Reviews with content warning for Drug use - The Plot

An author feeling like a one-hit wonder. They had a best seller, but can't figure out how to follow-up in a meaningful way. They come across as self-pitying, desperate, pathetic, hopeful, entitled, ignorant, and vain, with a touch of covert narcissism.
THE plot. The plot that was stolen. We get to read it in bits over the course of the story and it's pretty good. Semi-predictable but good.

Atmosphere 😐: Accusatory, impassioned, pretentious
We follow our MC over time from being a teacher at a small college in small town Vermont to fame in Manhattan, NY.

Cred Rating 😕: Suspend that belief
Without being OTT, this story is so OTT. THE plot isn't ground breaking, but admittedly new (I think) and quite interesting as a lit fic/thriller. As far as the plot outside of THE plot, it's a bit watered down with lots of OTT moments.

Growls and Howls 🐺:

Long-con villain monolog. Lots of scheming, plotting, rearranging an entire life to get 'revenge' that can only be successful if multiple coincidental/convenient events occur...broke the story for me. Somehow the villain monolog worked though, because it didn't rely on someone just listening intently instead of trying to escape.
Confusing ending requiring re-reading. The plot and THE plot eventually come together in a way where minor elements are changed (thank villain monolog for the heads-up) and ultimately I wish we had just read THE plot?

Reading Journey 🙂: Tour of a local college. Some interesting bits, potential, sparks of talent, but also a lot of polite nodding b/c not planning on applying.

Mood Reading Match-Up:

Meta reads (book within a book and plot within a plot)
Red herrings and amateur sleuthing
Family secrets investigation
Brief touches of OTT lit fic
Unlikeable characters
Stolen artistic IP

Vibes: 😒🤔😣

Content Heads-Up: Drug use (unintentional), Blackmail

Format: Hardcover

Content Warnings

jkononova's review against another edition

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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.)

Content Warnings

soft_plush's review against another edition

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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.

Content Warnings