Reviews with content warning for Abandonment - The Plot

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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apeck's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot

4.0

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mlthomas234's review against another edition

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dark funny 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

4.0

I enjoyed this book. The main character Jake is not particularly likable but he is understandable. I also liked the “story within the story” device and how we watched the plot unfold. A pretty solid thriller. I’m not giving it five stars for two reasons: for one, the first act is extremely slow. What the book summary shows as the premise (man steals plot, gets weird message) takes up the first THIRD of the book. This really didn’t feel necessary and ultimately I don’t think that long build up was consequential to the story. Secondly, the twist was fairly predictable— very shortly after that 30% mark. I don’t think a plot twist being predictable makes it a bad book— just didn’t blow me away.

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caprivoyant's review against another edition

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medium-paced

4.0

It's a little weird: reading a book about a plot with a twist nobody saw coming... that has a twist that you can see coming from a mile away.

It was still good. Still interesting. Still well-written and I still wanted to see how everything would unfold even though what would unfold was already pretty clear.

All-in-all an enjoyable read. I'd recommend it if you don't mind knowing the ending early on and just wanna be taken for a good ride.

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amcghig's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.25

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