Review of A Simple Plan

Cover blurb:
It All Seemed So Simple...

Two brothers and their friend stumble upon the wreckage of a plane—the pilot is dead and his duffel bag contains four million dollars in cash. The men agree to hide, keep and share the fortune. But what started off as a simple plan slowly devolves into a gruesome nightmare none of them can control.

This book was sitting in my TBR pile for awhile. I had been hesitant to start after a neighbor I had loaned it to told me she couldn’t finish it. In an effort to get rid of some hardbacks taking up too much room, I pulled it out and decided to give it a try.


It caught my attention and held it though I did find myself getting frustrated with the characters at times. This is definitely one of those books that makes you think of what you would do if you were in similar circumstances. The author had me re-examining some of the scenes and how I would have handled them. That is definitely takes some talent to get a reader to speculate on situations. Though some of the scenes were predictable, I still couldn’t help thinking…”Oh you are so not handling this correctly, Hank.” or “That’s a really bad move.” I was even cringing a bit in some parts.

I did not care for pages 279 and 280. No dog/animal lover will like it.

By chapter 12 (page 305), I was really getting aggravated with Hank, the main character, and the author. I felt he was taking the whole scenario too far.

Overall, this was an okay read for me. It kept my attention and challenged me a bit mentally, maybe even morally because it seriously gets you to wondering what kind of person you would become and what lengths you would go to if faced with this position. I think Smith did a good job of getting across the roller coaster ride of emotions his characters experienced – elation, caution, paranoia, anxiety, self-doubt, guilt and justification. (Not necessarily in that order.) A definite struggle of right vs. wrong.

I was sitting at a good solid 3 stars for this book until chapter 12 and then it went to about 2.5 stars for me. Since I can’t do half stars on Goodreads, I’ll go ahead and give it the 3.