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Summary: Not What You Would Expect
Review: The cover of A Simple Plan has a quote from Stephen King - "The Most Suspensful Book of the Year". I would have to disagree, as so many others already have. A Simple Plan is fairly short on suspense, which is disappointing only because the reader is led to expect suspense because of the quote on the cover. This is unfortunate, because A Simple Plan is so much better than simply a "suspense novel". Alas, however, what first-time author would not want a praising quote from Stephen King on the cover of his book?A Simple Plan is the incredibly frightening journey that a simple middle class man and his pregnant wife take from being ordinary, hardworking, decent people to mind-numbingly greedy, cold, methodical murderers. It is the image of a people doing insane things, within the framework of complete sanity. How does an ordinary person commit acts of pure evil, and talk themselves into a good night's sleep? Perhaps the answer given in A Simple Plan is that by calling such acts "pure evil" we oversimplify to comfort ourselves. It feels so much safer a world when people who kill cold bloodedly can be labeled "pure evil" and therefore set apart from the rest of us. I cannot do justice to this book in a simple review. I will say that the characters are solid and well thought out. The relationship between the main character and his brother provides a very interesting and brutally honest sub-plot. I am exceedingly impressed with the author as a first-time novelist and will be keeping a sharp eye out for his next effort. I have seen a number of reveiwers asking about subsequent novels as well. I hope that the author has not gotten cold feet for a second novel under pressure of putting forth an even better work.
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Summary: this will become your fav. book!
Review: I don't review a fraction of the books I've read but this one had to be covered!! It is one of the best thrillers of all time... Talk about your plot twists,you won't be able to put it down once you have started. I am sure you can read the plot from the editors reviews so I'm not going into that I just wanted to tell anyone interested that they should read and love this book!!!
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Summary: MONEY IS INDEED THE ROOT OF ALL EVIL...
Review: This is, without a doubt, an amazing debut novel. It is a modern day morality tale, which sees people's lives change significantly, when they come upon a veritable treasure trove of money. The change is not necessarily for the better, as the reader will discover. The plot revolves around two, small town brothers, Hank and Jacob Mitchell, who, along with Jacob's friend, Lou, inadvertently come upon a downed plane that is buried in the snow, deep in the woods of a rural area. In that plane is a dead pilot, along with four million dollars in cold, hard cash. All three of them could sure use the money. The question is, what are they going to do about it? They come up with what they think is a simple plan. They will take the money and just wait and see, not spending it, until the coast seems clear. From the moment they make this decision, life is never the same for any of them. Hank, taking charge of the money for safekeeping, begins to undergo a change that is seemingly uncharacteristic of one who is outwardly so respectable, rational, and benign of countenance. As the issue of the money begins to divide the three accomplices, greed and betrayal bubble to the surface, to culminate in a series of chilling, cold blooded murders. Meanwhile, Hank, manipulated by his Ma Barker of a wife, Sarah, begins a personal downward spiral, succumbing to an evil so profound, that it will leave the reader open mouthed. What happens to them all makes for an amazingly powerful and riveting story of psychological suspense. Written in clean, spare prose, this well crafted novel is a riveting page turner that grips the reader from the inception, holding the reader in its thrall until its climactic conclusion. The ending serves to show the reader that what goes around, does, indeed, come around.
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Summary: Please Scott -- WRITE SOMETHING AGAIN!
Review: As I read this book I knew they's make a movie out of it, but also knew they could never capture the incredible writing of the author on film. They tried, but as expected the book outdid the movie by an order of magnitude. This is just an amazing read. Unfortunately, Scott Smith must have found a great job or gone to prison, because I can't find anything else he's written. I hope parole is soon, because I can't wait to read another of Smith's novels.
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Summary: An "Of Mice and Men" for the nineties
Review: Scott Smith's tale of ordinary peopple overcome with evils is outstanding. This book was the only book I've ever read a second time right after finishing it. The brothers resemble the main characters in "Of Mice and Men" and Smith takes you deep in their psyches. This book will have you grimacing over choices that are made and pulling for and rooting aginst the same characters at the same time. Simply a masterpiece!
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Summary: Not quite the gripping story I was lead to believe
Review: The cover of A Simple Plan states 'Simply the best suspense novel of the year' - Stephen King. Sorry, but I don't agree. A Simple Plan is, indeed, an excellent novel for a first-time author and it's certainly not a bad book, but it doesn't meet the standard to be called 'Simply the best suspense novel of the year' There are more deaths in this book than there are fish in the sea but the suspense fell away for most of the middle section of the story. Brief moments later on built some of it back again though generally I found it fairly flat.
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Summary: There are NO GOOD GUYS in this book.
Review: If you like books with a feel good ending, or a sense of justice for the bad guy, don't waste your time with this book. The main characters in this book are corrupted by greed right after the story starts. They commit crimes that are so horrendous that there will be no doubt in your mind that they will have to pay for them, but they never do, and they are never redeemed. I read this book with a sense of dread that what appeared to be predictable actually would be. And sure enough, it was.
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Summary: I couldn't finish it.
Review: I managed to make it about three quarters of the way through A Simple Plan before giving up in disgust. I was truly incapable of caring less about this collection of cliched, selfish small town dorks. Maybe I'll watch the movie when its on cable, for free. I don't intend to read anything else by this author.
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Summary: Matchless mix of crime and horror
Review: A simple man with a simple and happy life suddenly has the opportunity to reach for something more when he and his even more simple brother and his simpler brother's tirelessly greedy friend discover the snow-covered wreck of an airplane. When the three find the horribly crow-ravaged body at the controls of the wreck, their first impulse is to call the local police of their rural town. Then they find the flier's cargo, a duffle bag bursting with hundred dollar bills, and they realize a chance that will kill them unless taken. The narrator and his brother Jacob are safe after a youth of uncertainty - their parents were killed in a freak accident that left the two indebted orphans. While the narrator seems to have adjusted to his comfortable, if nondescript life, his brother is a scarred shell, a delayed boy in a sad sack's body. Then there's Sarah, the narrator's prgenant wife who soon becomes the brains of the operation. The crew works slowly and carefully, taking small actions meant to preserve the veil they've woven, only to compound the risk of their discovery. Every move to further hide themselves and their money leads to further complications, driving them to even more desperate measures until their plans have become too costly to reverse. By the end of the book, we've seen an incredible metamorphosis of the narrator, not into an evil man - he's always the same simple guy, only he's discovered in himslef an incredible reservoir of willingness to perpetrate evil to protect what the money he didn't even want. It's an evil not the product of greed but by the narrator's being too simple to say "no". Magically being able to reach Stephen King heights of horor without relying on the supernatural as a metaphor for very real inner demons, and with beautifully unpretentious prose, Scott Smith's first novel is perfect. He is never judgmental about his charachters, yet remains honest about them. Be forewarned, Smith wields irony over his rural charachters like a scythe. Comparisons to the film "Fargo" are inevitable, but you won't find any little funny guy here.
Rating: 
Summary: See the movie instead
Review: WHEN IT ALL STARTS OUT GOOD... The basic plot of this book is beautiful. Three men discover and incridible treasure out in the woods and have to decide how to respond. Small choices, beginning in the morally grey zone of simply waiting to make a dexision rather than reporting it immediately, lead to the necessity for choices of increasing moral complexity. Soon one small moral lapse leads to choices of malicious intent. AND THEN GOES FROM BAD TO WORSE... As the characters continue their downward moral spiral, the quality of the book goes with it. One dimentional characters never become rounder and in fact become less believable as they go from reactionary to premeditated, cold-blooded murder. I'D SEE THE MOVIE INSTEAD The basic premise of the book is convicting, as the reader is confronted with questions of what he or she would do in a similar situation, or what small choices we make in our own lives which set us on a path of destruction. It's a shame that the message gets lost when the book goes unbelievably over the edge, and now only psychopaths can relate to it. Skip the book and just watch the movie instead!!
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