Monday, January 22, 2018

Tricky Twenty-Two by Janet Evanovich


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3.5 Stars

Obviously anyone who has already subjected themselves to TWENTY-ONE prior books in this series has a serious mental disorder . . . .



In my defense, I thought I was over my addiction. I mean, Evanovich is up to like 24 and I had stopped at 21 when NetGalley quit offering ARCs so that was good, right? But then the dang stinking library challenge had this series offered up as one of the options for a contemporary mystery and I could not resist Janet’s siren song.

If you want to have any chance of enjoying all eleven trillion Stephanie Plums stories, you have to constantly remind yourself of a couple things:

1. Even though these books have been going on for 20+ years, in Plum land it’s only been a couple;

2. Stephanie is DTF with either Morelli or Ranger depending on the book;

3. Stephanie has not DTR’d with either Morelli or Ranger so I don’t get put off by her “cheating”;

4. Lula is the best thing since Wonder Bread;

5. Despite Rex the hamster having a diet worse than Donald Trump’s, he is still alive;

6. Stephanie’s diet is worse than Rex’s and Trump’s combined, but apparently she has the metabolism of a hummingbird;

7. TastyKakes are a real thing and they are delicious. I do not have the metabolism of a hummingbird so I gain Stephanie’s weight for her . . . . .



Okay, so obviously these books are made for days when you’re feeling a little like this . . . .



They are pure brain candy and only take a couple of hours to read. They follow the same formula of Stephanie tries to get bad guy, Stephanie sucks at getting bad guy, Stephanie’s car (or multiple cars) gets totaled, Stephanie borrows Uncle Sandor’s giant Buick, Stephanie makes out with either Ranger or Morelli, Stephanie’s grandma makes a scene at a funeral home, Lula and/or Grandma shoot stuff with their giant handguns, Stephanie gets kidnapped, Ranger saves the day, they catch the bad guy, on to the next. At this point the same ol’ shtick had become a little tired – hence me not reading the last few. But somehow Twenty-Two was better than the other recent releases. Stephanie was a little more competent than usual, Grandma had found a new hobby . . . .



And some of the slapsticky humor actually had me laughing out loud. All in all this was a fun little spin with Stephanie and the gang . . . .



Book #3 in the Winter Reading Challenge

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