Rating: 
Summary: Simply Deplorable
Review: I am compelled to write this review so as to break with the pact. I must disagree, wholeheartedly, with the other reviewers. I forced myself to finish this book only with the hopes that it would end the way it should...it didn't. The characters were shallow so the pages had to be filled with senseless and repeated violence. Unfortunately, the chain of events became so predicatable that the book should be renamed Simple Plot for Simple Minds. It is truly disturbing to think that someone actually thought this up, wrote it and got it published...then it was made into a movie. With all the truly marvelous books out there, spare yourself...go for the other book you thought might be good.
Rating: 
Summary: The best
Review: Un-put-downable in both senses. A riveting story from the first page, deep and interesting fully fleshed-out characters, combines swift pace with thoughtful moments, a clean, clear prose style that never gets in the way of the story -- what more could you ask? An author in control and at the very top of his game. A meditation on greed, morality and human relations that is so subtle it never gets in the way of a good story. Understands the amorality and self-justifications of small-town yuppies and small-town losers unlike anything else you will ever read. You cannot possibly dislike this book; buy it at once.
Rating:
Summary: a novel of suspense
Review: Hank Mitchel has lived in Delphia, a small town thirty miles east of Asheville, for many years. He and his pregnant wife Sarah were saving money to move away, taking a step up in the world. Hank and his bother Jacob swore to their parents before their death to visit their grave every year without fail, on his birthday. Hank and Jacob weren't comfortable around each other. They had difficulty finding thing to say. Hank was the first one to go to college in their family. Jacob dropped out of high school and lived alone in small apartment above the hardware store in Ashenville. He worked on a construction crew in the summer and survived off unemployement benefits through the winter. One day Jacob went to pick up Hank to go to the cemetery with his best friend Lou and his dog Mary Beth. On the way there, a fox crossed in front of the car, forcing them to brake. Mary Beth got out of the car and went after the fox. Jacob, Hank, and Lou went after Mary Beth. They found Mary Beth next to a plane that had crashed. They found four millon dollars and dead man inside the plane. They decided to keep the money and wait until the summer. Hank decided to hide the money in his house because he didn't think that Jacob and Lou wait until the summer. The story twists keep you turning the pages and not wanting to stop reading the book. The author writes strong description of the violence that happens. Everything that happens can happen to anyone. This book fulfills every expection of a novel of suspense.
Rating:
Summary: Awful!
Review: I read about 40 books a year and this is the first book in a decade that I simply put down unfinished. There are too many good books out there to waste my time reading this garbage. I am so amazed that such a great idea could be turned into such a poor end-product. The writing was surprisingly amateur-ish. This I could have tolerated if it weren't for an inane plot punctuated by the ignorant acts of supposedly "typical" people. I didn't buy any of it. Fortunately I had picked up a paperback copy at a used book store and therefore only threw away half my money! Go to the book store blindfolded and buy the first novel you touch. It most assuredly will be better than "A Simple Plan".
Rating:
Summary: Put your Masters in American Lit aside for just a minute
Review: This book is a wonderful example of pure storytelling and many of the reviews I have read about it are wonderful examples of over-analysis by those more literarily gifted than the rest of us. Give me a break, just because the guy (Scott Smith) went to Dartmouth doesn't mean you should judge his novel as a dissertation on ethics in modern America. This book is astounding for a first novel. To read it is to put yourself under the microscope. What would you do? How would you do it? How far would you go before you considered yourself over the line? If you allow these to be your lines of thought instead of how tightly paced the last third of the novel is, or whether or not the believability of a certain character's motivation holds up to what you think is a reasonable suspension of disbelief, you will more thoroughly enjoy it. If you are more fond of pondering the human condition than diagraming sentences you will find this book a fascinating adventure. Or if you are one who relives how thrilling the ride was rather than how long you waited in line, you will be glad you bought this book. Put your Masters Degree on the top shelf of the closet where it will invariably end up one day anyway, and put your most comfortable sweat suit on and dig in for a revealing adventure into who you are and how you might act if you were to find a particular plane on a particluar day in a particular orchard in the state of Ohio.
Rating: 
Summary: Story too predictable..
Review: Definitely not a book to run out and get. Save this one for a rainly week. The entire story and ending was predictable. It took me too long to read.
Rating:
Summary: where was his editor?
Review: I read this book when we first moved up here, because the young author was a recent Dartmouth grad and there were stories about him all over the place. Supposedly he had asked his parents for $10,000 and a year of room and board so that he could write the book. Then, upon completion, the movie rights alone sold for millions. I can't vouch for all of that. On first reading, I just thought that Smith had taken a decent thriller and lost control of it about three quarters of the way through. On a snowy New Year's Eve, two brothers & a friend find a plane wreck on a farm in Northern Ohio. Inside the plane they find a raven pecked corpse and a duffel bag containing $4.4 million. Hank Mitchell is married (to Sarah) with a child on the way and has a job as an accountant at a local feed store; he wants to notify the authorities. But his brother Jacob and Jacob's friend, Lou, are ne'er do wells who want to keep the money. Hank finally agrees but only on the condition that he hold the money, they not tell anyone about the plane, they not divvy the loot up until summer and then only if the coast looks clear and he will burn it if there is any sign of trouble. Predictably, complications arise. Surprisingly, noone comes to claim the money and noone finds the plane. But Jacob and Lou prove increasing unreliable--drinking, gambling and gabbing.... All of that just seemed a little much the first time around and I still think that Smith loses his grip on the reader in the final quarter of the book. But on second reading, more prepared for the excesses of the plot and willing to grant them a sort of internal logic, the themes of the story emerged for me and I really liked them. At it's core, this is a Puritan fable as filtered through the uniquely American lens of noir fiction; the fundamental lesson, that easy money is corrupting: Lou: All this money staring you right in the face. It's the American dream, and you just want to walk away from it. Hank: You work for the American dream, Lou. You don't steal it. Hank ignores this lesson at his own peril and like Cain (he even gets wounded on the forehead) ...but in the end he tells us: I feel--despite everything I've done that might make it seem otherwise--human, exactly like everyone else. Of course, he is eminently human, but he stands as a nearly biblical example of what happens when man places himself beyond moral constraints. The book is flawed. Smith, a first time author, was badly served, as are most writers today, by his editor. But it's, at least, a fun read and maybe an interesting one. It's well worth a try and the author bears watching. One hopes he is not a one trick pony. GRADE: C+
Rating: 
Summary: A Simple Answer
Review: No. Don't bother to read this book. See the movie instead; it's much better. As a published author myself, I usually tend to score books high in the "stars" department, just knowing what it takes to get into print. But I really struggled to give this book two stars. The reason I didn't give only one was that the story is basically good and had a lot of potential--which the movie producer recognized. The number one problem with the book, the one that just ruined it for me, was word bloat. This book could easily be 200 pages shorter without changing the tale. Redundancy, irrelevancy, and deliberate word-count padding had me totally frustrated and fighting the urge to give up on a book for the first time in my life. There was also enormously unbelievable out-of-character actions by the characters that had me shaking my head. And the ending was simply ridiculous. The movie completely changes the story's end--and rightly so. Readers who place more emphasis on plot than prose may accept this book (as indicated by the large number of positive reviews), but if you're the kind of person who hated those kids in school who got away with writing essays double-spaced with big letters simply to fill page requirements, you won't like Smith's writing. There's plenty of books out there with both good plot and prose. I'd say move on. --Christopher Bonn Jonnes, author of Wake Up Dead.
Rating: 
Summary: The Best Jim Thompson Book Since Jim Thompson
Review: Is there a human instinct more deplorable than greed? After reading A SIMPLE PLAN, you'd be hard pressed to argue. A SIMPLE PLAN is about ordinary people realizing that they can do extrordinary things. Extrordinarily BAD things. Brothers Hank and Jacob, along with drinking buddy Lou, stumble upon a stash of millions of dollars. They decide to wait to see if the money is being looked for, and while they wait, the depths that human beings can succumb to are slowly revealed. As in the best works of Jim Thompson, A SIMPLE PLAN follows normal people in deplorable circumstances. Author Scott Smith draws the noose around the characters' necks tighter and tighter, with each consectutive move drawing them in deeper. The great thing about Smith's plot is that it is logical. Each step leads from the previous one, with no deus ex machina used to save the characters from their own personal hell. They have no choice but to continue along the path they've chosen. Like THE TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE, A SIMPLE PLAN is a terrific treatise on the consequences of the basest of human emotions. It should be required reading for anyone who is interested in the human condition.
Rating:
Summary: A complex dilemma
Review: "A Simple Plan" starts with a question reminiscent of an ethics test or a parlor game: what would you do if you found a lot of money? The story provides one possible answer. Would we do the same thing as Hank Mitchell, the narrator? After stumbling upon $4.5 million while in the woods with his brother and the brother's friend, Hank concocts a "simple plan" which will enable the three of them to keep the money. If things go as planned, all the trio will have to do is wait a few months, telling no one in the meantime about the money. Of course, the plan falls apart, people end up dead, and the money becomes worthless. The premise of Smith's book rests upon the reader buying into the idea that he or she would do the same thing. But I don't buy it. From beginning to end, I found myself questioning every action of the characters. They all seemed so pointless, and the more mired the Mitchells became in this impossible situation, the less I sympathized. By the end, the Mitchells seemed not regular people trapped in an inevitable situation, but inhuman, selfish monsters. To Smith's credit, he sure can tell a story and keep those pages turning. The story was indeed engrossing, just not one I could believe.
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