The Plot by Jean Hanff Korelitz

 

This was a very good book that's quite different from any books I've ever read. The Plot is about an author, Jake, who was struggling to come up with his next book. He had tasted success years ago, but that's history now. He started working odd jobs like holding writing workshops to make ends meet. While doing a workshop, he encountered a guy named Evan Parker, who told him about a story with a great plot, that's for sure to be a hugely successful book, even if Evan wasn't a great writer. When Jake heard the storyline, he agreed. 2 years later, Jake is still thinking about this plot and wondered why it's not turned into a book yet. He started searching about Evan on line and learned that Evan had passed away. He did some investigation and realized no one else knew about the story Evan wanted to write. So Jake decided to write this book, which, unsurprisingly, became a huge hit. Jake is famous again. Only problem is, Jake started getting these messages from someone with the screen name, Talented Tom, accusing Jake of being a thief and threatening to expose him. In the meanwhile, a woman named Anna met Jake at a public appearance for his popular book, and started a very fast paced relationship with him. Anna is beautiful and intelligent, and a huge fan of Jake's book. Anna uprooted her whole life and moved in with Jake after only meeting him for a week. They eventually got married and Jake was happy about that, but he was too afraid to tell her about the internet threats he's been getting from Talented Tom. Spoiler Alert!!!

Anna was Talented Tom all along. The story Jake wrote was Anna's life story. Evan knew the story because Evan and Anna are siblings. Evan was always the parents' favorite and got away with everything, even when he was knocking girls up and doing drugs. Anna (named Diana at the time) was a hardworking, excellent, student, but sought attention and acceptance due to the family neglect. She found what she was looking for in her mother's boss, who convinced her he had a vasectomy. That turned out to be a lie when she became a teenage mom, her dreams of getting away from her dysfunctional family for college dashed when her parents forced her to keep the baby. She did her best raising the baby, Rose, even though she hated Rose on the inside because she never wanted that baby to begin with and she thinks the baby ruined her life. Everything came to a head when she found out Rose got accepted with a full scholarship to the far away Ohio State. Anna/Diana realized she looked so much like Rose, and devised a plan to kill Rose and take her place. (She had killed her parents with carbon monoxide poisoning by then.) She later found out her brother Evan was trying to write a book about it, so she drugged Evan to make sure he OD'ed. Later, she recognized the story from Jake's writing, pretended to fall in love with him, and killed him at the end. Before his death, she told him everything she did. She also typed up a suicide note on his phone so it would look like he died by suicide. She plans to publish the sequel to the book Jake's already written, and become a famous writer herself.

The book has some interesting chapters on Athens, Georgia (my hometown) and Clayton, Georgia, where I've visited many times. I was happy to come across those parts. The biggest downfall of this story is that the "plot" really doesn't come across as some crazy amazing storyline that would for sure be a huge hit. Although I guess that's not the point of the story. At the end of the day, this was a unique story that kept my interests to the end. I didn't want Jake to die, and I'm wondering where this is going to go in the sequel.