Thursday, November 20, 2014

Pronto by Elmore Leonard

Pronto
3 Stars
 
When 99.99999% of the entertainment value of your reviews is .gif based, things like this:

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tend to happen quite frequently and some reviews just flat out fall through the cracks of your pop-culture-infused brain. Thus was the case with Pronto. I’m always fighting the losing battle of correcting some of my literary shortcomings and reading authors who I know I want to read and should be reading, but somehow still haven’t (and yet somehow I always find time to read this year’s Twilight or 50 Shades - God, I suck). This Spring it was Elmore Leonard’s turn. I started with a guaranteed “like” in the form of Run Punch and then it came to my attention that there was a little book called Pronto at the library. Said book just happened to be inspiration for one of my husband’s favorite television shows, which he claimed was worthy of . . .

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Me, being the extremely clever lady I am, decided to give the book a gander, then surprise my husband with my vast knowledge of all things Raylan Givens and perhaps even enjoy the final season of Justified with him. And that would have been great . . . if I had liked Pronto a whole lot more.

The premise, although perhaps a bit stale and overused, was entertaining enough. Raylan is a U.S. Marshal who has been assigned to retrieve a runaway bookie before he gets whacked. You know, typical cat and mouse type of chaser with a broad thrown in for good measure in order to spice things up with the MC. Leonard even decided to throw in an Italian background to class things up a bit. My problem? From what I’ve seen from the Justified commercials, Raylan is all sorts of awesome . . .

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And he’s funny to boot . . .

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But in book form, he was a total a bit of an idiot. Luckily Leonard used a wide cast of characters that helped save the day and his writing was above-par, but all-in-all I was still left with a “meh” reaction to the book as a whole.

Oh and in case you’re wondering – I never bothered watching any of the television show with my husband – and he was A-Okaaaaaay with that idea. There’s a reason we’ve stayed married for a billion and a half years – I don’t poop on his parade when he’s watching shows like Sons of Anarchy or Justified or The League (but I totally call them his “stories” like he’s an old lady watching her soap operas to get a rise out of him) and he doesn’t poop on mine when I’m watching Bob’s Burgers and 30 Rock re-runs.

And now I’m only FIFTEEN reviews behind. Yay me! I deserve an internet break ; )

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