I loved the premise of this book. I'd been putting off reading it for a while because of other obligations, but from the moment I read the first page (in line to get my COVID vaccine), I was hooked. Once the plot got going, I got so sucked in that I read pretty much through the night (or at least, stayed up until a very unreasonable hour) and snuck away from my own graduation gathering (over Zoom) to read more. It was engrossing.
But for a book that (within its own pages) promised an explosive, fantastic plot, the plot was pretty... guessable. And by that I mean I guessed the major plot twist about 30% of the way in. (And through a very informal, very small poll on my Instagram, it seems like most of my friends who read it guessed too.) The perennial problem of books-in-books is that they overpromise on what they can deliver. When Jacob promises you that his plot is the wildest, most unique, most un-guessable thing in the entire world, and you guess it 120 pages in... yeah, not looking so great. Perhaps it's because I read an article in The Atlantic about a (significantly less shocking) similar situation, or perhaps it's just because readers are not so limited as Korelitz/Jacob believes. The fact is that this is a solid thriller, but that's about it.
If it wasn't packaged as "a plot no one's ever thought of before," or even if it was and the book-inside-a-book's plotline hadn't been revealed to us, I probably would've given this four stars. But ultimately, the book doesn't go beyond what its title promises—it's a plot. The characters, while fleshed-out, do not pop off the page and are not especially memorable. While reading, I found myself flipping back and forth to remember the names of characters I'd met a few chapters earlier.
Still, the book-in-a-book premise does enable it go a step beyond what's typical of the genre, and I loved the little references to the politics of publishing houses and what it's like to be an author—things that I recognize from engaging with an online community of bookworms that are either authors or publishers, though I am neither myself. 3/5 stars
But for a book that (within its own pages) promised an explosive, fantastic plot, the plot was pretty... guessable. And by that I mean I guessed the major plot twist about 30% of the way in. (And through a very informal, very small poll on my Instagram, it seems like most of my friends who read it guessed too.) The perennial problem of books-in-books is that they overpromise on what they can deliver. When Jacob promises you that his plot is the wildest, most unique, most un-guessable thing in the entire world, and you guess it 120 pages in... yeah, not looking so great. Perhaps it's because I read an article in The Atlantic about a (significantly less shocking) similar situation, or perhaps it's just because readers are not so limited as Korelitz/Jacob believes. The fact is that this is a solid thriller, but that's about it.
If it wasn't packaged as "a plot no one's ever thought of before," or even if it was and the book-inside-a-book's plotline hadn't been revealed to us, I probably would've given this four stars. But ultimately, the book doesn't go beyond what its title promises—it's a plot. The characters, while fleshed-out, do not pop off the page and are not especially memorable. While reading, I found myself flipping back and forth to remember the names of characters I'd met a few chapters earlier.
Still, the book-in-a-book premise does enable it go a step beyond what's typical of the genre, and I loved the little references to the politics of publishing houses and what it's like to be an author—things that I recognize from engaging with an online community of bookworms that are either authors or publishers, though I am neither myself. 3/5 stars