Book Smart Kate

Book: 🌟🌟🌟💫 Audiobook performance: 🌟🌟🌟🌟

by Jean Hanff Korelitz (2021)—This one had been on my TBR forever, and I was lucky enough to get an ALC of its sequel (literally called The Sequel). So I took it as a sign that it was time, and I am so glad!

Jacob Finch Bonner, once a promising young author, is now a washed up creative writing instructor in a third rate creative writing program. After publishing his first novel, he hasn’t had another great story. Then, he meets Evan Parker, the most arrogant student he’s ever had. Parker is so confident in the plot of the book he wants to write that he’s planning on it becoming a bestseller, launching him to fame and fortune. When Parker shares the plot with Jacob, he can’t disagree. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime bestseller. As Jacob’s downward career trajectory continues, he keeps waiting to hear news of the book, but then he learns that Parker died before he could write the book. And you shouldn’t let a good plot go to waste. A few short years later, it became an international bestseller authored by Jacob Finch Bonner. But as his fame grows, he begins to get disturbing threats that someone out there knows the truth. As Jacob scrambles to uncover who’s behind the threats, he learns that Parker’s plot was just the beginning of a far darker and more complex story.

This was a fun thriller, even if I was rooting for Jacob to be discovered and mentally screaming at him about who was after him for at least 100 pages. I did enjoy the narrative and the twists and turns along the way. There was one twist I didn’t see coming, which put a unique spin on the story that excited me to start The Sequel.

The Plot is narrated by Kirby Heyborne, who also narrated Gone Girl. He does a great job with many unlikable characters.