Jonathan Tropper is one of my favorite authors, ever since I read This is Where I Leave You last year (reviewed on this blog previously). I am a big fan of his easy writing style, sense of humor and sad-sack Jewish, male main characters.
Plan B fit into this mold. The story is about a group of college friends, our narrator being Ben, the Jewish sad-sack of this story. All of the friends have moved to NYC after college, except Jack, who has moved to LA and become a movie star. The other characters, Allison the lawyer, Lindsey the teacher-cum-world explorer, and Chuck the doctor. Ben is just getting a divorce from his wife, who was actually a rebound after breaking up with Lindsey, the love of his life. Lindsey is unemployed, Chuck is a man-child bent on sleeping with every woman who crosses his path and Allison is still in love with Jack, after 10 years.
Jack has now become the typical Hollywood party boy and is addicted to coke. The group hatches a plan to kidnap him and get him sober. There are many twists and turns to the harebrained scheme, and nothing works out as it's supposed to. But, as many things in Jonathan Tropper's world, everything works out in the end.
One of the main things I like about Tropper's work is his ability to make those pathetic characters seem like a person you know, not just a basket case. Plan B was not nearly as funny as This is Where I Leave You, but it does have humorous parts. I can tell that this is a much earlier work of Tropper's, as it lacks the sharpness of his later novel.
In all, I enjoyed living in this world as much as I did before, and again, I would not want to be a permanent resident, but only a visitor.
