think much about much after turning its final page. I found that the writing throughout the unraveling of the main mystery was a bit too hand-hold-y (read: a loooot of foreshadowing) and not fucked up enough for my tastes, but I still thoroughly enjoyed reading the story, though I'll admit that I started skimming through a good fraction of the words on each page when I was roughly 80% through the book. (For context, this opinion is coming from someone who loves Gillian Flynn's writing and actively relishes in how disturbed I feel when reading her books.) I also endlessly support all authors that explicitly and intelligently call out misogyny in their work, which Jean did here several times, in ways that were direct but still felt natural to the story, so cheers to that!

I had a couple gripes with the writing, mainly that, in my opinion, it fell a bit too into the "tell, not show" category, which felt deeply ironic and out-of-place for a book so centered around quality literature. Additionally, there seemed to be a lack of commas after introductory clauses, which made the book somewhat challenging to read out loud, especially with how long-winded some of the sentences were (not sure if this is just a problem with the Libby version of the book).

The book-in-the-book Crib seemed to suffer from some of the same issues, almost like a pale imitation of a Gillian Flynn novel.

(Though, to be fair, this may just be a combination of the challenges of writing in third person and deliberate stylistic choices. And also, like, I have exactly zero best-selling books in publication, so what do I really know about good writing that the author doesn't, lol.)

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Content Warnings

Minor: Death, Child abuse, Death of parent, Drug use, Pregnancy, Fire/Fire injury, Abandonment, Addiction, and Adult/minor relationship

soft_plush's review against another edition

mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

I have this book a 4 because it was better than I was expecting. Yes I kind of guessed the twist, but even before I got to the twist I was second guessing myself if I was correct. Turns out I had guessed correctly but still was kind of shocked by the end. Better than expected in my opinion. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Drug use, Death, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Drug abuse, Cursing, Grief, Murder, Suicide, and Toxic relationship

Moderate: Alcohol, Addiction, Drug abuse, and Drug use

Minor: Alcohol and Cursing

in my opinion Anna was wrong about Jake stealing in a sense she said that he stole Evans story which in turn Evan stole her story from the beginning. I personally don’t see how jake could have known because he only barely remembered Evans original plot to begin with but I could have just read it wrong or differently who knows.

krystalframe's review against another edition

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death and Murder

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship

Minor: Abortion

dexkit10's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense 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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Suicide, Emotional abuse, Violence, Bullying, Child abuse, Drug abuse, Murder, Child death, Death, and Fire/Fire injury

malloryhill10's review against another edition

dark 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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder and Death

Moderate: Fire/Fire injury and Drug use

gabyjo's review against another edition

mysterious 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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Emotional abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Pregnancy, Drug abuse, Addiction, and Death

christene_littlelibrary's review against another edition

challenging emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

The Plot has the crazy and twisty story. A mystery novel within a mystery novel. It's about a writer named Jacob, who's once a best novelist and currently working as a teacher on a creative writing when the one of his student shared the best story plot ever that is predictedly going to be one of the bestseller novels when published. And there it started when he learned that the student died and the book was never published then he decided to write a book using that plot. The book hits, but the there's a twist! Someone knew what he did.

The writing style kind of slowed me down at first but as I read through the chapter it was bearable. It was a plot-driven and the twist was unexpected. Totally loved the story. Rating it with a 4/5.

"Everyone has a unique voice and a story nobody else can tell. And anybody can be a writer.”

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death, Murder, and Pregnancy

Minor: Sexism

kcelena's review against another edition

dark sad tense fast-paced

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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Adult/minor relationship, Death of parent, Death, Murder, Stalking, and Pregnancy

Moderate: Toxic relationship, Alcohol, Adult/minor relationship, Drug abuse, Addiction, Drug use, and Suicide

quinnbvancavage's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense fast-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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder and Death

Minor: Suicide, Alcoholism, and Drug use

cpchester's review against another edition

medium-paced

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

2.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Death, Pregnancy, Murder, Drug use, and Drug abuse