While my friend Aileen though this was too literary and pretentious for her, it was 100% in my wheelhouse–gimme ALL the literary pretention, that’s my jam through and through.
I thought this book was hilarious, maybe not in the laughing out loud type way but definitely in a “I was mentally chuckling throughout” sort of way. Jacob is every character trait I have ever despised boiled into one character and luckily you’re not supposed to like him!
Now when I say every character trait I am obviously joking. What I mean is that he’s all the stereotypes about self-important (male) writer types in one character who never becomes villain grating. He’s not competent enough to be worthy of villain status! It would just tear him up inside to know that, wouldn’t it? Makes me all sorts of gleeful hehehe.
I didn’t realize that the Plot was going to be actually revealed throughout the book. In the first section, it’s all talked about very parenthetically. It lets your imagination run utterly wild, trying to think of what sort of a plot could be so good that it would immediately draw you in such that you knew it would one day become an Oprah bestseller and a movie. My initial reaction was, it’d be better to have never known what the titular plot was. But after some further thought, I realize that while your brain is trying to concoct these stranger and more engaging plots you realize how difficult it is. That’s what makes the final story reveal that much more interesting–because it’s a truly shocking twist (to me, at least! I am not always very astute!) after you’ve been trying to think of what the twist could possibly be for x hundred pages.
