I’ve gone back and forth a bit on whether or not this is a 3.5 or a 4 star book, mostly because I thought that the big gotcha moment was predictable from very early on in the book (although I didn’t think the author would go quite as far with it as she did.) I ended up at 4 stars because I did enjoy reading it overall, and I have respect for an author who will really go for it with her ending.
Jacob Finch Bonner – coasting on the limited acclaim of a one-and-done book he published in his twenties – is an adjunct professor at a third-rate school’s writing program, “teaching” adults with no promise how to improve their writing. Until one day, Evan Parker walks into his office with an idea for a book that he is writing that is a sure thing – he’s come up with a plot outline for a book like nothing the world has seen before and it’s going to make him wildly successful. However, when the book is never published and Jake can’t get the idea out of his head, he decides to write it himself. Unfortunately, he doesn’t know what he has set in motion until it’s too late.
The main story was a normal suspense novel. The characters were fine, if a bit cliché, the story line moved along (especially since the author was wiling to jump by months and even years between chapters), and the story pulled you through. If that was it, this would be a 3, maybe a 3.5-star book and life would go on.
However, what really impressed me about this book was that the author actually wrote most of a second book within the first one. The idea that she wrote entire chapters of a second mystery/thriller book within her main narrative was a really different idea, and it’s what kept me wanting to turn the pages. Truth be told, though, I did find myself being drawn to those chapters more than the ones from the main book, which probably made me judge the main story more harshly, but I found it to be a unique slant to what could have been just another thriller.
Thank you to Celadon Books and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. It has not influenced my opinion.